Five for Friday - March 28

It's Friday, woo hoo - so I am linking up with Kacey for Five for Friday.

ONE

We did lots of caterpillars and butterflies this week.

Our directed drawings of the life cycle - "Hungry Caterpillar" style.

I am amazed how well my little ones do with their drawings.  I love this activity for listening skills.

TWO

We started doing Daily News/Chit-Chat this week.  We are focusing on beginning sounds, the kids did a great job.  I love their drawings in the boxes.

THREE

I am trying to get more organized and keep the ideas from the spider web part of my brain.

So, I bought Farrah Shipley's TpT and blog planner.  It has tons of forms and it is adorable.  She has different colors to choose from.  I bought planners from two different stores, but this is my favorite.

You can find the strawberry and chocolate binder here

This is one of the forms.  I spent Saturday morning putting the binder together.

This is one of my favorite forms.  It made it very easy to plan out this blog post.

FOUR

We made a trip to Disneyland on Sunday and saw this adorable Caramel apple.  I shared him with the secretaries at work. I might be slightly addicted to these apples.

FIVE

My grandson started daycare yesterday.  He did great.  I was worried that he would start crying when his mom dropped him off, nope - he didn't even say good-bye to her.  Then, when my son picked him up - he screamed and ran the other way, he wanted to play some more.  

I love his daycare provider.  She drops off one of my students to my class, so I can check on my grandson.  Plus, she is a behavior therapist and a Pastor's wife.  She is a blessing.

She uses this app called Tadpoles.  She updates it with all the things that he has done during the day, nap time, meals, diapers, etc.  It is wonderful - plus, she make sure that this Grandma gets a copy.

I am a very happy Grandma.

Five for Friday - March 21

Wow, this was a busy week.  I had lots of personal things that needed to get done this week, along with all my classroom stuff.  There is not enough hours in my day to fit it all in.

I am linking up with Kacey for lots of sharing.

I love doing directed drawing with my kids.  I am able to hit so many different skills - listening being the most important one.

I knew we had to make these leprechauns the minute I saw them on First Grade Blue Skies.  You can find the lesson here  She posted it as a freebie.  Jennifer, always, has amazing ideas on her blog.  I love all of her artwork.

My TK kids did these and I think they turned out AMAZING.  I am super proud of them.

I introduced the St. Patrick's Day sensory box.  These are so easy to make and most of the goodies are a $1.

This is the first time they took everything out of the box and sorted it.  One of my little ones came and grabbed me by the arm, so she could show me all the things they found.  She asked me to take a picture of it.  I think she thought that the leprechaun brought all the goodies.

Yesterday, we celebrated the first day of Spring by reading the "The Very Hungry Caterpillar".  This is one of my favorite books.

We made these headbands to wear home.  The parents thought they looked adorable.

I am planning more activities to do with this book next week.

I got this idea for this center from Deanna Jump's Center session at the Kinder Conference.  It was super easy to make and the best part is I already had everything - so the cost was zero.  I just needed to gather all my supplies.  I love projects like that.

I used the big oil pan.

I printed out the kids names, laminated and added a magnet strip to the back.

I sorted the foam magnet letters that came with my teaching kit into a  plastic craft box that I had at home.  The kids are going to love this center.

My grand daughter called and asked if I would make her a costume for her school Open House.  She was going to be Aphrodite.  

Ignore her goofy face, she was messing around when I was trying to take pictures.

The kids had to make a poster, dress up like the god/goddess and do a speech - during Open House.  They were getting a grade for the entire project.  They stood next to their poster, in different parts of the room and the parents came up to them to hear their speech.  We could ask them different questions about their character.  My grand daughter rocked, she is a little bit dramatic sometimes - but stinkin adorable.

Such a clever way to get the kids and parents to come to Open House.  Her teacher said that she 100% participation for 6th grade.

I love this girl.

I hope you have a great weekend and if you are lucky enough to be on Spring Break, enjoy.

Monday Make-it - March 17

I have been busy creating things this weekend.  It seems that most of it is for St. Patrick's Day.

Here are my projects for March.

I made these rainbow candy bags for my kiddos at school.  I used Rolo candy and rainbow twizzlers (I didn't know they made them).  I found the idea on Pinterest and you can find it here.  It was a super easy project.

I, also, made some goodie bags with Rainbow Chex Mix for the Kinder teachers and school secretaries using Chex and Lucky Charm cereal.  It tastes really yummy.  Hubby was eating the leftovers in the pan.  Recipe is here.

I made my St. Patrick's sensory box.

Green rice, split peas, bead necklaces (cut-up), pom poms, little hats, gold coins, buttons and a leprechaun.  My kids begged me to make them one.

I love shopping for everything that goes into these boxes.  I look at the Dollar Spot at Target and craft stores.  The goodies are either on sale or a dollar.

I made a Mickey St. Patrick's shirt.  I was looking for one when we went to Disneyland the other day, but I couldn't find one.  This was super easy and inexpensive.  

A $3 shirt from Michaels, wonder under (had) and shamrock material (had).  I love being able to use supplies that I already own.

Ribbon dance rings

I found these plastic rings at the conference - 4 for $1

I tied left over ribbon from my center leis to three of the holes - two to three ribbons per hole.

I started to make them rainbow rings, but decided to make them individual colors that I can use for color songs.  I think they will make a great movement activity.

I can't wait to see what everyone else has made this month.

Five for Friday - March 14, 2014

I am linking up with Kacey for this week's Linky Party. 

Last night, was Open House and I survived - sorta of.  I am home sick today, heading to the doctor's office in a bit.

We did a Zoo theme while visiting different countries.  We learned about two different animals from each country.  Then, my TK kids made one animal and my Kinder partner made the other.  I took pictures of all the kids wearing something that you would associate with that country.

For Africa, we learned about lions and giraffes.  My kids did the lions.  In the pictures, the kids were wearing safari hats that we found for super cheap.

Two of my moms are teachers - so I felt really good when they were taking tons of pictures of the art and the writing.  I kept getting hugs from them, they were so impressed.  I, always, stress out at Open House - which is probably why I got sick.

I will post more pictures this weekend.

My happy toes.

I got a pedicure this week.  My poor feet have been locked up in shoes, forever.  Of course, my kiddos noticed them right away.  The girls loved the color.  I had to get a pedicure, because this is our weather this week in California and I will be in flip flops all week.  Woo hoo

Sorry, snow people.  But this is way too hot for March.

We brought out the hula hoops this week.  

How can these babes be so good at doing this?

This little cutie told me that she could do 3 hoops at one time and she did. Amazing. 

 I am so jealous.  I a hula hooping failure.  

We took a trip to Disneyland on Sunday for my daughter in law's birthday.  Oh my gosh, there were so many people there - it was crazy and hot.  My grand kids were not very good campers because of the heat and the crowds.  People kept bumping into their strollers.  Everyone was in a hurry.  But, we still had a blast at the happiest place on earth.

As we were leaving I did a head slap - I remembered that the rest of the World is probably, on Spring Break. Year round schools don't get a Spring Break

I do get 5 weeks off in May.

My favorite thing about Disneyland is the caramel apples.  This lovely is the March special.  

A green apple dipped in caramel, then in milk chocolate.  They cover it with white chips, milk chocolate chips and dark chips.  To make it extra yummy, they drizzle all that chocolate goodness down the side.  Yummmm.

I changed my blog address to just kinderprincess.blogspot.com - so if you follow on my old blog thefirstgradeprincess - please follow this blog.  Thank you.  Have a great weekend.