My Truth Monday-Calgon Take Me Away!

Two posts in one day say what? Haha this probably won't happen again for a very long time! This week's My Truth Monday is a great one for me since I love traveling. On the way home today from the gym, I was dreaming of a spring break getaway. My mind is stuck between another trip to San Francisco, or my first visit to NYC. 

My bucket list of vacation spots always seems to be a mile long. I love traveling and visiting new places. Whenever I travel I have only two requires I must do; visit a spa and find a cupcake bakery. The cupcake part really surprises everyone I just know it. 

Have a great Thanksgiving break teacher friends!

Grandparent's Day

The temperature has dropped too much for this southern girl! I'm thankful we had a good amount of grandparents come to our classroom today despite the cold. Grandparents visit classrooms for 90 minutes, and the time always flies.

I always like having a special area for visitors to sign in when visiting the classroom.

After morning announcements and introductions were made by grandparents, I read I Already Know I Love You by Billy Crystal. It's a sweet story filled with the hopes and dreams a grandparent has for his first grandchild. I love watching the faces of grandparents in the room light up as the story is read. This book would be a welcome addition to any classroom library.

After our read aloud grandparents became guest teachers. Each group worked on a Thanksgiving activity. All you need are grocery store ads, paper plates, and construction paper. Sadly I couldn't find a digital copy of where the poem comes from. My grade level has been using this since I started teaching. I'm sure you could easily create something similar for your class.

It's always amusing to see how different each poem turns out to be. Most students will start with sweet treats and soda lol. Just half of Tuesday to go and I'll officially be on Thanksgiving break, hooray! My warm bed and socks are calling my name!





Thanksgiving Placemats

November and December are two of my favorite teaching months, despite being a chaotic time. I love sharing and creating new classroom traditions with my minis. This week we worked on our Thanksgiving place mats; they always turn out to be adorable.
First, each student started with manila paper, crayons, and leaf die cuts. Any color you want could be used for the place mat. I personally like using manila paper since it's more neutral and seems less likely to clash with the leaves and pictures.

A huge thanks to my assistant who held the place mat up for me to get a decent picture. I kept getting weird shadows when I laid it flat on the table. I have a feeling I'm going to end up out on Black Friday in search of a digital camera...

Next, we headed outside to take pictures. Thankfully the weather was pleasant although a bit windy. It's currently FREEZING in North Texas. Look at those adorable faces! 

I uploaded the pictures to Walgreen's instead of using my printer. I only had to spend around $4.50 for all of the pictures. The minis then glued their pictures in the middle of the place mats and my amazing room mom had them all laminated and cut. 

Ta-da! A quick and easy Thanksgiving activity that costs next to nothing. My class will take these home next week after Grandparent's Day. 

Five for Friday

I promise y'all I'll get posts up on the right days! This week was full of lots of learning and unexpected treats! Here's my link up for this week's Five for Friday.

 The minis played Roll-A-Turkey this week in learning stations.

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I love observing what strategies minis use to play this game. You can grab a freebie for yourself thanks to Little Giraffes.

I got to take a limo ride to Chuck E. Cheese for lunch Friday! We had so much fun dancing and singing on the way. I'm glad I got to go and share the experience with two minis from my class.

Teachers enjoyed some downtime and pizza while students played games. I wonder how much running I"ll have to do to burn off the pizza? I don't think I want to know; ignorance is bliss in this situation!

Our classroom pencil sharpener died a couple of weeks ago, and I've had to sharpen pencils in a buddy teacher's room. We now have a nice, new pencil sharpener to use!

I'm not ashamed to admit I ooh'ed and ahh'ed when I took it out of the box Friday afternoon.

I was invited to attend the Rowlett Chamber Luncheon this past Wednesday. Unfortunately I didn't take pictures for fear I would look like a creeper with no manners, but I did snap a picture of my name tag! 

At the luncheon, I briefly met a fabulous lady who owns a cupcake bakery in town. Brendal's has all sorts of delicious cupcakes. She gave us a stack of free cupcake cards for staff at our school. Some people didn't want theirs so guess who they brought them to? Hooray I'm ready for a cheat days so I can go get my cupcakes! 

I'm thinking I need to invest in a camera for blogging instead of taking pics with my phone or iPad. Maybe I'll be a crazy Black Friday shopper this year and buy one. Keyword maybe. You know some of those Black Friday people go crazy! Happy Saturday everyone!

My Truth Monday...On Wednesday

I promise I know the days of the week! I've been so behind on blogging and feel horrible about it! I've enjoyed reading the responses for this week's edition of My Truth Monday, but had a challenge finding time to share.  Without further delay here's a quick blurb about a current celebrity crush.

The Biggest Loser is one of my favorite reality shows. I started watching just a few seasons ago, but I get inspired by the stories of contestants.

Seriously, look at that face! If Dolvett was my trainer, I'd be in the gym 24/7! 

The Not So Five for Friday Post

I originally began work on this post Friday as part of Five for Friday, but could never find the time during the weekend to complete it. I wanted to share some amazing work my minis did last week, but didn't feel right completing it now calling it Five for Friday on Sunday night. October was a CHAOTIC month!

I always have multiple pairs of shoes or socks in my teacher work area then get frustrated at home when I can't find what I want! I took some of my cupcake duct tape and wrapped them around the straps of my flip flops. I've only worn those flip flops after school once so I'm not sure why I'm hanging onto them so badly.

Moving on to the amazing mini work...

 Students brought in their decorated pumpkins for our grade level contest. I was impressed with the creativity I saw. 

We've spent time this week in math learning with model drawing. The minis have been doing a fantastic job! 

We spent a good amount of time doing model drawing in whole and small groups. I met with each student to discuss their math journals, then helped them create a video in Educreations. We love using Educreations in the classroom. It's an amazing iPad app and website with so many possibilities.