So excited!!

I will be going to Vegas (my first time ever) with two of my favorite girlfriends and coworkers!!! We just purchased our tickets, so its a done deal!!! We will be attending the "I teach K!" conference to see our fav... Deanna Jump! 

We also are staying a few extra days for fun summery, adult activities! Such as pool, tasty beverages and vegas night life! I am so very excited & blessed! We are lucky to have a staff dev. fund that our principal is allowing us to use for our conference costs! 

Anyhoo-- Had to share that!! SO excited! :)

Autobiography Unit

We are finishing our Autuobiography mini-unit in writers workshop. The kids took home a "All About Me" sheet to fill out with the family for homework so that they would have all the information they needed for their autobiography.

We spend about a week and a half working on our content and table of contents. The reports turned out super cute!! The kids enjoyed them and I really did too-- you learn some fun facts about them. 

Finally we created our covered with a self portrait the kids made themselves. I think they turned out pretty adorable, if you ask me! :) 

You can find my Autobiography Unit on my teachers pay teachers store.

Hope you're having a fabulous week so far! =)

Garden Week 1

Well,  we have been super busy this past week with all things gardens! The kids are loving it and I am still in the process of finding time to finish this garden unit that I have in the works! The boy and I spent the majority of today working up at school with the garden. Let me tell ya, if you aren't a gardener, that is hard work! I was pooped and seriously considered jumping in the pool... since we are well on our way into summer here in Texas. I am hoping to have this unit posted mid week this week, but until then-- here is a sneak peek!

In no particular order:

We read the tiny seed and completed a little inferencing activity about what we think might happen after the story ended! The did really well!

 We learned the parts of a plant and discussed what each parts "job" is. We started this activity by watching a brain pop on plant parts. My kids LOVE brain pop-- i mean, they dance and everything! =)

 Lifecycle of a seed...  

We also have our lima beans in our baggies and are recording the seed progress daily. On Friday we are transplanting their little sprouts to a cup and they will work on a mini plant project at home.

 We read "From Seed To Plant" and afterward completed an anchor chart on our schema, misconceptions and new learning. Then we put this in our science journals.

 I got this off Deanna Jumps spring math questions unit on TPT. My kids are loving these and her think math idea. You can learn more about this unit here...

Well that is all I've got for now. Hopefully this week won't be as crazy and I will post sooner rather than later. Have a fabulous week!!! =)

Garden Unit

Let me start by sharing a fun fact about myself. I was blessed to find the love of my life, John, at my school. He is our school PE Coach. (so cute, right?!) Anyway, he is Mr. Green Thumb and loooooves to garden! He had been wanting to create a school garden at our school for a couple of years and last year we decided to combine forces! =) Kindergarten a big focus of our science curriculum is plants and their life cycle... so I thought, what better way to really understand this than a garden! We call it our "KinderGarden". Now last year, my kids LOVED it. They helped him mix our very own soil, plant seeds and transplants, the whole works... however, I feel we may have started it a little late and i've heard many people first harvest in a new garden isn't the best. We did not have the produce that I had hoped for but I feel the kids got so much more out of our plant unit that year than any other year I had taught on plants. 

This year will be year 2 in our little KinderGarden and I am so excited!! We get paid on Monday, (PTL!!), so we will be spending quite a bit of time in the garden this week after school and during class with our kiddos. I am working like a mad lady to finish up my little garden unit and thought I would give you a preview... well, it's the front page, but still! Be on the look out, I hope to have it done by Sunday! 

linky party!

I joined this great linky party, along with several other K-2 teachers. I am excited to check out all the fabulous blogs!! And hopefully I will round up another reader or two!

I am also working on updating some of my story problem activities I have used in my classroom the past few years. Our kinder team really focuses on story problems to prepare our kiddos for first grade, so we do a lot of different types of problem solving. Hopefully I will have that ready to share here within the next few days! :D

That's all I've got for now. You spring breakers enjoy whats left!! I can't believe it's coming to an end so soon!

Cute Logo

I made this but was unsuccessful in getting it to fit in the title space.. boo!

I got the font's above from...

Love this website & all their adorable fonts. So thankful for their generosity and creativity. =)

Non Fiction Writing

HAPPY SPRING BREAK!!! So excited for this much needed week off!!! :) Hope those who are on the same schedule as me enjoys their time off too.

A few weeks ago we finished our non fiction books about animals. I let the kids choose an animal they would like to write about, one that they "know"

a lot about. Now, this is the second year I have done this andthe first year I really put an emphasis on the research behind they books. This year I really wanted them to include different text features that we commonly find in a non fiction book. (table of contents, diagrams, captions, headings, etc) I think they did a great job! The books turned out super cute and the kids were so proud of their work and showed off their books at open house. Here is one of the books, one of my artsy kiddos.

You can download an updated template at my TpT store! :)

Thanks for reading!

Open House

We had our open house this past Tuesday. It's always such a stress preparing for the event, getting everything ready for the parents, cleaning, etc. However, once it's there and happens I absolutely love it!!! The kids are so excited to share their day with their parents and show them what they do through their day.

Here are a few pictures of my room from that night.

Aren't these things adorable!? I got them off of the wonderful Deanna Jump's blog/TpT site. You should definitely check her out! Our week and a half long Dr. Seuss unit always falls on open house week every year-- which works great for us in kindergarten, we just turn our hall to it's very own Seussville!

That's all I've got now, but will be posting photos from our non fiction books we spent a few weeks working on. They turned out adorable!! :)

teacher blogging

I finally decided it is time to actually post on this blog I began a few months ago. By began I mean... created. I am still not even too happy with the format just yet but I found some super cute templates off etsy I am going to narrow down and purchase, so stay tuned!

Anyway- I have always been an avid blog reader and a personal blogger... then pinterest came along and i became obsessed with all things teaching blog oriented! My co worker is as well and has been encouraging me to branch out and join the TPT/ blogging world so here I am... taking a crack at it!

This is my fifth year teaching Kindergarten, and I adore it. I will be honest- kindergarten wasn't my first choice when I was hunting for a teaching job. However, I was blessed to find my way to my current school/position/team. I love what I do, and going to work everyday and I consider that a HUGE blessing because not everyone can say that! I think kindergarten is great- the kids are at such a fun age, the academics are fun and I just don't know what I would do if I moved. (I am sure I will survive, but there would be tears shed!)

Anyway, well see how this goes--:)

Blessings.