101st Day of school Dalmatian style!

We celebrated 101 days of school again! Each year I love to add something new to the day!  This year I added a dog glyph and a graph the students loved doing. Also we put a dog house in the room and they got to do one learning center inside the dog house!  They were barking for more!! You can pick up our unit here! Your students will have a dog gone good time!

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/100-days-of-school-How-about101-Days-of-School-Dalmatian-or-PuppyUnit-719003 

Dressing up as Cruella gives the kids a special memory!

We sponge paint spots and paws on a white athirst, make dog ears, and a collar. Each student gets to pick their puppy name for the day. 

Our centers include: doggy Bingo,

A puppy craft, 1:1 correspondence( putting the right amount of spots on the puppy), uppercase and lowercase matching, a doggy glyph, a graphing sheet, and finally puppy tricks. As they complete each task they get to put a sticker on their puppy chart. I think it is good for the parents to have a visual to glimpse what we have been up to. I also have a Scooby snacks and puppy chow for a job well done!

Mother's Day Tea

One of our most treasured days is our Mother's Day Tea in K-4. This is a day when we want our wonderful moms to feel appreciated and loved. From our Manners Unit when our little gentleman "escort" our Moms to their seat, to each child introducing their moms to the group, and last but not least, our little ones Serving their Moms the whole morning. Our morning includes " I Love my Mommy because..., a special dance to a Wonderful World (the Dr. Jean version) and we conclude with the beautiful story I'll love you Forever... Our gift is a beautiful plate we make as a keep sake and a memory that will surely last a lifetime. Make sure and have plenty of tissues if you take on this event- the tears of happiness will be flowing!

Gingerbread!

Happy Friday!!  This week we chased the gingerbread man in our class!!  I know I say this all the time, but this is one of my favorite days!  I love to watch the kids face when the oven opens and the gingerbread is gone!!!
We begin, by reading a couple of different versions of the gingerbread man.  I personally love the Gingerbread baby by Jan Brett.  She is an amazing author!
We make the gingerbread man and put him in the oven.  We ask the moms to watch the oven while we go out to play.  When we come back, the gingerbread man smells soooo good.  We gather around the oven and when we open it, He is GONE!!!  And the adventure begins....We squeal and race all over campus looking for him.  We finally catch up to him in our reading buddies room!!  We then enjoy eating him...
BUT...I have to tell you all what happened next....We have writing workshop and I had my kids draw a picture of the gingerbread man and what part of the day they liked the best.  One of the kids looked at me and said, "What if my gingerbread man jumps off the page and runs away?"  Well, I could not let that go.  The next morning, I replaced plain paper for the ones they had all made. (they put things in their "mailbox" when they finish something).  I asked my most animated child to go and get her picture so we could show the librarian what we did.  WELL....when she pulled out a blank paper, she was FLOORED!!  It was precious!!!  I love this age and their sense of wonder!
Here are some fun pictures of our day...