I'm still here!

This blog is way past due for an update!  I'm still here, I promise!  February has been a really really busy month.  We have had a lot of testing, a lot of change, and is it just me or does every.single.unit seem to fit into February?

Since my last post, here's a brief overview of what's been going on.

My family and I went to Myrtle Beach for the weekend!

This came in the mail:

I made these for my sweet kinders for Valentine's Day:

We had Valentine's Stations with Parents on Valentine's Day:

Decorating Cookies

Hand Painting Activity

Tissue Paper Heart Flowers

Making Cards for Their Parents (Note to self - Glitter Glue = WORST IDEA EVER...I will go back to regular glitter and glue next year :)

We have learned about Maps, Valentine's Day, President's, Black History, Measurement, Numbers to 20, and Counting to 100.  We will be learning about Dental Health and 3D Shapes this week.   Many of our Kinders still need practice on counting to 100 so if you are a parent reading this, please take a moment to practice with your child!

We have a 1/2 Day Thursday and Teacher Workday Friday so I think this should be a busy crazy week.  I hope everyone has a great one!

100th Day Hooray!

Today was the 100th day!  This may mean absolutely nothing to you, but in Kindergarten, it's kind of a big deal.  Not only was today 100th day, it was also awards day.  In a word, today was CRAZY.  I had all these grand plans and visions of how today was going to go, but in order to be a teacher you have to be flexible.  People, we did math ALL.MORNING.LONG!  It was the subject that never ended!  We MISSED recess because math took SOOOOOO LONG!  Who misses recess for math? Yeah, we did.  We went after lunch so don't freak out yet.  Let me tell you what we did for math today.  We had math groups as usual.  In my group my sweet children were going to paint with Q-Tips and paint 100 dots.  In Miss Zripko's group, they were making a cute hat with 100 stickers.  In Ms. Edwards group, they were making a necklace with 100 fruit loops.  This sounds easy, right?  I figured 15 minutes per group and we're golden.  Math over in 45 minutes, wham bam.  Umm no.  The painting took around 3 seconds.  The hat? About 12 years.  The necklace?? Around 18 years.   In case you aren't good at math, these times did not make my math groups flow perfectly or even close to it. I decided to make Hiaku (a snack where you get 10 of 10 different foods) when mine finished painting.  Remember how I said it was awards day?  Paint + awards day = whoops! Sorry parents!  I also ended up playing some addition apps in the mean time - who doesn't love the iPad?  Here are some pictures of the fiasco known as math.

 Painting 100 dots!

100 fruit loop necklaces!

Making the 100 day hat.  Check out my cuties :) 

Making the 100 day snack Hiaku.  (Pretzels, Goldfish, Teddy Grahams, Popcorn, White Chocolate Chips, Milk Chocolate Chips, M&Ms, Marshmallows, Cheerios & Fruit Loops) Thanks to my wonderful parents for donating all the yummies!

Even though these activities took FOREVER, the kids LOVED them! :) They were engaged the entire time and if they don't know by now that 10 tens makes 100, I clearly did not do my job :) I would absolutely do these activities again because we had sooo much fun! :)

Last but not least, after our cray-cray morning, we had lunch, went to recess and went to our assembly.  Here are the 2nd 9 weeks Teriffic Kids.  Not the best picture, but hey, try getting a picture of 9 kids at one time...impossible!  Thanks to Miss Zripko for trying! :) 

All of these 100 day activities came from my free 100th Day Pack on TpT, if you would like to do any of them, stop by and scoop it up!

Teddy Bears and a sale! :)

I'm pretty sure you thought I fell off the face of the earth.  I didn't!  We have been super busy and I just haven't had the time to tell you about what's been going on in room 201.  We just finished our Read 3D benchmarking and while our scores were NOT what I expected, my students have grown so much this year!!  Miss Zripko started with us full time for her Senior 2 internship and we are so happy to have her help!  She has worked on jazzing up calendar and reading comprehension with some great stories.  Miss Z (my sweet intern from last year) has been working with us on Reader's Theater and is teaching the students all about having their own parts in a story.  Not only are they learning to read, but they are building their confidence as well.  We sadly had to say goodbye to Mrs. Domer on Friday, but we hope she can come back soon and Mrs. Edwards will be starting back with us for 1/2 days starting tomorrow.  Lots of stuff going on!

I have been pushing stretch spelling with journal writing since we got back from Christmas and the students are doing soo good!  Reading journals has become one of my favorite parts of the day.  This week, I have read a lot of journals that said "I love Mrs. Payton.  She is pretty." Of course it wasn't perfect, but I could read it and I LOVEEEE it!  You better believe they got to move their clips up!  I'll have to take a picture of one and post it.

Last week we talked all about bears! We previously had talked about Polar Bears, so we compared the two.  On Thursday, when I got to school, I saw this and knew it was going to be a great day.

A double rainbow, really??

We had a super fun day with our Teddy Bears.  The students brought their teddy bears to school and we wrote about what would happen if they came to life.

 

 

Smores, swings, riding horses, video games, tea parties, hide and go seek...I think I'll take the life of the teddy bear:)

They really enjoyed having their bears at school and their writing was super cute.

So to make up for my absence, how about a freebie?  We are celebrating the 100th day Tuesday!  EXCITED!!!  We will be making a snack, hats, badges, necklaces, painting and who knows what else.  I know we are going to have a super fun day! :) Here is a little pack I whipped up to get us through our day.  Swing by and grab it for free.

Did you know today TN and TpT were having SUPER Sunday Sales??  My TN store is 25% off and my TpT store is 20% off.  Use the code SUPER at checkout and get an extra 10% off.

I was so excited I stocked up last night and purchased lots of clip art about 1:30am this morning! :) You may be interested in my most recent packs, Bear Fun and Valentine Fun.

Well that's all for now, time to put my new clip art to good use and start a new pack.  Hope everyone has a Super Sunday and enjoys the Superbowl! :)