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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pumpkin art

When I was in college I did an internship in a 2nd grade classroom.  I loved the teachers I worked with and they were very encouraging and taught me a lot!  The assistant did great crafts with the students and I love crafts so we loved working together! 

We made pumpkins to decorate our door the other week and they turned out very cute!
These are things you can make with any grade level. 
Every child painted a sheet of aluminium foil with orange paint and before it dried we sprinkled some glitter.  I cut out a pumpkin on orange construction paper or poster board.  After the sheets were dry (the next day) the student tear the sheets into little squares. (this helps build fine motor skills for my little ones)  Then glue each piece to the pumpkin.  I painted one sheet brown and then let students tear a square and glue it to the pumpkin for the pumpkin stem. 
They look very good on our door.  There are a lot of different things you can make doing this same thing.  While I was doing the internship we did the same thing with apples and christmas trees.  I did this also while student teaching and we made suns! 
They really look pretty in person and can be a fun and easy craft for your students!

pumpkin patch field trip

Last week we studied the letter P.  There are a lot of things you can do with the letter P but we had a short week because we had a teacher workday Monday and then Friday we had a field trip planned!  I did a unit study on pumpkins and so I was excited to kill two birds with one stone!  I was able to integrate phonics, social studies, and science all together!!!! 
Our field trip was great!  I had a great group of parents go and help!  I am so excited to have a great group of such supportive parents.  This was my first real field trip!  I had gone on one while I was student teaching but I was not responsible for 21 students!  We ordered Kindergarten rocks shirts and I ordered a bright yellow color which was so smart of me because I could pick out my students anywhere!!!  I felt good about the trip and no one got lost or hurt!   
We went to a pumpkin patch in a neighboring city.  My students were excited about riding the bus first of all!  They did great sitting and behaving!  When we got to the pumpkin patch we were able to play and explore the learning centers they had.  They had a maze, hay bails to climb on and jump off, awesome slides!  I had so much fun playing with my students and watching and laughing with them.  I did everything the students did!  After we had lunch we had a story and learned about the life cycle of a pumpkin. 
My sister is a guidance counselor in another county and she was at the same pumpkin patch with a class from her school so I got to see her!  She was also able to meet a couple of my students who I talk about a lot!  When we were getting ready to get on our hayride she was walking with some students and I told one of my girls that the girl walking the other way was my sister.  She didn't believe me and so she told me to call her name.  I yelled real loud my sisters name and we waved real big.  She couldn't believe that I really knew the girl and she was my sister!  She just looked at me shocked! 
Then what they had been waiting on for weeks...the hayride and picking pumpkins!  We rode the hayride around the grounds and sang songs!  We were then able to go in the pumpkin patch and get pumpkins.  I thought it was really neat to see the different sizes and how they grew on the vines.  I was also excited to see the pumpkin flowers....that was something I learned while teaching my students about pumpkins!  We were all a little bummed about not being able to find BIG pumpkins!  Everyone was excited to find their perfect pumpkin and show me! 
Our ride home was fun because almost all of my students fell asleep!  They were sooo cute!  I enjoyed taking pictures of them to include in our slide show at the end of the year!  When we got back to school we enjoyed frozen pumpkin bars I made and popcorn another student brought for show and tell.  The pumpkin bars were a great treat because it was really hot!  They were very easy to make:
1 jar of pumpkin pie mix
1 container of cool whip
Package of graham crackers
Mix pumpkin pie mix and cool whip together and then put scoop on graham cracker and freeze over night.  Keep frozen until ready to eat! 

I wished I could post pictures of my students because they were so cute on the trip!  Here are a couple from the trip without students (at least their faces)!

Story time!

Hayride!

Picking our our pumpkins!  Told you the yellow shirts were great!!!

Pumpkin flower!