Reindeer Rounding

It's Sunday night after a five day vacation and I gotta be honest. I'm more than a little depressed! Don't get me wrong. I love my job, my class, my co-workers/friends. But this five day break just wasn't long enough. Boo Hoo Hoo!! Anybody with me? On top of that I've got a bugger of a cold winding up. Blah!

Sunday nights are the worst, except during the summer. Then I luv 'em! It helps now that I've taught my 12 and 14 year old daughters how to do their own laundry. Don't miss those "Mom, I neeeeeeed these pants washed for school tomorrow!!" right before bed time! Now if I could just the hubs trained....

So in math this week I'm doing rounding to the nearest ten. Fun! This is so hard for some of my kiddos. I found a rounding chant way back and I don't know who the author is. If you do please let me know. Anyway, I made this cute little game for my friends to use for practice. Hope you can use it. If you do, please leave me a comment! Click here to go to my Teacher Notebook store to download. Everything is on sale today for Cyber Monday!

Click {here} for a freebie of the rounding chant.

Thankful However...

I laughed SO hard after reading Jennifer's post over at First Grade Blue Skies on what she is not thankful for! Yes, you read that right. NOT thankful. That girl is funny and I wanted to link up to her party right then and there, but I had just posted and somewhere I read it is against blog etiquette to post twice in one day. (Okay. I try to follow the rules sometimes!)

So here is what I am not thankful for (today).

1. Snot and boogers. (Is that two or one?) Specifically snot strings, snot bubbles, snot plugs in the nostrils and boogers dried on anything especially my clothes. Yeah, what profession do you know where you find dried boogers on your clothes as you undress after a long hard day? Nobody tells you that in college!

2. Ice. Nothing wrong with ice in a glass or ice sculptures or ice on a day when I can stay home and admire it from my window. My problem is ice on the playground that makes kids slip or tempts them to slide on it. Ice in the parking lot as I attempt to walk into school (Okay, run. I'm late again.) Playground ice that is so bad that recess has to be inside even though it is beautiful out in all other ways. Ice belongs in a peach bellini, that's all I'm saying.

3. Professional development days. Mind you, not the good ones...although...are there good ones?? Anytime someone has K-12 teachers together for one topic of discussion it most likely is going to f.a.i.l.  Insurance and budget talk PD days definitely make the line between life and death hell blurry!

4. Beans. What idiot in the federal lunch program thought giving a school full of kids beans for lunch was a great idea?  (I'm not talking nutrition people.)  Do the bean farmers that provide for the program just sit back and laugh their heads asses off? 

Wow, I can't think of a fifth thing! However, number one could be considered two things especially from a scientific view point...liquids and solids.  I must be on vacation or I am pretty sure I'd have a hard time limiting it to five! ;)  Thanks Jennifer, for putting together this fun linky party!

Well, there you have it. The four things I am unthankful (if that's a word) for today. I hope nobody got so grossed out that they had to click away from my post. Although if they did they probably don't teach at the primary level.

Before you go, check out this adorable treat one of the Kinders in our school brought yesterday. It is one of those jumbo marshmallows. Too stinkin' cute!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Vacation Ramblings

Ahhhh, I've got my sweats and fuzzy socks on. The couch is cradling me and the dogs are snuggling up to me. I've officially begun my five day Thanksgiving vacation. WOO HOO!

Today and yesterday weren't extremely productive days with all the kids who take the whole week off for family trips or are sick from the recent stomach flu outbreak. Don't you just love the ones that take off on those short weeks...especially when the parents want to take school work with just to keep the kids busy. Uh!

So we did some "fun" work like the fraction turkeys Becky over at Dots-n-Spots created. We played Odd and Even Turkey Trot from Denise over at Sunny Days in Second Grade and I was planning on playing her Turkey Scoot Game and doing the awesome Odd Thankful writing activity too, but some interruptions (unscheduled assembly, kids getting sick in class, and incredibly unfocused kids) kept us from getting to everything on my list. Well, that's part of the joy of being a primary teacher, correct?

Now, forgive me, I know it's almost the end of November, but I finally have pictures of a few of the activities we did in October. And I am a firm believer in "better late than never" so here goes.

I taught a "how to draw an owl" lesson from Art Projects for Kids which we did on black construction paper after practicing on scrap paper first. Then I went over the drawing lines after school with white liquid Elmer's glue. The next day the kids used chalk pastels to color their artwork. In spite of all the smudging, I think they turned out great and each is unique. To set the chalk I sprayed each with a light coating of hair spray. (FYI we've been told we aren't supposed to do art since we have an art specialist once a week, but let's just say her stuff leaves a little to be desired. Guess who walks in while the kids are working on these? The PRINCIPAL. She immediately asks one of my little innocents "What are you doing?" The innocent says with glee "ART!" Uh-oh!)

We wrote some facts about spiders using Reagan's (Turnstall's Teaching Tidbits) spider writing idea. Learning about spiders when you have a tarantula for a class pet is essential! And even though spiders truly creep me out, they ARE fascinating and amazing creatures. The kids are always surprised to find out that I don't really like spiders. (Okay, I'm a wee bit scared of them!) But hey, Kiwi (our pet) doesn't crawl around the room. If she happened to get out . . . STOMP . . . STOMP . . . and the shoe(s) would go in the trash . . . that's all I'm saying!

Then we made the adorable silly spiders from Kacey over at Doodle Bugs Teaching. But we bumped it up a notch (since we aren't supposed to do art because we have an art specialist once a week...remember) and used our spiders to practice different ways to write numbers. On the spider's nose each child wrote their number in standard form. The body had a portion of the hundreds chart (think tic-tac-toe grid) with the child's number in the center and the numbers one less, one more, ten less, and ten more written around it. Each leg had a different form of the number such as tally marks, expanded notation, symbolic form (using base ten blocks), comparisons using greater than and less than (two separate legs), odd or even, word form, and money. The kids LOVED it! I gave my little friends the choice of choosing an easier or a harder number. Then knowing their abilities, I gave them the number I wanted. But they didn't know that! ;)

Well, enough ramblings for tonight. I need to go check out everyone else's blogs and catch up on Pinterest! Happy vacation to all!

Rules for Survival

Originally I made this sign for my daughters after seeing it somewhere on the internet. Then this weekend, while going through some files, I decided to print it out for my kiddos at school, too. After seeing it, a few of the other teachers asked me to make them a copy for them to use with their own children (ah, teenagers, gotta love em!) and that got me thinking that maybe some of you might like a copy as well. So if you can use it, enjoy! I can't find the original source. Let me know if you know who to give credit to, please! Click on the picture to download.

I'm Thankful

I saw Rachelle's (of What the Teacher Wants) "I'm Thankful" linky party and had to join in the fun.  I have so much to be thankful for...friends, family, and more, that it is hard to choose just a few things.  


1.  What are you thankful for in your classroom?
I am thankful for my Promethean board and the delightful kiddos I have this year in class.


2. What person are you most thankful for?
I am most thankful for my husband.  He has always been my strongest supporter, best friend, and hero.  He makes me laugh and helps me keep things in perspective.  He is a great father and the best husband a woman could ask for.  Since I was diagnosed with lupus over the summer, he has taken on responsibilities that most husbands would probably cringe at.

3. What 3 blogs are you most thankful for?
I thankful for The Teeny Tiny Teacher because she cracks me up!  She could make a professional development day fun!

I am thankful for Ladybug's Teacher Files because her tutorials have really helped me in setting up my blog.  She also has great freebies and ideas!

I am thankful for Lory's Page because she has awesome and fun ways to incorporate math into anything and everything!  I get depressed when she doesn't post for a while. 

 

4. What guilty pleasure are you most thankful for?

I am thankful for my once-a-month facial.  My hairdresser pampers me for an hour and I leave feeling fresh and relaxed.  It's a win-win for everyone who knows me! :)

5. What are you most thankful for?

I am most thankful for my faith.  I am lucky to have a family, friends, and a job that support and nurture my faith on a daily basis.  I am truly blessed!