M is for Mother's Day

I just found out about an awesome website called We Give Books.

It has free books and when you read one they donate one. "What's the catch?" I hear ya. I said it too! No catch! Read a book, give a book. This is website works best if you have student computers or an interactive board (or at least a projector).

This month, We Give Books has a bunch of books for moms and families. I'm really glad that this site includes families as well as moms so that my kiddos with nontraditional families are still included.

I found a really cute idea on Pinterest that would be an easy and fun gift.

I couldn't link to the original poster because the link on Pinterest was marked as spam. Even Googling the "Balancing Art Project" got me no where! If you know where this came from please let me know so I can give credit. 

I'll probably do hand prints instead of foot prints instead. Michaels has some really great canvas value packs these days and it's 15% off with a teacher ID (woo woo!).

Oh. My. Gosh. I found this one on Pinterest too! I literally said, "Oooo!"

A Girl & A Glue Gun

I love this too much. Made with Sculpey from Michaels... 15% again!

Both of these are great keepsakes for moms as well as other guardians.

What Mother's/Parent's/Loving Guardian's Day stuff are you working on?

M is for May Currently (I hope!)

Ok... here it goes...

(A big thank you to Farley over at Oh Boy Fourth Grade for answering my email for help on linky parties!)


Check Ms. Farley out for the May Currently!

- Ms. A

N is for Now I've got that Vitamin C song in my head...

It's May and it is cah-ray-zee. We had a field trip two weeks ago and we have another one tomorrow. On top of all of that, just about every grade has a field trip between now and the end of school on May 23!

I'm still fleshing out what I want to focus on for the last two full weeks. My firstie friend is doing a baseball unit so I've been thinking about piggy-backing of off that and we've talked about combining our efforts to make a super unit. K vs. 1st baseball game, anyone!?

May 18th we are doing our Kindergarten graduation. I am so excited!! (I'm going to use that word a lot.)

There are a lot of other things to do in the next fifteen days but my mind has been on this graduation. I've never been to one let alone planned one!

Our K team started off by ordering paper graduation caps and a "diploma".

This one was my trial run with ugly twine on the tassel but I think they're really cute. I want to leave them white and the other K teachers want to let the kids color them. I like how they look "grown up" but I see the appeal of coloring them too.

Our amazing music teacher is working with the Kinders on two songs they will be singing for their parents. I haven't heard them in full yet but my kids keep singing snippets of them during class and, once again, I am EXCITED!

After the ceremony kids and parents are coming back into their classrooms for a reception. I know I'm going to have a slide show and some refreshments, but other than that I'm still looking for ways to celebrate. First, I think I'm going to have a fancy cake! (Full disclosure: I love cake.)

I've done some research for ideas and I have found some really great things.

For example, I loooove this idea from Color Outside the Lines.




Our school has a big push of getting kids to college. This fits right in! I did some math and I figured out that my Kinders will graduate in 2024. (I know, right!!) I want to change up how we'll make the faces and perhaps include some local colleges in it, too.

Growing Kinders has a super cute book for kids to fill out about their year. And it's FREE! I love the "Autographs" page.

Oh and I've GOT to make these.




How about take home treats! Ahh!

Simple Girl At Home (with other fun ideas)

Finally, Chalk Talk has about a billion ideas for the end of school. There is so much to choose from! I'm looking for ways to celebrate our parents in this as well.

Okay. That's enough "research". I'm getting all riled up and it's past my bedtime already.

Needless to say, I'm so excited about this. These babies were BABIES when I got them. Thinking back to that first day makes me feel...um... panic? But now! NOW! They have come so far! I can't wait to celebrate it with them and their families.

I hope you found some fun ideas too!

-Ms. A

F is for Fresh Start

Okay, so, pretend you have a big test to take. A final even! If you're me, you've got to be in the right state of mind to begin studying. So before I ever took my books out, I cleaned my room from top to bottom. Afterwards it was refreshing to feel like I had a clean slate (not to mention that it was a useful way to put off studying).

That's like how this blog has felt. Well... it's not much of a blog. Yet. (I hope.)

I had it all set up months ago. I mustered up the ambition to start and then got overwhelmed. I follow so many fabulous people and wonder how in the world they do it. How do they keep their blogs up to date? Where do they get their awesome ideas? HOW CAN THEY PUT TOGETHER AN ENTIRE 70 PAGE UNIT ON BUGS?! You know... stuff like that.

As soon as I finished putting together my first post, I logged off and didn't look back. I've thought about it a lot. I've planned things with the intention of posting about them. I've even taken pictures of awesome things I've done in my classroom with my kiddos. But ultimately my room was a mess (so to speak).

I spent some quality time today with one of my favorite new teaching buddies, Elisabeth, over at Tales of an Elementary Teacher. I had a great time with her talking about all of the new things we've been trying in our classrooms and how we are both working to break into the teacher blog world. Talking with her kicked me in the butt to look back at my lousy ol' blog and see what I could do.

So tonight, I revamped. I changed my blog title, spruced up some colors and fiddled around with a header. It truly does feel like a clean room, ready to fill up with ideas and new learning.

Here it goes.

- Ms. A

Bloggy design credits to:

Background from Scrappin' Doodles
Lovely frame up top by Love Two Teach