Bloggy SoCal Get Together

OMG! Thank you so much to Hadar for putting this lunch together! I wish everyone could have come, but then we would have needed a bigger meeting place. heehee.  We met at the beach and the weather was very nice. People were actually laying out, getting suntans. OK, I didn't think it was THAT warm.

Anyway, I was sooo excited to meet everyone. I had sooo much fun. I'd met Fran at the ITeach K conference and couldn't wait to see her again. She made all of us these cute little gifts. Isn't she great!

I loved chatting with everyone, laughing, OMG, we laughed so much, listening to everyone's great stories. The one little disappointment (yes) was that it was too short. I didn't get a chance to talk with everyone.  Parking meters that were about to expire and other appointments interrupted our time. But I tried to get pictures with everyone that came. Madison left before I got my camera out. :(

Oops, sorry Kristin, didn't mean to get you coming out of the ladies room. The rest of the ladies:
Hadar, Annie, Kerri, Lindsay and her adorable baby Jack.

Mikaela, she doesn't have a blog yet but of course read about the get together and came so that she could meet everyone. She's a K teacher in Long Beach. (sorry that I am probably not spelling your name correctly) Gwyn, Fran, and Nancy. Nancy came all the way from Barstow with her kids. woohoo for her!!
These are the blogs of all the wonderful ladies that you see here. If you don't follow them yet, go check them out.
Kristin - A Teeny Tiny Teacher, Hadar - Miss Kindergarten Annie - The Moffatt Girls, Fran - Kindergarten Crayons, Kerri & Lindsay - Teacher bits & bobs, Madison - Life With Mrs. L, Gwyn - Preschool Printables, Nancy - The Apple Basket Teacher
I can't wait till we do this again.

Another Pinterest Inspired Post

One of my favorite parent gifts to make for Christmas was the hand print snowman ornaments. They are so cute but a lot of work. I haven't made those in years, ever since our class size went up to 32. Anyway, I've been cruising around Pinterest and saw the cutest thumbprint ornaments!

You can go here to Meet the Dubiens, to see the snowman, elf, penguin, and Santa.
If I had seen these in time, I might have tried to make them with my students. They are definitely do-able with 32 students. Instead I made them with my niece.  I found some small red ornaments from the previous Christmas, got some paint and this is what we came up with.  The Santa didn't come out that great but Rudolph was my favorite. I will definitely be making these next year!

An Award

Oh how exciting! Yesterday when I opened my email, I saw that 2 very sweet bloggers, Cindy and Holly,  nominated me for an award.  That made my day.

This award is for newbies, and it's goal is to spotlight up-and-coming blogs with less than 200 followers. If awarded, you must:

♥ copy and paste the award on your blog

♥ thank the giver and link back to them
Thank You for this award!

For The Love of Kindergarten
Joy of Kindergarten

♥ reveal YOUR top five picks and leave a comment letting them know

Through The Looking Glass
Having Fun From K-1
Kinderdi
kindergarten days
Mrs. Stamp's Kindergarten
 
♥ hope your followers will share the love with them :)
Please go and visit their blogs and join their sites!

Happy Veterans Day

Thanks to my dad and all the men and women who have served our country. It's so nice to have a day off from teaching but we need to remember all those who have sacrificed so that we can enjoy our freedom.

Pumpkins and Boo Mallows

One of my favorite pumpkin activities is sequencing the life cycle of a pumpkin.

We read the story Pumpkin Pumpkin by Jean Titherington, paint two 6 inch paper plates, glue jack-o-lantern faces on one side, cut out and sequence pictures of the cycle, string them up and put them inside our pumpkin.

Then we pull on the "stem" and we are ready to retell how to grow a pumpkin. I call it: From Seed to Jack-o-lantern. Unfortunately we didn't have time to do it this year but I wanted to share it with you, heehee. And since Thanksgiving is about the harvest, I figure I still have a few weeks left to make these, but without the jack-o-lantern face.

Here's what we did have time for: boo mallow graphing. I got the graph from Mrs. Huff's Kinder blog.

A very simple activity and of course the kids loved it. Thanks Mrs. Huff.

Pinterest Inspired

I haven't posted in such a long time!! So many changes at school this year, good and "different", lol! Also, a few challenging students make my days exhausting. My therapy is Pinterest. Have you signed up? You should, its great for finding great ideas, craft projects, teaching ideas, well just about everything. And when you're surfing the web and you come across something you want to save, you can just pin it to your virtual board.

Anyway, here's something I pinned and made to keep my students from constantly asking me, "is it time for lunch, is it time to go home?"

The clocks came from, where else? Target. Now I have to get ready to hear, "look, its time for recess, its time to go home!" Haha!

Top 10 Blog!

I was so excited to see I'd been nominated as a Top 10 blog by Ms. Patterson from Pocket Full of Kinders. Her sweet comments made my day! I haven't posted in quite awhile, but as soon as it calms down a little, I'll be sharing some pictures of my classroom and the activities we've been working on!