Summer Vacation...

Summer vacation has started in my house! My oldest son is done with school...he starts 2nd grade in the fall...and my little one has about 1 month left of preschool...and he starts kindergarten in the fall...Very hard for me to believe.


But here are some things that we are doing during our vacation...so far...

The first picture is from the Purple Easel, where the boys painted their own monkey. They take you step by step through the process! It was a lot of fun to paint with them. We will definitely be heading back there soon!

The second picture is my NEW Mazda5! We traded in the van for something a little smaller, but still has 3 rows! I LOVE IT!

I hope that we can manage to have more fun during our summer!

The End of a Year

So...our year ended last Wednesday! Pretty crazy to be out before Memorial Day, but it is true! My kids were pretty good the last couple of days of school, which is nice. I do have a big scratch on my arm...one of my students on my last day was pretty freaked out and screamed most of the morning. UGH! But that was the worst part of it! Although not much academics happened the last 3 days of school...My week looked something like this:


*Monday-talent show, movie, lunch, home. (we left at 1:00 each day).
*Tuesday-calendar, clean up, pass out work, movie, lunch, home.
*Wednesday-calendar, group writing about summer, movie (finish from Tuesday), picnic (the kids wanted a pizza party--they had pizza on their last day...perfect for ME), home.

Here is our group writing about summer. My students loved telling me what they wanted to do over the summer and what they liked about summer. They even talked me and my two assistants into participating.


With that being the last thing that we did, I spend Thursday and half of Friday taking down my room! The exciting news for me is that I am moving schools! I put in a transfer request, went through the QR (Qualification Review--an interview) and my transfer request was accepted! Which, for me, means two VERY important things. The first--I am going from an ungraded (1-6) to an upper grade (4-6) class. I am very excited about having only half of the ages that I am used to in my class. The second thing is that I am going from modified traditional to C track. C track runs July, get August off, then from September-November, get December off, then from January-March, get April off, and then May-June...I haven't been on a track for a few years, so I am excited to go back to a track school! 


I go back for teacher days July 2-3, and then kids come back on July 5th. I will post pictures as I get my room set up. The hard part for now...is waiting...the new teacher doesn't have to be out until 2 weeks before then! 


Wish me luck! I am very excited to start my new adventure. I have been teaching for almost 6 years, and all 6 years have been at the same school with the same administrator. It is definitely time for a change. 

Our Valentine Craft

Another old craft time! This craft is one of my favorites...and I actually took pictures of it this year. Each year, I do a different spin on this same craft...and this year my kids got to choose between two crafts. It is fun for them, because I always use their hands...Here are the steps!

First, have your student trace their hands with their fingers spread apart. Have your student  cut out around their hand.

Bend down the middle and ring finger and glue down. Place a heart on the  fingers. This is I LOVE YOU in sign language.

This is great for a single hand. Students love this! If you have a student that is great a cutting, they can do 3 hands. Each hand will have the first letter of the words I Love You! 

For three hands. The first hand bends down all of the fingers  but the pinky. The second finger bends down the three last fingers to make and L. The last hand bends down the three middle fingers to make the Y. Put hearts on all three hands to say I LOVE YOU!

I let all of my students choose their their color of their hearts and the color for their strings to make them a banner. 

And my parents loved them! It was a fun project for my students to make and then come home!