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!

Ready for Project Runway

...as long as the challenge is an apron...and they give me a pattern! Do you love Project Runway?? I have been watching PR marathons all summer. I am so fascinated with their skills and how they can whip up beautiful clothes (and yes, weird stuff too) in such a short amount of time. I had to have a pattern just to make this apron! heehee!

Pocket aprons are soooo handy to keep all your markers and post-its and erasers and stuff right where you can find it. I usually use the canvas type aprons that you can decorate. But I have been bitten by the sewing bug after watching PR and then I was inspired to sew my own apron after seeing Angela's creations over at Just Love Teaching and Stephanie's at Mrs. Wyatts Teaching Tales .
Now onto my next sewing project: mug buckets or how to make all those teacher mugs we get a little more useful!
BTW, Angela has an Etsy shop where she sells her aprons and right now she is having a giveaway for an apron. Just click on the link above to her blog.

Feeling Crafty!

I love those little spacemen from Really Good Stuff. They're so cute and they would be perfect for my students who every year have problems with spacing no matter how much I nag! But I didn't want to spend any more $$$$$! Target and Dollar Tree have taken most of it. So I decided to make them myself. Some clothespins, a little bit of paint, some markers for detailing and VOILA!

Spacemen! They were easy and fun to make. Now hopefully this will do the trick with my students and I can quit pulling out my hair.

Pinterest Linky Party

I now have a new obsession and its called Pinterest! I hardly have time for blogstalking! heehee! Its another way to get great classroom ideas and whatever else you're interested in. Follow me and then head on over to Michelle's Math in the Middle. She's having a Pinterest linky party and you can meet some other....uh, Pinners? And some new blogs while you're at it.