Love Monsters

Don't children need the chance to be creative? The kind of creativity where the rules are limited. I think so. So often, we tell children what to do and how to do it. I let my kiddos make love monsters. The only rules were to make a body, arms, legs, and eyes. I didn't give any numbers for anything. Their creativity was shining. I love it!!! 

This is what their desks looked like. Many colors of construction paper. I made big piles of all different colors. They got to use what they wanted.

They had several options to punch out shapes if they chose to use them. I bought those cutters at Michaels. I bought them while they were on sale, plus I used the 15% teacher discount to score them for a great price. 

 This love monster looks like a jellyfish with three flower eyes. She has a little hairbow. My girly-girls are precious!

 Look at this love monster!! She's holding a toothbrush. We studied dental health last week!! :)

 Heart shaped love monster with heart eyes..way about her head. Too cute!

 This little fella must have great eye sight with all of those eyes!!!

They had the best time making these little monsters. 

On Monday, school dismissed at 11:30 due to all the rain we've had. There was so much rain that I had to move my car. There was about another inch or two, and the rain water would have flooded my car. After the tire issue and the rock busting my windshield, I didn't want to flooded, too! haha

Today, we finished making our Valentine bags. I can't wait to party on Thursday!!!!

:)

I hope you all have a wonderful Valentine's Day! 

I am linking up with Farley from Oh' Boy 4th Grade for 

February's Currently. <3

Listening

The T.V. is always on, but I rarely actually watch it. 

Loving

Hip-Hip-Horray! Good-bye 3G! Hello 4G LTE! Out with the OLD DROID X!!! My poor old phone had a 15 second delay. I would start typing a text message, and it would show up 15 seconds later. It cut off all the time. Man, I hated it. When I went to get my new phone, I thought I wanted the IPhone 5. The salesman showed me the Samsung Galaxy S3. After 3 trips (yes 3--I'm very indecisive) 

to the store, I made my decision, and went with the Samsung Galaxy S3. 

Thinking

I love Valentine's Day. We started Valentine crafts today. There are so many to do, so we're starting early! All the pink makes me happy. 

Wanting

I go to sleep at night, but I wake up several times. I want to sleep for a good 8 hours straight. Or 9. Or 10. You know?

Needing

After my car incident over the weekend, I need to get my car fixed.

Pet Peeves

I despise to see people smacking or chewing with their mouth open. Gross!!!!!

Dawn :)

Did you enter?

Have you seen the giveaways for...

Irene from Learning with Mrs. Leeby and Kimberly Ann from Live, Laugh, I LOVE Kindergarten are both having a giveaway. 

 Click on the pictures to go enter both giveaways!!

Dawn :)

My weekend, a sale, and a giveaway

Oh my heavens at the weekend I've had!! What happens when you can't log on to Google Reader? Do you you have a ton of unread blog posts waiting on you? I do, and I want to read each one of them. Maybe I will get through most of them today.

Let's do a quick (I'll try to keep it quick. I tend to talk type too much) overview of my weekend. After school on Friday, my son had a school dance to attend that didn't end until 9:30. Since we live an hour away from our schools, my daughters and I stayed at a friend's house while our older children danced away. Her daughter was going to the dance, too. We ate. We talked. We were lazy! It was good quality friend time outside of the school walls. 

My friend's daughter and my son at their school dance.
They are both great looking, well-rounded children. She is
in 6th grade, and he is in 7th grade. 

On the hour long drive home, a metal piece got stuck in the side of my tire. Whatever it was scraped all the way around the tire. My poor car. I'm so sad and yet so thankful we weren't hurt. When it happened, I was slowing down at a red light. I thought my tire shredded. Nope...

I think it looks even worse than in the pictures. :(

My sweet husband left work and drove to us to change my tire. He's funny about me having to do that kind of stuff. We didn't get home until around 11:30. That's late for this ol' moma!

On Saturday morning, we had to drive back to where we work/go to school (an hour away) because my girls cheer for basketball every Saturday. We had to be there at 10:30 to take pictures then they cheered. Well, Nicholas' 13th birthday is tomorrow, so we went shopping to find the shoes he wants. He found some he liked that we bought. They were very bright yellow. That would be okay except they will get dirty very easily. After we left and got to looking around some more, he changed his mind. He didn't want those shoes anymore. I didn't know boys could change their minds like that. Haha. After going to about 4 or 5 more shoe stores, they didn't have anything he liked in his size. One pair he picked out only had ONE shoe in a size 11. That's a problem since he has TWO feet. So, he had a backup pair in mind. They didn't have an 11 at all. By this point, I could have screamed. It was time to leave the mall. We are going to buy them online. 

We ate at Buffalo Wild Wings for his birthday. It's what he wanted. I love wings, so I wasn't arguing! I think that was the best part of the day. Maybe it's because I like to eat. 

I wake up this morning to find out that I'm out.of.coffee. How does that happen?? No coffee? Can't have that. We ended up making a quick trip to the dollar store down the road. 

After all that, I just want to remain friends with the couch all day! :)

On a school note...We are going to start working on Valentine's Day stuff next week. I can't wait. I love Valentine's Day. There are so many crafts I want to get done. I think I'm going to use my CAMEO to cut out a bunch of hearts. 

We will be using the things from my Valentine's Fun Pack. We'll make some of the crafts I've seen on Pinterest.  

I have it in my TpT store. It's on sale today and tomorrow. 

So much for making it quick. Sorry folks. 

I will give my Valentine's Fun Pack away to one person who leaves their email address. I will pick a winner tonight before bedtime. 

:)

This is what we are....

I saw an idea like this on Pinterest. They used streamers to hang from their paper, but I used butcher paper and cut it. After putting it up, I realized I had to leave my door open all day because I didn't want to mess it up. It's a good think I have such a great class. 

See us..minus their faces. I'm thinking about sending home permission slip forms, so I don't have to worry about blocking their faces out. 

The first hour and a half of our day was like any "normal" day. We had to review our phonics skills, work on our comprehension skill, and take two reading tests. As they were finishing their tests, I let my early finishers go ahead and work on a making words activity that I found (here) by Brittany Phillips from A Day in First Grade. After that, the crazy fun began. 

My kiddos made a 100 Animals book. They worked in partners on each page, and I think they did a fantastic job. They worked very hard, and most of them put great details in their pictures. I will get it laminated and keep it is a super cute keepsake. We made one last year, too. It was so nice to pull it out and see what my kids did. One of the peeps I work with showed us the idea. I hope it isn't a copyrighted story. 

Ten groups of animals makes 100 animals in all! 

See :)

We were having to multitask in order to get all the fun stuff in. We have been trying to get in Dental Health, 100th Day, and Groundhog Day..on top of all the reading and math this week. It makes me tired just thinking about it all. While my kids were making their books, we were talking about an egg experiment. I found that idea (here) from Dizzy for Kindergarten.

Their predictions were too funny. I love my little kiddos!! 

milk-rot, look shiny, crack

coke-rot, melt, turn brown, turn yellow, crack

 water-stay clean, change colors, grow bigger

By this time, it's time to go to lunch. Nothing special about that other than wearing out 100 hats and some yummy chicken nuggets. 

Now, it's time for math. They weren't done with their books, so they finished them. Then, we moved onto being Kings and Queens of the 100 chart. 

As they earned their certificate, I told them congratulations on being a 100 chart king/queen in my best English accent. :)

Then P.E....whoo..It was time for a recharge. I may or may not have eaten some chocolate and drank Mountain Dew. 

After P.E., we turned the numbers 100 into a picture. Then, we wrote about what we would do with $100. I'm so happy to know that one of my little babes is going to go to the Bahamas with her money and she's going to invite me. Yes!!! I finally get a trip to the Bahamas. If only $100 would cover it. Hehe! 

Here are some of the very creative little pictures. 

 truck 

wagon (like in the olden days)

mask

tank

Car

playground

I forgot to take pictures of their $100 dollar writing. If you made it this far, you're probably thankful I did forget. 

Don't forget to enter the awesome giveaways!! 

Khrys from Keepin' It Kool In Kinderland 

I am lucky enough to be a part of this one. 

Lisa from Growing Firsties

I hope you're all having a great week! Have a happy Friday!

Participating in a Sweet Giveaway

Hello Monday! You came so quickly. 

I'm happy to announce that I will be participating with my bloggy friend, Khrys, from Keepin' It Kool In Kinderland for her 100 Follower Giveaway. I will be giving away my newest Valentine's Pack. Click the picture to check it out. 

There is another AMAZING Giveaway going on. Lisa Mattes from Growing Firsties is having her 400 Follower Giveaway. I'm not part of it, but I would definitely LOVE to win. You should definitely check it out and enter. 
Click on the picture to go to her blog.

100th Day Fun

Our 100th Day of school will be on Thursday, so we will be doing All Things 100 (Even though Common Core requires us to teach through 120 now. Maybe we should start celebrating the 120th day. :)~)! Whoop! Whoop! I made a couple of 100 Day Activities that I posted to TpT and TN. They are FREEBIES! :)

Click on the pictures to check them out. 

There's a cute crown I found on TpT by Julie Lee from Mrs. Lee's Kindergarten. I think we will make those to wear. 

I also found a making words activity on TpT by Brittany Phillips from A Day in First Grade that I will use. My kiddos are getting better and better at making different words, so this is perfect. 

Maybe I can find some more cuteness. I will probably over plan and  and not be able to fit it all in. Surely, I'm not the only teacher with that problem. Right?!!  

Enjoy your Sunday!

Valentine's Day Fun

Where has the month of January gone? I'm feeling like a crazy mom-wife-teacher! There are so many things happening in the next few weeks. We have Common Core training on Monday. Believe me, I need all the training I can get! Common Core is some hard-core stuff. Our 100th day of school is next week. Is it sad that I'm not 100% sure exactly what we will be doing?! Then you have Groundhog Day, Valentine's Day, and President's Day all in February. Thankfully, we have a teacher work day on President's Day. I will definitely make a to-do list or I will never be productive. I will end up walking around in circles trying to figure out what needs to be done. Maybe I should be worried about what needs to be done next week instead of thinking several weeks ahead. :)

Can you feel the love in the air?

I put together another ~Some of it all~Valentine's Fun Pack.  Check it out. 

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I would love to give a copy to the first person who comments with their email address.