Farewell Spring Break...

I am in a bit of denial that my Spring Break is over, real life has been hard to adjust to after waking up and falling asleep to the ocean every day for 6 days.  I could go back tomorrow!  I have decided listening to waves crash and smelling salty sea air is my happy place!  Hubby and I had a wonderful, relaxing vacay!  It was the perfect way to celebrate 10 amazing years together!

I spent a HUGE part of our trip HERE with my feet up, staring at the ocean outside my room, reading a book.  HEAVEN!  As a mom of 3 little kidlets and a full time teacher I don't have enough time in my life to just sit and read, I love love love having little kids but I have days when I am excited for that someday when they will be big and I will have time to just sit and read, no interruptions!

My other happy spots were:

I may be obsessed with watching the ocean, that happens when you have grown up in a land locked state.  So, now that the the trip is over... (insert sad sigh) I am freaking out that summer is right around the corner!  Eeek!  I have so much to do to get these kiddos ready for first grade!  But mark my words, they WILL be ready!

The next few weeks we are studying plants.  This week we planted our root garden and our grass seeds!

Won't those be adorable when their 'hair' (grass seed) begins growing!  I love them!

We have also started filling out our science journals, I love my cute little scientists!

After our plant unit we begin insects!  I am ordering our caterpillars on Thursday!  The kidlets FREAK out watching our caterpillars change and grow into butterflies.  I can hardly wait.

Oh I love teaching in the SPRING!

Dental Health

We spent last week talking about Dental Health!  I love this week with the kiddos.

The kids in white t-shirts are the teeth, the other two kiddos are the flossers (see the white string in their hands) It is such a great way to teach the kids how to floss!

We kicked it off with a visit from Dr. Cody and his team.  They do such a great job!
(He is my kiddos pediatric dentist)

 Later we completed a science experiment on how plaque reacts with sugar.  Hopefully the kidlets realized just how important it is to limit your sugary snacks.

(don't you love them in their cute science eyes, it is one of my favorite things!)

We wrote about how many teeth we have lost and made a GIGANTIC graph to hang in the hallway!

They kiddos came home with toothbrushes, floss, toothpaste, brushing charts and hopefully a renewed desire to take extra good care of their teeth.

Next week is all about weather!  I love this time of year, all my favorite units are in the second half of the year!  Spring break is the second week of March and then plants, insects, dinosaurs, and ocean/desert animals!  whew!  Kindergarten Graduation will be here before I know it!

Read Across America

Happy Read Across America Day!  We spent the day learning about Dr. Seuss!  

My Eyes, My Eyes!

My eyes are twitching, What?! Yep, my eyes are TWITCHING!  Apparently reading report cards to parents upside down in tiny fonts for 2 days, all day, has given me an eye twitch... ugh!

During one SEP my eyes just started to water, I looked like I was having a break down.  The confused father sitting across from me smiled kindly.  I reassured him that I was fine but my eyes were wigging out... I am not sure he believed me.  My eyes are twitching, in front of parents, at SEP (parent-teacher) conferences and I am certain they all think I am CRAZY.  The custodian asked me if I was feeling alright, it looked like I had been crying.  I wasn't.  People think I am having an emotional break down, which now I might because my eyes have gone CRAY-CRAY!  For the first two days of SEP week (our version of parent-teacher conferences) there is NO KINDERGARTEN (the rest of the week they come-but it is shortened schedule) so we can fit in all of those conferences for our 40+ kidlets.  The days are LOOONG.  I feel more exhausted just sitting there talking to parents than I do when I am teaching.  I have to talk too much.  I get nervous. Do parents make you nervous?  Even after 9 years of teaching parents make me nervous (I love them to pieces don't get me wrong and they are so very kind to me, they just make me nervous... anyone older than 5 seems to make me nervous).  I have to read report cards upside down for 6+ hours and my eyes twitch.  What the crappy-ness!  At least I have kidlets back tomorrow, days are better with kidlets. Tomorrow we have a pediatric dentist coming to talk to us about dental health and our principal, staff developer, and librarian are coming in to perform a skit titled: Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss.  It will be spectacular (they perform a new and exciting skit for us each year, written and directed by our lovely staff developer, who we lovingly call Kitty, even though her office is completely decorated in Snoopy, she is hilarious!).  I am giddy with anticipation, maybe that is why my eyes are twitching... the thought of our pending production has me spinning!

The hours of SEP conferences following such excitement will be better tomorrow, I guarantee it.  No eye twitching allowed!  Until then I am taking my twitchy eye and going to bed.  B.E.D.

So how was your day?

Oh and don't forget to enter my 100 follower giveaway, it ends SOON!

Giveaway & Facebook...

I love all my fabulous followers!

Hurry!  Just a few more days to enter my giveaway.  The wonderful Mrs. Leeby is joining me and giving away one of her Spring Units, believe me you WANT this prize. 

I am also giving away copies of my Center Signs. 

Cick HERE to enter!

And FYI, I finally broke down and added a facebook page!  

Click HERE to follow along.

100 Follower Giveaway!

I have FINALLY made it to 100 followers!  WHAT!  It seems like it has taken forever for this little blog to reach that monumental milestone!  In honor of this exciting moment I am having a GIVEAWAY!

5 lucky followers will get a copy of my Center Signs!

CENTER SIGNS!

What!?!  Yep!  One of my MOST requested items that people have seen on this little blog are those circle center signs hanging from my ceiling.  I made them, but I couldn't share them due to the fact that I had used Thistle Girl clipart and I did not have a commercial license... boo hoo!

Fast forward to today and I have completely re-made those center signs and used the clipart from someone you may know:

If you haven't checked out Ashley's stuff do it, NOW!  I adore her clipart!

So now that my center sign packs are new and fresh and using clipart that I can legally sell they are ready to giveaway to one lovely follower!  

I have put them into 2 packs

grades 1-5: This pack focuses mainly on literacy centers 

Prek-K: This pack has it all, everything from the above pack as well as science, math, blocks, puppets, you name it!

Each pack is ready for you to PRINT, post onto colored circles (I just use colored cardstock; that is how I sort my centers into groups: green=language arts, blue=other subjects, pink=play/discovery.  My teammate posted hers onto colored circles from CTP and they turned out SOOOO cute!).  However you post them I recommend making them double sided and laminating them!

You can see my current (with the Thistle Girl clipart) center sign at the top of this picture)

Also ONE lucky follower will get this AMAZING unit from the wonderful Mrs. Leeby

(click the image below to see this unit at her TpT store)

So without further ado... 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Belated President's Day...

...because LATE is better than NEVER!  I have been so busy finishing up report card assessments and getting all my  crap  important documentation together to re-license, which is costing an arm and a leg now, ughh!  I just NEVER got around to posting my President's Day FREEBIES I made for all of you! WHAT?!?!  Yep, you heard me right, FREEBIES!  As you all know I have a crush on our friend Harry, I use his songs ALL THE TIME!  So of course we watched this:

Then I created cut and paste activities for the kiddos to test what they learned from the video.
(Click on the image below to get your own copy from Google Docs)

We also discussed the various pets some of our past presidents have had... then the kidlets got to choose what pet they would have if they were President.

Here I am as President Sumens with my pet zebra on the white house lawn.

Do you want your own copy?

Click below:

We also talked about the parts of the flag, made a national symbols book, and learned You're a Grand Old Flag for our end of the year program.  Whew.  It has been a busy week.  With all of that and our report card testing, Treasures Unit, and fitting in MATH (I always teach money this week, it ties in NICELY with our study of presidents and symbols).

We watched this: (I know you are SHOCKED it is a Harry K video)

After the video we solved some riddles about coins and then played Kagan style with a quiz, quiz trade all about MONEY!  The kids had a BLAST learning about money today and hopefully we have those coins down because my daughter and I cannot seem to get this song out of our heads.... haha.

Oh and by the way, did you notice that I am almost to 100 followers?!  It seems like it has been a looooong time coming!  So I really want to plan a big giveaway... if you are interested in joining in leave me a comment below or send me an e-mail: mindysumens@gmail.com