Zero the Hero video contest winner!

I back to blogging because I want to brag on my class!
We are winners!!!!!!

We didn't win grand prize, but I am so stinkin excited to have won First Runner-up!  My kinders did a fantastic job singing and dancing their hearts out to Zero the Hero.  If you have never seen Heidi Song videos or used them in your classroom, you need to change that today.  I believe in them.  I have seen the way they have transformed my teaching and the number of sight words my students can read and spell and recognize.  Thank you Mr. Michael for being our Zero the Hero.  Thank you Heidi for picking us as First Runner-up!  I can't wait to share this with my kinders tomorrow morning!

Heidi's blog featuring US!!!!

Check us out!!!!

first days of school

We have had three first days of school.  A third of my class has come for the past three days.  All of my new kinder friends come to school tomorrow!  The past three days have been great.  Tuesday I received lots of hugs from the moment my kinders walked in the door and even a few surprise kisses on the hand.  Today I walked in my classroom to be greeted by a kinder with a rose for his new teacher.  My heart melted.  These kinders have me ruined already! 

 

Yesterday as I put one of my kinders in the car he told his mom as they pulled away, "Mom, I love my new school."  That is what every Kindergarten teacher wants their students to say after their first day of school. 

One of my favorite things we did the past three days is taking pictures in front of this...

some of my favorite responses were...

a rock star!

a daddy!

a teacher!

and a princess!

around my room 2012 edition

Setting up my classroom, making new posters and crafts, and getting new pens and markers makes me so excited for the year to start.  I have spent many hours working in my classroom the past week.  I think it is important to love my classroom since it is really my home away from home.  I want my classroom to be fun and inviting.  I hope that is what I have achieved for this school year. 

I rearranged my reading center.  I feel that it has opened up this space.  I hope it gives more room to spread out and read!

I have decied to use some of the http://wholebrainteaching.com/ rules procedures this year.  I found these rules on pinterest from http://www.3rdgradethoughts.com/!  Check out her blog she has some great ideas.

My boyfriend told me he was making something for my classroom.  I couldn't figure out what it was at all.  I was so excited to find out that it was a book bag tree.  He made it himself!  I am so proud to display it in my classroom. 

 

I bought these curtains at Ikea to help hide some things that might be a distraction to my kinders and it makes me look more organized!

 



I had these last year, but I added some more pom poms!  I am a little addicted to them!  Not allowing myself to make more right now though!

Each year we have a new school theme.  Our school voted this year "Wild about Learning."  In kindergarten we decided to put our own little twist on it and decided to use monsters.  I love how cute and fun they are!

This is the board outside of my classroom.  I found my inspiration from pinterest!

My assistant painted our back door with chalkboard paint at the beginning of the week.  I am excited for my kinders to be able to write and draw on the door during center time. 

The next three days will be staggered days.  We have a third of our kinders.  I plan to take their picture in front of the door and share the picture with their parents.

 

Here we go!  Let's get the wild year started!!!

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Summer 2012

I'm back...again!  Here's to hoping I will do a better job about blogging this school year!
I had a great summer.  I taught a summer program at my school to incoming Kinders the two weeks after school was out so my summer didn't really start until July.  I had about a week and then I went to Liberia, Africa for 9 days.  It was the best trip of my life.  I went with 12 other women from my church.  We went to Ricks Institute and had VBS for children from the school and surrounding villages.  We were able to share the love of Jesus to around 280 children!  We also did two day of teacher training for the teachers there at Ricks.  The school serves K-12.  We provided them with ways to integrate reading into their curriculum and some behavior management ideas.  I am ready to go back.  I am praying about when I will get that chance. 

 

It took me a while to get back adjusted to being home and the time difference!

The week I got back I moved my older sister to Nashville, Tennessee.  She is working as a school counselor in the area.  I am sad that is she not 45 minutes away anymore. 

The next week I enjoyed a week with my twin at the beach and then I had to help her move to a new town about an hour away. All these changes have been hard, but I am excited for both of their new beginnings!

My boyfriend worked in Wyoming for the summer so I was a very happy ecstatic girl to pick him up from the airport and have the last three weeks of summer with him.

I have read several great books this summer and enjoyed lots of afternoons by my aunt’s pool.

As much as I am sad to see the summer over, now that tomorrow is the first day of school...I'm ready! So excited about starting this school year!

100th day of school!

Was it really the 100th day of school?  Was it really a full day of school?  I was so confused at the end of the day when I looked up and saw that it was 2:40 and we had not even packed up or cleaned up the classroom!  So sorry to my custodian!!!

We had a blast today celebrating the 100th day of school.  We dressed up like 100 year olds to celebrate the day in style!  I laughed so much at my teammates and all of the kinders at my school!  There was a lot of baby powder, gray beards, canes, and flannel!  I will be making this an annual thing!

I wrote down some fun things we could do 100 times.  I put each idea on a slip of paper inside a balloon, and throughout the day I had a student pop the balloon and we had to do what the paper said!  Some of the things we did were blinking our eyes 100 times, touching our toes 100 times, reading a book about the 100th day of school, counting to 100 by 5's, counting to 100 by 10's, being silent for 100 seconds, and the hardest one of all was doing 100 jumping jacks.  I did the jumping jacks with them...don't know what I was thinking - hard to tell whether I am a 100 year old teacher or 25 year old teacher!  It was fun to watch the students trying to pop the balloons and exciting to see what our next activity was. 

I also hid 100 Hersey kisses around the room.  I wrote the numbers 1-100 and throughout the day we found them.  Once a student found a kiss they matched the number on the bottom of the kiss to the number on our hundreds chart. 

We made a gumball machine with 100 gumballs.  It took FORRREVERRR!  When you are dealing with kindergartners and 100 of anything it is probably going to always take a long time.  Well this did, but they turned out so cute.  The complaining of cutting out all the circles was worth it! 

I had a lot of other fun things to do planned, but we ran out of time!  We might continue to celebrate the 100th day of school a few more days this week! 

I made this fun banner that everyone had to walk through to get in our classroom today.  I was surprised it held up as long as it did!

My favorite question every year on the 100th day of school is, "do we come to school tomorrow?"

For some reason the kinders always think it is the last day of school! 

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surprise birthday!

Today was a student's birthday.  6 is such a special age!  I love when a student has his birthday during the school week.  I like to make a big deal about birthdays.  I give fake birthday spankings!  They think it is so funny because I pretend to spank them, but I do not touch them!  We sing, and I give each of them a giant pixie stick!  They love it!!!

After lunch our birthday boy's dad brought some cupcakes to share with the class.  As our birthday boy walked out the door he asked my assistant if the class could hide, and when he came back in everyone could yell "surprise!"  So of course we did!!!!  We all hid, and when he came in we surprised him and sang happy birthday!  He had the biggest smile on his face! 

Definitely the highlight of my day!!! 

Lost...but not really

You may think I have been lost for about 2 months, but I'm not! I have just been busy. In the past 2 months I have continued to teach 19 kindergarteners, teach a high school youth Bible study, stay sick, celebrate Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years, visit New York City, visit Hilton Head Island, and continue to date my wonderful boyfriend and spend as much time as I could while he was home for Christmas break. Just typing that reminds me of how tired I have continued to be! Life has been fun, and it is about to get even more exciting.

Starting Tuesday I will be taking grad school classes. My classes will be Tuesday and Thursday nights and mainly online. I am excited to start this chapter in my life. I am also a little scared! I am mainly frightened that I am going to not manage my time wisely. You see I am a great procrastinator! It runs in my family! I hope that since that is already worrying me before classes have started that I will not let it happen!

The good news is I finally downloaded an app for Blogger on my phone! Another excuse for not blogging is that I do not get on my computer much anymore because I have my iPhone. I think this app will help me out some! Let's hope.

Hope everyone is excited that I am back!!!
Enjoy the pictures that sum up the past couple of months of my life!

cowboy boots

There was a lot of excitement last week in my classroom. We had been counting down the days until our pumpkin patch field trip for weeks! As the numbers got fewer, the excitement grew!!! Every morning last week I had a student ask if it was Friday yet! I had to remind him how many more days we had. I loved how excited they were!

Thursday when he came in he knew that there was only one more day. We did our usual morning routine and then halfway through the morning he came up and told me he had a secret. This is not unusual for him because he usually has a secret hug or a secret to tell me how much he loves me. This time the secret was a little different.

He asked if I could wear my cowboy boots to the pumpkin patch field trip.

He has a favorite pair of cowboy boots that are Buzz and Woody. They also have "Andy" written on the bottom of one of the shoes!

I thought for a second (mainly thinking if it would match my outfit already planned) and then answered by telling him I would try!

So not to disappoint my kinder I wore my boots Friday morning. Of course he came in wearing his boots (and his handcuffs)!

We had to take a matching picture!

Our field trip was great as always. My sister joined us this year so we had a great photographer!

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Sesame Street meets Glee!

My sister shared this with me today. 

Thank you Sesame Street for clearing up the correct way to make the G sound!

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"the" talk

Well...I had to have "the" talk with my students today! 

Love is in the air in Ms. Brown's class! 

On the playground today a kinder was pouting big time.  He had his little arms crossed and his bottom lip sticking out as far as he could!  So I called him over to me to find out what was so tragic in his life!  He said VERY tragically, "MY GIRLFRIEND BROKE UP WITH ME!"  They had been boyfriend and girlfriend for about a week.  I don't know why they broke up, but apparently it was not pretty, and it was not mutual!  I told him not to worry about having a girlfriend because they are trouble and now is not the time to worry about having a girlfriend.

There has been a lot of hand holding, arms around one another, and boyfriend/girlfriend talk!  This afternoon we were dancing and getting the wiggles out when I noticed 4 different "couples" hold hands!!! 
I started thinking..."WHAT IN THE WORLD?!?!?"

This was happening in centers the other day!

While it is pretty comical I thought this needs to be addressed before it gets too out of hand!  So we talked about being friends with everyone and that it was okay for you to think a friend in our class was pretty or cute.  We talked about that while it is okay to sit with beside their friend, holding their hand or putting their arm around one another is not!

I told them that they were way too young to be boyfriend and girlfriend.  I don't know how this gets started every year, but I guess there is something sweet and special about new friends at school!

around my room 2011-2012 edition

I have a new addiction...pintrest!  I found some great ideas this summer that got me really excited about decorating my classroom.  If you have not checked out pintrest you might want to!  Lots of great recipes, decorating tips, and ideas for everything!

I think it is important for your classroom to be comfortable and inviting.  I mean we spend so much time in there.  Even as a teacher I am in my classroom a lot more than my room at home!  I want it to be a place that I love!  I am beginning to feel that way about my room this year. 

First thing I found that I wanted to make were banners hanging down from the ceiling.  I went to a local fabric store and found cute Dr. Seuss fabric to match my room and got to sewing! 

 The cute fabric I chose to use.

 I cut the fabric into triangles and then sewed the two pieces together. 

 I then pinned the triangles into folded bias tape.

Last step was to sew the triangles and bias tape.

Very simple and it did not take me long at all.  These are very popular right now at weddings and showers.  I plan on sewing some more soon!

I also made some tissue paper pom poms to hang from the ceiling as well.

My boyfriend did an excellent job hanging it all up for me! I love the way it all turned out!

As you walk in the door, there is my book shelf.  I have personal favorite books and baskets from Highlights to keep stamps, stickers, and other teacher items in.  I also keep my Homework Folders on this bookshelf because it is right beside the cubbies so that the students don't have to move far when they unpack in the morning.

I have some important times on the wall by the clock because kinders always want to know what time lunch is and what time they go home.  This year I am hoping to help them be able to read a clock better and recognize the times better.

This is our behavior chart.  It is really similar to my behavior chart from last year, but I thought I would add a little more to it after reading this great resource, http://www.newmanagement.com/ebooks/clip_chart.html

It is a great way to be positive and remind students of their choices.  By starting at green it gives every child a chance to do his/her best.  Read the eBook.  You will not be disappointed!

I love the tennis balls on my chairs.  I regret not having them last year.  Such a wonderful investment!!

This is my teacher table.  I am going to use this table for centers, intervention time, and just a place for me to work.  I enjoy having this big space.  I bought the basket at Target.  It was for picnics but I thought it was a perfect size for notepads, pens, and markers. 

Now my favorite space in my room....

 

(You can see part of my magic carpet!  I love it!)

I let my students read in my rocking chair or in the bathtub, but only one at a time.  My favorite teacher, who inspired me to be a teacher, had a bathtub in her classroom.  I had to have one myself.  My parents bought it for me from Craig's List and I painted it.  The students are always in awe of it!

So here is my updated room!  I am excited about all that is in store for this school year!

Let's Go!!!

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school starts tomorrow!!!

Ahhh!  School starts tomorrow!  I remember how I felt the night before school started last year.  I was nervous and anxious.  I do not really feel that way this year.  I am more excited and anxious!  I am glad I know this year what to expect...if you really can predict Kindergarten, and I am so excited!  I have worked a lot in my room these past few days.  Special thanks to my parents, assistant, and boyfriend!  They have been a huge help!  I have changed a lot in my room, and I think that every teacher needs some new change to help get excited about the year.  At the end of last school year I made a wish list and included a classroom rug and a new bookshelf.  My principal bought both for me!  I was super excited to put those in my room.  I also had my desk removed.  I love having the extra space.  The new bookshelf now is home to cute baskets filled with my stuff and of course lots of books.  My new reading center is so cozy, and I can't wait to start reading to my kinders tomorrow! ( I will post some pictures of my room soon!)

"Meet the Teacher" was Monday afternoon.  It was great to put a face with a name.  I was so excited to meet the parents and the students.  I have a feeling it is going to be another awesome year!  I had some former students come back and give me big hugs.  It was such a great feeling for them to want to come see me.  I even got a seashell from one student! 

Tomorrow I have half of my class and then Friday the other half come.  I am ready to get this year started.  I can't wait to spend the day with my new students. 

Our school theme this year is Reach for the Stars.  Kindergarten put our own little spin on it.  We are doing Kindergarten Rocks/Kindergarten Rock Stars.  Here is the board outside my room!  I think it is pretty funny.  My assistant thinks I am crazy.  I am okay with that!

Here is to an awesome year in Kindergarten!  I know that each child is in my room for a reason.  I am excited to teach them and to love them!