Earth Day! Blog Hop!

I am super excited to be a part of this blog hop for Earth Day. I have joined up with my pals at #kinderfriends to share some EARTH DAY inspiration! Earth day is April 22nd.

I'd like to share a fabulous book, a cool song and a (FREE) mini reader with you. First, a book that I adore. It is called: What if Everyone Did That? I love this book because it certainly gets the kids thinking about how the little things can turn into big things! For example, what if everyone at the zoo threw a piece of popcorn into the lion's cage? Or...What if everyone at the grocery store tried to see just how fast the shopping cart could go? …and the story goes on.

If you can not find it or get it ordered in time, I found it available to view online. Click HERE. 

I also enjoy Harry's Kindergarten Songs. Ever heard of him? He is a fantastic song writer and he has one perfect for Earth Day. It is called Going Green and it is also available to view online. Click HERE. 

Finally, I created a mini reader for you. Print, fold and go! It is a reader for young students to read independently, with the teacher or with a partner. I love any kind of paper reader like this because students can take them home after our work with them in the classroom. They get so excited to share what they learned with their parents and that is such a terrific home/school connection.

Click HERE to download it free from my store! 

Don't miss out on all our #kinderfriends! Kitty Kitty Kindergarten is up next, click on over for even more Earth Day ideas!

Field Trip Bingo!

Honestly, I do have a love-hate relationship with field trips. I LOVE for the kiddos to experience them but I do not like to plan them, collect the money or coordinate the lunches. Not to mention trying to track down the parent volunteer registration forms for the chaperones. It is just a lot of work. I grumble quietly to myself the whole time, but in the end it turns out to be one of the best days ever!  Just a few weeks ago, we went to a local dairy farm called Dakin Dairy. Now, my school has 9 (yes, nine) first grade classes. We can not all go to the farm on the same day. It might just scare the cows away! So, we have to go on two separate days. It is about a 45 minute drive on the school bus and once we arrive we are whisked off the bus and away we go! The guides let us plant beans, bottle feed baby cows, see a pig race, go on a hay ride, feed goats, see the cows being milked (3 times a day, 365 days a year…mercy!) play on the playground and have a picnic lunch. Super fun.  Super tiring.

The morning of the field trip, the kids come in the classroom super, super excited. I mean there is nothing like field trip excited. (Meanwhile, I am running around trying to take attendance, get lunch boxes in coolers, tag the kids, get the kids into the bathroom, all while looking out the window for the buses that should have arrived 10 minutes ago…LOL!) I try to channel this high voltage energy by asking the kiddos what they think they will see on the field trip and leave it pretty open ended. They are to create a farm bingo board by coming up with 9 different things (draw and label them) that they will see on the trip. The kiddos will put one in each box. The idea being, when they get back from the farm, they will mark off the things that they have seen and hopeful get farm bingo! (3 in a row earns farm bingo!) I love this because it gives them something to do before, during and after the field trip. (They do not take the board with them, it stays on their desk until we get back.) But I tell you, they are thinking about it the whole time. "Mrs. H…I just saw a tree, I had that on my bingo board!" "I saw a barn!" "I saw a swing set!" "I think I got 3 in a row!"
They love it! Here what a completed farm bingo board looks like:

Taking a trip to the farm soon? Interested in giving this a try?

Download your free copy here.

So, what do you do to occupy your kiddos before you go on a field trip?

 I would love to hear your ideas too!

Leap Year Sale!

Hi Everyone! My TpT store is on sale in honor of the extra day in our calendar….it is a Leap Year! I hope that will help you get some of those things that have been sitting in your shopping cart.

  

Click the link above to get to my store and get everything on sale for today only. Enjoy!

Giveaway!!!

Have you heard? There are TWO days left to enter to win a $50 TpT gift card from Planning in Paradise. That is a lot of resources for your classroom. Click here to enter for a chance to win. YAY!

 GOOD LUCK!!!

Valentine: Cheap and Cute

The Dollar Tree makes me happy.  Anyone else? There is something about walking through the local Dollar Tree, especially when there is a holiday fast approaching! It is a store FULL of teacher treasures! Wouldn't you agree? This weekend I went and found heart shaped crazy straws.

I pretty much squealed when I saw there were 6 in a pack for a dollar. I may only teacher First Grade math, but I knew pretty quick that meant CHEAP! I love CHEAP and I love CUTE. This was definitely BOTH for our upcoming classroom Valentine Exchange. Candy is great (Reese's pieces are my favorite, lol!) but they get so much of it and well, this was something a little bit different.  I grabbed 4 packs and before I could even get myself home, my brain was already thinking of a little saying and how I could attach it to the straw. I came up with a few sayings, but I kept coming back to this one: "I am CRAZY over how SMART YOU are!"

Once I printed them out, I just punched two holes and slipped the straw right on through. Viola. Done! If you need something to give your kiddos for Valentine's and you like this idea - you can get a copy here. Enjoy and Happy Valentine's Day!

The 100th Day of School!

I am linking up with other Kindergarten teachers to share some of the ideas that we LOVE most.

The 100th day of school happens in the month of February for me…the 8th to be exact, and I wanted to share a few ideas. A day (or two) before our 100th day celebration, I snap a photo of each student in my classroom…just a little head snapshot. I either print them off on my computer or upload them to Walgreens. The morning of our 100th day, I placed that photo on their table when they come in…but to their surprise there is one MORE photo on their table too. It is a photo of them at age 100! How? I upload their photo to an app called: Aging Booth. It is super simple and with a few taps and swipes, I have added wrinkles, gray hair, age spots and more! 

Here I am after my aging booth makeover:

Hilarious for sure! 

The students take both photos and glue them onto a special (paper) frame, then share them with one another. At the end of the day, they take the two photos home!  You can grab a free copy of the frame here. 

This is what the Aging Booth app looks like in the app store: 

  Here is my outfit courtesy of Kmart:

(a housecoat, slippers, pearls, red lipstick and ankle highs) There is a pair of glasses and a scarf that I wear as well.  I ask my kiddos to dress up and join in the fun! Many of my colleagues dress up and let me tell you - the laughter that day is abundant! Take a look at this photo of several teachers from my school - where do I even begin??  HA!

Needless to say, the school day is filled with all sorts of creative ways to celebrate the number 100. I would say it goes down in the books as one of the most memorable days of year! And that is exactly why we do it again, each and every year!  I also send my students home with a 100th day certificate, because after all - we are all 100 days smarter!

Click here to download

How do you celebrate with your kiddos?  Please leave me a comment, I would love to know!

 Happy 100th Day!

An InLinkz Link-up

Pioneer Butter

Pioneer Butter. Cool name. Sounds fun, right? It is what we called the butter we made in our classroom while we were learning about life, "Then and Now." We named it pioneer butter because we did not buy it from the store, we made it ourselves!  We shook it until we felt like our arms were going to fall off and then we shook it some more. That is just what life was like back then, it was HARD work. But in the end we had butter and that was exciting!

How did we do it?  You might know, but if not here goes:

I divided the class into teams of fours. Each team got a small plastic container with a lid.

We filled it half full with this heavy whipping cream.

Before we closed the lid we dropped in a marble. (This is kind of like a "timer." We shake the container until we can not hear the marble move.) That's how we know the butter is done!

Then the container got passed around within each team and we shook it, and shook it, then passed it and passed it…and kept it going and going and going. It takes a lot of shaking…and the kids will probably say their arms are getting tired. But that's good, ask them to shake it just a little more. Then someone will say, I can't hear the marble anymore. (Perfect, it must be done!) I carefully lifted the lid so the kids could ooooooh and ahhhhhh. Then someone noticed that it was not a liquid anymore - it was a solid instead. 

I quickly gave each team some crackers, a plastic knife and their container of pioneer butter, letting them go to town spreading and eating. Then I heard, "This is the BEST butter I have ever eaten!" …a few seconds later I heard, "this is the BEST day ever." 

Yeah... Firsties are fun like that.

Yum!

Need a little "how to" make pioneer butter response sheet? Click here.