Sunday, August 3, 2014

Back to School Sale!

CAN IT BE???
It seems impossible for it to almost be over already!  I hope you all had some time of refreshing your soul, laughing till you wet your pants, and quality time with your family and friends!  I know I did all these things... I find myself overwhelmed with love and gratefulness for summer time...
What better way to sing the blues than with a sale! TPT is throwing a sale and we have an additional 20% off our whole store. In addition you have a chance to win a FREE unit. Leave a comment on our FB page and you will be entered to win. 
Happy shopping!!  I know my cart is filled with some amazing items!!

Tuesday, July 8, 2014

The Move!

I guess you have heard by now I am moving to second grade.... This comes as "bitter sweet". Soooo excited to teach second grade, and yet sad to leave my pre-school buddies! However, it is time to move and of course Liz wants me to blog every step of the way.... So here goes!

I'm back!!!!! My old classroom across the street that is! 9 years ago when my very own babies were just 4 - I was in this same classroom teaching K4! My theme was Honey Bear Lane and it was filled with bees and bears! Many years later and several grade changes I find myself back in my old stomping ground... And loving every minute of it! 
So we ( my kids and I - I believe strongly in child labor! ) began the project of tearing down bulletin board paper, and cleaning and painting bookshelves! With the help of our fabulous maintenance crew the floors are now spotless, and the walls are a fresh, crisp white! It might be a tad bit on the smaller side... But it is already feeling like home and I am in Heaven! 
When I walked in 
These are the before and after painting pictures!!  
I will reveal my theme in my next blog. 






Restore my soul...

The Lord is my shepherd;
I shall not want. 
He makes me lie down in green pastures;
He leads me beside the still waters.
He restores my soul;
He leads me in the paths of righteousness 
For His name's sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley
Of the shadow of death,
I fear no evil,
For you are with me;
Your rod and staff they comfort me,
You prepare a table before me 
In the presence of my enemies;
You anoint my head with oil; 
My cup runs over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall
Follow me
All the days of my life;
And I will dwell in the house of the Lord
Forever.
So it is five o'clock in the morning and I am wide awake! And anyone who knows me, knows that is a problem! You see this girl can sleep any time, any where, morning, noon, and night... I love my sleep! But every so often I find  God gives me a stirring and for a few nights now it has been happening in my heart. So instead of paper to pen... I am on my I-pad (Liz is going to be so proud)! You see I am on vacation with my family in the Keys... Our family has a beautiful home on the water and has generously given it to us for the week. This is our 4th night here and I told our Uncle Tom we had only one small problem we may NEVER leave! And as I was laying in bed thinking about the past few days... I found myself so thankful and grateful for this time here... The words Rest, Rejuvenate, Restore, and Replenish all came to mind. I think as teachers we are equal to professional athletes in some ways... We give it our all... Like athletes who take the field we leave everything out there. Daily we go into our classrooms and whether it's K4 or High School we pour into these students everything we have for that season and when the year is over and the race is finished we are mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually exhausted! 
And that is just our professional life! Unlike every little one I've ever taught thinks... I actually do not live at school! Now mind you, I adore, love and cherish my role as a teacher. I think you have to... Or why on earth would you do it? I love that I can look at my life as a mom, wife, daughter, sister, friend, and teacher and know that without a doubt I am EXACTLY where God wants me to be... I find great peace and joy in that. 
However, my cup was empty on arriving in the Keys this year... And needed desperately to be filled... And as I began each morning looking out over the beautiful view of the still water my cup began to fill...As we snorkeled in the ocean seeing his amazing creatures....it filled a little more.... As sweet Key deer came up to us and ate apples from the palm of our hands...a little more.... As I watched my children laugh  and play Jenga and Apples to Apples without a care in the world...even more...As my hubby and I walked hand in hand...it filled.... And as I  sit here writing this with tears streaming down my face...my cup runneth over. 
Thank you for your peace that only You can give, thank you for your love that You give so abundantly, and thank you Jesus for the complete Restoration of my soul.
Forever yours,
Kim 




The view from my resting, rejuvenating, restoring, and replenishing spot. 

Monday, June 30, 2014

Time to reflect

Don't you love summer??  A time to slow down and do things you want. I love being able to keep up on housework and play an extra game with my kids. Most of all I love being able to have time to read!  I found this picture of my bestie and preschool pal giving a devotional in my class...such a precious moment. 
We give of ourselves all year to our students and their families!  We pour all we have into our little ones. I pray that each of you take time to reflect on what you are thankful for and those moments In the year that change you for the better. 
I am grateful for my friend Kim and all she has given to me as a friend, a mom, and as a professional. I thank my God upon every rememberance of her.  Kim has been given a wonderful opportunity to teach 2nd grade next year!  She is so excited and any who know her know she is one of the most amazing teachers ever! We will not change our name but can't wait to add some second grade goodies to our store!  
Have a wonderful week! 


Tuesday, June 24, 2014

Techie Tuesday

Did you know that walmart now takes Publix BOGOS. Well on this techie Tuesday I would like to share another favorite app of mine it's called Flipp and inside you will find any flyer that you need and you can take that to Walmart and show them the Publix flier!!  AMAZING!
Doesn't every girl love a deal?  Of course now that it's summer I can go to different stores to get the good deals instead of during the year when I do one stop shop. I have to be honest with you Walmart is not my favorite place to go but when the deals are this good it's too hard to resist!!  Happy shopping!  If any of you have a great app you would love to share please post a comment. 


Monday, June 23, 2014

New App we love!

Do you like the show Shark Tank as much as we do???  My newest favorite app was just featured on the show. Groovebook is an app that you can load 100 pictures from your phone and have them put in a book. I want to organize my room this summer with picture labels. 100 pictures for $2.99!  I love a great deal!!  Also, at the beginning of the year when you need tons of pictures of each child, this is a great deal!  Hope you all love it as much as I do. 


Thursday, June 19, 2014

Charleston or BUST!

Do you remember the game?..."On my way to Charleston, South Carolina for the Early Childhood Summit I brought my....2 Preschool Pals buddy, a dead battery 5 hours in, and my Starbucks gift cards !! 
Well...we finally made it to one of our new favorite places in life... Charleston! The conference has been Amazing and we are beyond excited about implementing all of our new wonderful ideas, and we've only been out of school for two weeks! From meeting Dr. Jean and learning EVEN MORE ideas and hearing her heart on the importance of oral language to Vanessa Levin who is getting us organized for the new year! We loved her "picture perfect" idea for showing the students how a center should look during clean up time! Sam Williams was another presenter who showed us numerous ways of how to use Math manipulatives appropriately in our classroom! One great example was to turn cookie sheets into 10 frames with magnets! Or how bout' converting shoe laces into a number line. 
The ideas are just pouring out as we talk about all of the new creative ways we are going to start our year... And we still have another day to go!! We will blog again soon! Happy Summer from 2 preschool pals... Liz and Kim





Monday, June 16, 2014

Fathers Day

For years I have wanted to bring my fathers in to my classroom for a Father's Day celebration and finally this year my team agreed. We came up with the theme Tie-riffic Dads!  This is the invitation:

We invited the dads and brought them altogether in one big room. We had a former NFL football player speak to all the fathers about what it means to be an amazing dad and to leave a legacy for their children. After that they were asked to go to the individual child's classroom for daddy and me time. The dad sat next to their kids to watch them sing a couple of songs for them. We sang: I am a promise, On Fathers Day and did a Daddy cheer!  The fathers  were invited to draw a daddy and me picture.  The dads were to draw their student and the student drew their Daddy. 

I had a bulletin board ready called artist gallery. They posted their pictures on the gallery wall and then went to get their breakfast together. This is the craft we did for the fathers to take home:
A nice touch would be to frame it for them. I had to keep the cost down so I mounted it on black paper. 

And I had each student make a picture of their daddy on a paper plate and then we added a tide to it it is amazing how many of the dads actually resembled themselves. The student also gave me one word to describe their fathers. 
We also had the students make a necklace with their dad's face on the front of it. 
I cut face into a circle and posted the words: the greatest gift I ever had was my daddy. Punched a hole and added yarn. 
The day was very simple but it was a wonderful addition to my classroom and made for a precious memory that will last a lifetime. 





Fathers Day

For years I have wanted to bring my fathers in to my classroom for a Father's Day celebration and finally this year my team agreed. We came up with the theme Tie-riffic Dads!  This is the invitation:

We invited the dads and brought them altogether in one big room. We had a former NFL football player speak to all the fathers about what it means to be an amazing dad and to leave a legacy for their children. After that they were asked to go to the individual child's classroom for daddy and me time. The dad sat next to their kids to watch them sing a couple of songs for them. We sang: I am a promise, On Fathers Day and did a Daddy cheer!  The fathers  were invited to draw a daddy and me picture.  The dads were to draw their student and the student drew their Daddy. 

I had a bulletin board ready called artist gallery. They posted their pictures on the gallery wall and then went to get their breakfast together. This is the craft we did for the fathers to take home:
A nice touch would be to frame it for them. I had to keep the cost down so I mounted it on black paper. 

And I had each student make a picture of their daddy on a paper plate and then we added a tide to it it is amazing how many of the dads actually resembled themselves. The student also gave me one word to describe their fathers. 
We also had the students make a necklace with their dad's face on the front of it. 
I cut face into a circle and posted the words: the greatest gift I ever had was my daddy. Punched a hole and added yarn. 
The day was very simple but it was a wonderful addition to my classroom and made for a precious memory that will last a lifetime. 





Happy Fathers Day


Now that father's Day is over I find myself reflecting on yesterday and all the amazing posts I saw on Facebook and women changing their profile pictures to reflect the love that they have for their daddy's.  What a great honor and testament it is to those fathers who have stayed to raise their kids and are amazing dad's amazing husband amazing grandfathers. I find that I love this day more and more each year as social media grows and becomes more explosive and I hope that the fathers feel truly loved and admired not only on this day but in the days and years to follow!!
HAPPY FATHERS DAY! 







Friday, February 28, 2014

Dinosaur days!


Saw this on a blog and had to try!  My students think the dinosaurs play while we are not in our room!
We have one more week of dinosaur Days in the classroom. I will post about the whole experience next week. 






Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Dinosaur Eggs

Today we started Dino days in K4!  We always start the unit by making our eggs. I use 2 parts water to 1 part flour. Mix in a big bowl. Put a small toy dinosaur into a balloon and blow up. Don't make the balloon too big. Use strips of newspaper over the balloon until the whole thing is covered. Once it is covered with newspaper I then cover with strips of white copy paper because when it's dry then we paint bright colors. 

Make sure the eggs are completely dry before painting!
Place in a basket with raffia or dry grass. Stay tuned for the hatching in 3 weeks!





Sunday, February 9, 2014

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!
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!