Happy Summer!

Yes, I am happy, happy, happy! Summertime is my favorite time of the year! In just 4 short days my behind will be sitting in a chair by the ocean & my feet in the sand! I will most certainly be reading a good book and hopefully not one that is too educational!
 
To celebrate my reunion with summer, here is a quick project for you...

In my classroom. we use community pencils so that only adults are using the electric pencil sharpener. Every student starts with 3 or 4 pencils...when one breaks they put it in the "need to be sharpened" cup & take a new pencil as needed. When the unsharpened cup is full, I just put them all in a Ziplock bag and send it to our parent volunteers to sharpen & return.  Now we can't have a dull, plain pencil cup & I am too cheap to purchase the cute $17 cups in a certain teacher magazine with" really good" stuff in it. Here is my quick solution for that!

Start with my favorite recyclable item...a cake frosting can. Yummy!

 

Peel the label off & use clear packaging tape to attach the label to the cup.

 

Yep, its that simple!

 

 

Print the labels by clicking the picture below.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



My cup runneth over!

 

I just need to say that I have had a lump in my throat and tears threatening to fall all day as I have gotten email after email letting me know that someone else has donated to my DonorsChoose.org project. It is amazing at how generous people really are and how quickly the donations add up when they are matched dollar for dollar. Don't tell my husband, but I even donated to my own project! Oh, he really doesn't mind...but he had no idea how much it would cost to be married to a teacher! 

The matching code TREAT will go through Friday so get over there quick to give and don't forget to print out your receipt if you need it for a tax deduction.

Now here is a summer freebie worksheet for CVC words...

 

 

I have a bargain for you!!!

Hi friends! Want to help a teacher friend out AND get something in return?  Several weeks ago, I submitted a grant on donorschoose.org to get an iPad for my classroom.  In honor of Teacher Appreciation Week, all donations given to my project between now and May 10th will be matched dollar for dollar if you enter the match code TREAT on the payment screen!

Now here is where the bribery comes in....

Anyone that donates a minimum of $10 to my project will get to choose up to $25 worth of products from my TPT store!  Just send me an email letting me know you donated and a list of the items you would like to receive from my store. I will send the items directly to you!

 

 

Here's my teacher page where you can donate:

http://www.donorschoose.org/we-teach/1488456

To have your donation matched dollar for dollar, be sure to enter the match code TREAT on the payment screen. This awesome match offer lasts through Friday, May 10.

My students and I greatly appreciate your support.

Kelly

Happy Teacher Appreciation Week!

Check out my Teacher's Notebook store for 20% off of everything May 4-10th!

 

 

 

While you are there, be sure to enter the Daily Giveaway!

 

 

We're Not Dragon, We are Flying into First Grade!

Take a look at these adorable dragonflies!  My assistant, Mrs. Lively found this idea somewhere on Pinterest and created this adorable bulletin board. The dragon flies are created using plastic spoons and the wings have been cut out of laminating film. Our laminator always puts out about a foot of excess film at the beginning of every laminating project so we save that extra laminating film for different projects throughout the year. The kids used sharpie markers to color the wings. They used a wing template under them that they could trace to make the black lines on the wings first. 

 

 

The caption says..

 

We're Not "Dragon",

We're Flying into First Grade!

 

...and all of the dragonflies are headed in the direction of our first grade classes!

 

Mrs. Lively is so good at creating bulletin boards... we think schools should hire her full time to do nothing but create adorable bulletin boards for teachers!

 

 

 

Buzzing into Spring!

The bumble bee day of our insect is always one of my favorites. After reading a nonfiction book about bees and getting our facts straight, I then read The Honeybee and the Robber by Eric Carle.  We review the beginning, middle, and end of the story and then the kids were able to draw their favorite part of the story.  Love the picture below of the "robber" trying to steal the bee's honey!

 

 

This next part is perfect for rainy day recess! Before the lesson, I hung die cut flowers around the classroom.  I played the Flight of the Bumble Bee and we then got opinions on why this is/is not a good title for this music selection and what instruments are being used to make the "buzzing" sounds. When I played the music again, my little bumble bees buzzed from flower to flower sipping the nectar and returning it to the hive.   

 

    Sipping nectar from a flower...                                    Bringing the nectar to the hive....

 

 

When I have done this activity in the past, I wrote bee facts (and some opinions) on small post it notes and attached them to the flowers. My little bees would then bring a fact back & stick it to the hive. At the end of the music we would read the bee facts and sort them as facts or opinions.  I didn't do that this time due to limited time since it was testing week :'(