Frusteration with technology and we made it

UPDATED: Thanks to bloggy friends, I am back in business with my pictures! :)
Thanks Lisa from Growing Firsties and Khrys from Keepin' It Kool In Kinderland!

Why is Blogger not letting me upload pictures???? I've read several other blogs that have pictures. I couldn't upload them last night either....frusterating!

Anyway, we made it through our first two days back to school. It was three days for me, but who's counting? I was so sad to find out that one of my little loves was moving away. How can they let us have them for half of the year, and then take them away from us. She was such a sweet, hard-working little girl. I can only pray that she gets a loving and caring teacher at her new school. On the same day, I got a new student who came to our school, so I still have 17 little loves.

We had oodles of fun for two days. We don't have to teach a new story from our reading program on the short weeks, so we read The Mitten by Jan Brett.
 Click {here} to check it out on Teachers pay Teachers.
Click {here} to check it out on Teachers Notebook.

I like my anchor charts to be in shapes.

See...

On Friday afternoon, we did the little craft from my New Year Pack I put out there as a freebie. My kids loved being able to make the crafts the way they wanted. I heard..

"Mrs. Key, can I draw my hair?", "Mrs. Key, can I draw my body?" "Mrs. Key, can I put a bow in my hair?", Mrs. Key, can I draw some clothes?" My answer to every questions.."You sure can!"

It makes me smile to see my students being creative.

I left my metallic ribbon at home, so we had to compromise on the little party blowouts we made. I ended up cutting small strips of construction paper to let them glue. It wasn't what I originally wanted, but it worked. I think they turned out as cute as could be. I loaded pictures to post, but Blogger is not being nice to me this weekend.
Updated thanks to bloggy friends. :)
These are pictures that were finished.

Next week, we will be working on compound words. I know some of my kiddos are going to struggle with the skill, so I created three differentiated centers for them. After I printed them out and laminated them, I got my youngest, who is in first grade, to test all three centers out. She loved them! Success!! :)
Click {here} to check them out on Teachers pay Teachers.

Click {here} to check them out on Teachers Notebook.

I hope you all have a wonderful week.

Happy New Year 2013 Freebie

I have been enjoying the break. I've enjoyed it so much that I made a Happy New Year Freebie.

 

When we go back to school, we have two days to review. It seems like the perfect time to do some quick New Year Activities. I'm going to read Squirrel's New Year's Resolution. It is a really cute book!

Source

 I made a resolution definition page to help my little loves understand the meaning behind making a New Year's Resolution. After reading the book, we will talk about all of the different resolutions the animals make. Then, we will use the 2013 foldable that's included in the packet to make four of our very own simple resolutions.

*Note: The 2013 foldable is not my original idea. When I first started teaching, a friend of mine shared the idea with me. I'm not sure where she got the idea from.

Under each flap, we will write...

2-In 2013, I want to learn ______.

0-In 2013, I will ______ to be a good friend.

1- In 2013, I will exercise by _______.

3- In 2013, I will help my mom and/or dad by _______.  

 

After making the foldable, we will write about our resolutions on the writing page.

I will print the circles for faces and the triangles for hats.

My kids can draw their face in the circle and decorate their hat as they would like.

To make a streamer, we will fold and glue a piece of construction paper into a long tube shape. I will give them some wrapping paper ribbon to make the streamer part.

The writing page and the face, hat, and streamer will all be glued to a long sheet of construction paper. We will hang those in the hallway.

 

Click the picture to check it out!