Thoughts on a Monday

Here it is Monday...but not a normal Monday. A Monday with lots of questions on my mind and lots of emotions. sadness of what happened at Sandy Hook Elementary, joy of seeing all of my students this morning, fear and nervousness of how to respond to their questions, confident that I have let my students know how much they mean to me....my list of emotions could go on and on.

As we had share time today I thought for sure that ONE person would bring up the tragic event that took place Friday but not one of them did. I was so thankful that my sweet little kiddos were kept sheltered from this news. Instead they shared with me about their time spent with grandmas and grandpas, moms and dads and cousins. They shared about their decorating Christmas trees and helping wrap presents. These stories warmed my heart. Then we took time to share their journals today, I had one student write "I love my school" and another write "School is Cool". So it just reassures me that we are doing all the right things and that we should keep doing what we are doing! Making a difference in their lives and being role models, someone they can count on in good times and bad and someone to love them when they may need it most!

My heart is still heavy as I try to wrap my mind around what happened at Sandy Hook Elementary school. How could someone kill innocent people, especially little tiny children? Why? What did it prove? I have so many questions that I am not sure I even want answers for. I want to wake up and hear that this was all a dream. I wish there were more we could do to stop these awful tragedies. And mostly, I wish for something I have wanted since I was a child... World Peace. A place where EVERYONE feels safe. A place where everyone gets along and a place where we can all work together to make the world a better place.

I have so much on mind but I feel I may be rambling so I will leave you with this:

Tonight as I lay your head on your pillow, I will say a prayer for the 20 children and 6 brave women who lost their lives and for their families. I will say a prayer for the first responders and the faculty and students who witnessed this tragedy. I will pray for the community of Newtown. And I will pray for my students and my colleagues.
I challenge you to do the same if you are religious in any way.
May God bless each and every one of you.

Silence for Sandy Hook Elementary

Child/Student-made Christmas Ornaments

Looking for different to do for Christmas gift to parents or grandparents this year? I downsized one of my old gifts and made it into a Christmas ornament! Have each student cut out one mitten. On one side have the students write a message to their parents and put the year. Then paint the corresponding hand with white paint and have them leave their hand print on the mitten. While the mittens are drying, have the students cut out the hearts (I drew the hearts and copied them onto red construction paper). Once the paint is completely dry, have students glue the red heart into the center or top of their hand print. Then put their school picture or any small picture inside the heart. I then printed the saying, "cold hands, warm heart" and have the students cut them out and glue them by the finger tips of their hand print! At his point I laminate them they will keep longer but you do not have to! Then just punch a hole in the top, add ribbon and  WAH-LAH...there you have a super cute, child-made ornament! Enjoy! 

Below are some cute gifts that I had students make last year! As you can see the heart was the one that I downsized to make these cute little mitten ornaments! The wreaths are made out of small paper plates and green and red tissue paper. Students just wrap the tissue paper around the end of their pencil, dip it in glue and then put it around the end of the plate. Easy, peasy!

Christmas Craftivities!

This year, for Christmas crafts,  I wanted to do something a little different than I have the last few years. So I turned on the old brain and started to think how I could spice things up!! I normally do a Christmas tree made from green triangles and mount it on black or blue paper. Then we decorate it with hole punches, tissue paper balls and glitter. We have also done Santa Mobiles and presents. All of which are seen below! To see some other holiday craft activities and parent gifts click here.

I kept thinking, how can I make these tree's look a little cuter? So I decided to change the size and the shape of the tree. They would be tree's "Made from the Heart". So instead of triangles, I made 3 different size hearts and had the students color them and glue them on to and 8 X 8 square. I also showed them how to trace around the edge with marker and then color in with crayon to make the colors pop out AND to help give them a better line to say inside! We then just glittered the "snow" on. 

I didn't choose to make a quilt with these this year but that is why I chose to do this, on the 8 X 8. It would be easy to make into a paper quilt to decorate a bulletin board. 

Then I thought about my Santas...I LOVE those Santas but I wanted to do something different and include the reindeer! Soooo, I went to one of favorite search engines, Google, and I searched for paper sleigh Christmas crafts and found this site. I got my idea from this site and the black-line master for Santa and the reindeer (the reindeer I did have to enlarge on the copier) but the rest I did on my own.  I literally free-handed a sleigh with a black marker and then cut black strips for the runner of the sleigh and for the reigns to go on the reindeer. I had the students angle off the edges of the black strip used for the runner. Then, to make it look even more official, I still had the students make little presents out of construction paper, to put in the sleigh! Cutting out the reindeer was And this is what the final project looked like! I was so excited  because they turned out so cute! And the kiddos had a lot of fun making them! Especially the fact that they got to attach the reindeer to the sleigh and fill it with presents! 

Then when I displayed them in the hallway...I made it look like Santa and his reindeer were flying over the forest of trees on Christmas Eve night! 

  

 

Veteran's Day!

As we all know, today is Veteran's Day...a day that I am lucky enough to celebrate with my fellow Veteran's. Some of us are not lucky enough to get to enjoy this day, as they gave the ultimate sacrifice...their lives. I pray for them and their families and all current service men and women not only today but everyday.

 I have been a kindergarten teacher for seven years now, but prior to that, I spent a little over 9 years serving our great nation. (To read my whole story click here.) I thank my family for being so supportive of me during that time. Especially my husband Sam, who had to endure the first whole year of our marriage without me! I also have to thank each and every one of my Battle Buddy's who helped me through Basic Training, AIT, and Deployment to Iraq.  Without them, I would not have made it through the ups and downs of my service. I was going trying to tag each and every one of my Veteran friends and family on Facebook today there were nearly 90 Veteran's that I can say I served with, went to school with or am related too! What an amazingly wonderful thing that Facebook has allowed me to keep in contact with them!! I thank God for putting each and every one of them in my life! And  so I say THANK YOU to them and to all Veteran's on this day!

Now on to the teacher side of things...Each year, I try to think of new ways to teach my kindergartners about Veteran's Day. Most of the time they just want to see pictures of me in uniform and my GUN! It is always about the gun with them, haha. But I love to share with them what I can about my experience as a soldier.  A few years ago, I emailed our whole district and got pictures of them or their family members who were Veteran's and I made a power point presentation with the pictures and music. I sent it out to all the teachers in the district to share with their students! What a neat thing to see how many people in just our area are affected when their loved one's deploy. I have shown this power point each year to my students and then let them share with me if they know someone who is in the military.

With the help of Debbie Clement, I came up with a few different Veteran's/Memorial day quilting ideas from her book "Red, White and Blue" (My favorite book ever!!!!!) Before I got into blogging, Debbie blogged about my first quilting project for me and you can check the strands out here. 

After that LARGE quilt, I came up with another idea for a quilt which you can find here!

I have also designed a showcase in our school that displays pictures our staff and student's loved ones who have served or are currently our country. It also has artifacts from the military, almost like a mini museum for the kiddos. And lastly, I have to thank my supportive colleagues who have turned Friday's into "Red Shirt Friday" at our school. We purchased "Red Shirt Friday, I Support Our Troops" shirts and wear them (or any form of red) to school each Friday to show our support for our troops!

Happy Veteran's Day to all the Veteran's out there. Your service, sacrifice and dedication is greatly appreciated and does not go unnoticed. THANK YOU!

The SPIDER!

So, yesterday morning as my students were doing their morning work, I was taking our moving our book-cart out into the hallway and saw a sweet little spider on the floor....and what I mean by sweet little...is A BIG BLACK SPIDER!!!!  Luckily, I was the only one who saw it so I quickly grabbed the can that was sitting on my reading table and put it over the spider. I told my kiddos that there was a can on the floor and to please just leave it there (because bless their little hearts...they are forever picking up things that are on the floor and putting them away or in the lost and found box). Then of course, I got "Why is there a can there? What is it for? Why can't we move it?" So I finally told them that there was a really big spider under the can and that I needed to find a jar to put the spider in. Well that got them all wound up and they quickly got up and wanted to see it! Such curious little kiddos...I love it! I made a promise to them that if they would please stay in their seats until I found a jar, then I would let them watch me put it in the jar. They QUICKLY sat down and waited :)

 I found the jar and collected the spider in it. I then put it on a stool in the middle of the carpet and let the kiddos check him out. They were all very excited and got their vocabulary rolling! An extension to this spontaneous little lesson would have been to have the kiddos write about it in their journals. We never did get the chance to do that, but next time it is a must!


Here is our little fella...

Needless to say our spider...whom we cleverly named "The BEAST" became the main attraction at school yesterday!

And FYI, this is the second spider of this size and that I have found in my classroom in less than a week and my friend found one that was a little smaller, in her school bag!!! Could you imagine!?!?!

September is underway!

Wow! What a crazy time of year! I cannot believe that it is already September!!! My To-Do list keeps growing! Just when I think I am caught up...I'm actually 3 steps behind! But, I do love it and wouldn't trade my crazy days for anything!

I am working on hopefully getting a TpT site up and running sometime this school year. That's the goal anyway! So hopefully you will see something from me soon. I have many super-bloggers that are here to support me when I take that giant leap for man-kind!

So tonight I just wanted to check in and see how everyone's school year is going so far?!?! What new and wonderful things have you tried so far this year that have worked? What hasn't worked? Did you start your year with a new theme? What do you start your year with?? I want to know, so please feel free to leave a comment and share with me!

I started my year off with Pete the Cat. This is the second year that I started with Pete the Cat and I can tell you that the kids LOVE Pete. They truly cannot get enough of him and BEG me to play the CD whenever they are working at their tables.

We are also working on our class names. We play the name game each day.  Soon students will  learn how to read and write all of  their friends names.

Remember when I said, just as soon as I feel like I am all caught up, I am actually 3 steps behind??? Well it is true.I am in an out of state wedding next weekend so I will be leaving on Thursday. Plus,  I just decided to change my schedule around to make a little more time for reading and writing workshop so that means I have to re-do my lesson plans and make sub-plans for next week. Then the week after...I have training for our mentor program. So I will also need to make sub plans for that week as well!   So here is what is on my To-Do list for tonight....

Start crossing things of that to-do list, grade papers and cut out BEE bucks!

Make envelopes for each child's name puzzle and name card!

Whew! That is a lot of work to get done! And who said teachers only work from 8-3p???