Teachers need a break too! {Fun linky party}

I just linked up with Regan at Tunstall's Teaching Tidbits:

P- Product:  I just recently started blogging and creating things...
I don't think it should take me so long to make one center....I don't know how you all do it so quickly! Seriously, I don't have any kids yet, and my husband is usually busy studying for his doctorate...but I feel like I don't have enough time to whip something out! Maybe one day (hopefully soon!) I'll get faster!

 Of the things I have created so far, I must say that my favorite one is my "Number Surgery" math center {idea came from Regan's Word Doctor center} my kids LOVED it! I have it posted as a FREEBIE. If you'd like to check it out click the picture below to go to the original post and grab your own copy!

A- Area  My favorite classroom area has to be my math meeting/group area. I forgot to take a picture for you! I'll try to add one next week.  

 My school is a Christian school, so each morning we start out our day on the rug reciting the pledge of allegiance and a prayer followed with a bible story. This is actually my kids FAVORITE time of the day! They LOVE listening to the stories and learning how we can apply them to our own lives. 

Following our devotional we have math meeting (calendar time) here as well. We also use the rug as part of our math center time and other group meetings throughout the rest of the day.

S- Signal  I have quite a few signals to get my kids attention, I like to switch things up:

-My number one go-to is my train whistle. It can be as loud or as soft as I need it to be, and I've taught my kids that whenever they hear it they have to freeze and look at me. It works great! Every now and then some of my kids forget to freeze, so we "practice" a few times to remind them what to do.  

-Along the same lines as my whistle, if I ever say "FREEZE!" then they get to freeze any way they want to (the more silly the better) and look at me. 

-This next one is from whole brain teaching. I say "Class Class" and they must respond with "Yes Yes." The fun part is that you can switch it up...however you say "class" is how they say "yes" back to you. You could sing it, clap it, rap it, etc. 
 

-The last one I'll share is something I started recently with them, and they LOVE it! I can't remember where I first saw the idea, and I usually use it right before we leave our classroom to walk down the hallway. I say/sing "Hands and Eyes" they respond by saying it three times "hands and eyes, hands and eyes, hands and eyes." By the third time their hands should be folded (or at least still) and their eyes should be looking in front of them (or at me). It works like a charm every time! I'll occasionally use it during our group meeting or other times during the day to get their attention as well.

S- Sanity  I love saying good morning to my kids when they first get in the classroom. I can always determine what kind of a day we will have based on their mood when they walk into the classroom. 

I also like when we play outside. They get to ride bikes, swing, slide, & run around and get all their bottled up energy out! 

I don't know how my days are so filled up and busy, but I also look forward to my 10-15 minute lunch every day! I have to run to the bathroom & get things ready for my kids to come back all while attempting to eat my lunch in the process. Some days are pretty crazy!
 
I also must add that every Friday one of my little boys will always give me a huge hug and kiss on the cheek because he won't see me for "a lot of days!" I love it. 

You should link up! Here are the rules:

Click on the "Hall Pass" above to check out who else has linked up!

Rewind to last week

This past week was pretty crazy! 

First off....I cannot believe it’s the middle of February!! 

Time is flying by too fast!

Last week we celebrated Valentines Day & Chinese New Year, then my husband and I went out of town for the weekend to meet up with my family for a fun little vacation. 

THEN progress reports were sent out today, which I had done a long time ago stayed up last night grading math assessments, homework packets & filling out said progress reports (and might have finished them at school today) to have them ready to send home.

Do you have to send home progress reports?

Alright....

I would like to go back in time to last week and share with you all how our week went!

A lot of my girls showed up on Valentines Day with their hair in ♥ shaped. A-DOR-A-BLE!

 We didn't have our party until after lunch and they were so antsy and excited!

 (I have to insert here that I absolutely LOVE being a teacher...everyday...but especially on holidays! It's never just another average day....their excitement can't help but make me smile and thoroughly enjoy spending the day with them.)

We made a Valentine card for their mom's & dad's by using a pencil eraser as a stamp. If you'd like the printable, click here.

I was amazed with some of the Valentine boxes that were decorated and brought to school! Did your kids have some fancy ones!?

We made a "Bee Mine" craft and they turned out so good! I was lucky to have 3 parent volunteers to help us make these.

And to top off my day, my classroom phone rang shortly after lunch...I was told to send a couple of my kids to the front desk, they had something I would want:

 

 How cute is that!? My husband has never sent me flowers at work (we've only been married 2 1/2 years) and I always wondered what I would do if I got that surprise. 

I assumed my face would turn red (it turns red so easily!) and I was totally right. My face went red! Haha. 

They actually arrived in a box that was very difficult to open. When I finally got it open, all my kids could see was the bubble wrap surrounding them. 

 They flipped out saying "Those are my favorite things ever!" and started to swarm me like bees on pollen! I had to grab the flowers and attempt to hold my kids back!

When they calmed down (after I promised to let every single one of them pop some bubbles) I read the card aloud to them. Some of my girls put their hands on their heart, or face, and said "awww!" 

Can you be a hopeless romantic at the age of 5!? Hahaha. 

I tried to not bust out laughing. 

I was able to get those babies in some water and they hung out on my desk the rest of the day. It was great!

All last week we also celebrated Chinese New Year! 

We learned about red good luck envelopes and they got to put one together and decorate it. (I forgot to take pictures!) We also learned how to make Chinese lanterns that they were thrilled to take home & a dragon/snake chain!

 All in all it was a crazy busy fun week!

Also, just a couple pictures from our weekend trip. My husband and dad were able to go on a 3 hour bike ride while us girls went shopping! (I love buying new clothes!)  Sunday we went for a fun drive and went past a beautiful lake {more like a very large pond}, and we ended our trip with a family ping pong tournament! We had to play a game against each person to determine the "seeding" and then we played double elimination to determine the winner. I definitely had a rocky start, but was able to pull a strong finish with the win! (Only because my husband was playing left handed and was super nice to me).

I hope that you all had a wonderful Presidents Day weekend!

Melissa

Fabulous Freebies:

Have you guys heard of the fun Blog Hops going on right now for Valentine's Day!?! You definitely need to check them out! They have amazing freebies!

The first one is "For the Love of Teaching" blog hop. Click the picture below to start off with Day 1:

The second one is from Freebilicious:

I also wanted to give a shout out for a newer blogger, like me! 
 Marie over at "It's a Jungle out There!" is currently doing a giveaway for a $25 Teachers Pay Teachers gift certificate! So make sure to go over and join in on the fun!

Hope you're all having a fabulous Monday!!!

Melissa

Not School Related:

 I just have to give a shout out to my best friend Mallory! I got home from work today and my husband told me that I had a package in the mail from her! I was a little surprised, and even MORE surprised when I opened it and saw this:

It MADE MY DAY! I seriously have not been able to stop smiling all night! 

Everything inside was yellow:
mascara

sticky notes

note pad

life savers

lipbalm

tissues

air freshener

face mask

earrings

picture frame

ribbon

gum

sucker

wet ones

hightlighter

crystal light packet

absolutely love that girl! 

Hope you all have a great weekend!

Melissa

The Tarsal bone's connected to the.....Tibia {Freebie}

We've been learning about our bodies the last few weeks! It's crazy how much some of my kids already know about their bodies. We've talked different organs like our hearts, lungs & brains. We've also talked about what we need to do to keep these healthy. 

I found some great short video clips on YouTube about different things in our bodies. They're titled "Learn about Human Body Parts for Kids" and there are a bunch of them! about the heart, lungs, skeleton, skin, tongue, brain, liver, kidney, stomach.....you name it and they probably have it. They're only about 2 minutes long (which, let's face it - is perfect for our youngsters!) and they teach great concepts. 

I grabbed this freebie from Little Miss Kindergarten:

They are adorable and my kids LOVED coloring them and deciding what was good for our bodies and what wasn't the best. There are both a girl and boy skeleton to grab. Just click on the picture to go straight to her blog and grab them.

Also, my brother recently came into town to visit us for a few days. He is currently a nurse and offered to come in and teach my kids some fun facts about their bodies. Of course, my sweet husband also came and together they did a great amazing job!!

They taught my kids that our lungs are like balloons. When we breath in, they get big and when we breath out they get small again. 

They let my Kinders listen to their resting heart beat with their stethescopes, then after exercising and jumping around for a few minutes, listen to them again and hear the difference.

They demonstrated when we have light in our eyes, our pupils get smaller:

and also when our knees are tapped with a soft hammer, they have a reflex and move!

Needless to say, they had a blast!

This week I'm planning on teaching them a song to the tune of the "Macarena" - labeling bones in their bodies. You can sing it multiple times and each time get faster and faster. It goes like this:

 Tarsal (point to foot)

Tibia (bone towards the inside, below knee)

Fibula (bone outside, below knee)

 Patella (kneecap)

Femur (bone above knee)

Pelvis (hip bone)

Ribs

and Sternum. (where ribs join in center of chest)

Carpals (wrist)

Ulna (bone on arm- same side as pinky finger)

Radius (bone on arm- same side as thumb)

Humerus (arm above elbow)

And....here's my cranium! (skull)

We're also going to attempt to make these:

 We'll see how they turn out!

 Last, but definitely not least....I made a "Number Surgery" math center that I'd like to share with all of you! My kids had SO much fun pretending to be a Doctor! I highly recommend letting them dress the part.

I got tweezers, gloves & masks for them to wear while performing "surgery" and of course had to take a couple million pictures of them!

The bones are "broken" and they have to put them back together by finding the right answer.

There are:

adding and subtracting doubles

adding and subtracting 1

adding and subtracting 0

Afterwards they get to record their results on their clipboard (because that's what Doctors do, right?)

I am so excited to share this center with you all. 
Please leave me feedback and follow my blog and I'll make sure to keep giving you freebies. 
Click the picture below to grab your copy!

I hope you're all having a great week!

 Melissa


I've linked up with:

 

Groundhogs Day Fun

I know I'm a little late posting about groundhogs day, (better late then never, right!?) but my kids were SO excited about it!

The first thing we did was read this book:

This is a great book about shadows. It discusses not only our own shadows, and the shadows of things around us, but also that night time is a shadow from the sun! (My kids were enthralled!) 

Then we went outside to find shadows around us. We found shadows of our school, the cars driving past, the trees, and even an airplane flying over us!

THEN they got to explore their own shadows.
{I could have let them do this for hours!}

They tried to make shadow puppets, and jump on each others shadows....it was a blast! I love teaching Kindergarten because they're still learning so much about the simple things around them and they get SO excited! I love watching their excitement!

They also learned what "Shadow Tag" is....just like freeze tag, but if someone steps on your shadow, you freeze until someone else on your team touches you then your free!

After they explored their shadows for awhile we went back inside and learned about Punxsutawney Phil! We read these books throughout the day:

 
I downloaded this from First Grade Blue Skies:
(Click the picture to download)

and also this cute Groundhog page topper from I Love First Grade:
(Click the picture to download) 

Then we made our shadow predictions and made these:

I must admit that this one has to be my favorite....

I can't look at it without laughing! Haha, it makes my day!
I try to encourage my kids to color their projects however they want...they know that groundhogs are really brown, but I love allowing them to use their creativity!

The following week they were excited, yelling & running down the hall to our classroom door, to tell me that Phil did NOT see his shadow! I love when they get so excited about things!!

A couple other fun freebies I found for Groundhogs Day from TPT. Just click the pictures to go to the link and download your own:

I hope you are all having a wonderful week!!

Melissa