Five for Friday May 15

I am linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday. Thank you for hosting, Kacey! 

Here is an update to my Trouper post a while ago.  

My class absolutely fell in love with Trouper and his story.  Each of my students wrote a letter to Miss Dot thanking her for all that she had done for Trouper and asking her questions they had.

Sweet, sweet Miss Dot wrote a hand written letter back to each of my students.  They were THRILLED!  

First of all, they could not get past the raccoon footprints all over the envelope that meant that Trouper, himself, had seen their letters and helped get this package together.

They read and reread the letters, then shared them with their friends. 

Next, my sweet mother (who introduced us to Trouper in the first place) had a surprise for the kids! She had the restaurant down the street (Gigi's Place) make raccoon cookies!  They were a HUGE HIT!

 

If you're looking for a fun lesson this time of year, Trouper is it!   I also posted other books I love to use to talk about being kind to animals. We made some posters to hang up around the school to remind everyone to be kind to animals.

I love Whimsy Workshop's Directed Drawing and Writing Prompts!  The packet has such a variety of activities that I use some for morning work and some for our writing lessons.  The children just love them because they feel successful and proud!  Susanna has some prompts that are just for practicing drawing. Some with speech bubbles to fill in ( a favorite!). And others with different amounts of space for writing.  This is  great because for morning work, the speech bubbles or one to two sentences of writing is perfect.  For our writing time, I used more lines for writing. 

I put some of the sea creature activities together to make a packet for writing last week.  Each day we read books about the sea animal that we were going to draw and write about first, so the children had some great ides to include in their writing.  Some books were nonfiction and others were fiction.

I may have mentioned this book before, but I am mentioning it again because if you don't have it, you will want to get it.  My kids ask for it EVERY DAY!  In fact, I was out for screening one day, and the kids begged the substitute to read it.  She said she never pays full price for a book, but went right home and ordered it. My friend Leslie who teaches across the hall from me asked her daughter to get it for her for her birthday! It's a good one!

 It's just magical for the kids.  And what a great way to let them see the power of written words!

Here are some pictures from the book.

Here is a video of B.J. Novak reading some of the book so you can get an idea-

My sweet friend Holly teaches second grade next to me.  She had her students choose their favorite body part and write about why it was their favorite.  I loved the idea and wanted to share it with you.  They came out so great!  It was amazing because they were all different. Even if a couple students chose the same part, their reason for choosing it was different.  

                                                 

Finally... this is reminiscent of my brush with sadness when my Celebrity Match was Boris Becker and then Michael Keaton....  That was so sad it was actually hilarious. 

So, this time I thought I'd torture myself with the internet telling me what my name should be. 

My neck is named Caroline which is OH SO CLOSE- but my head is... Zack.

Ashley is cute. I decided to stop  with that one and stop trying pictures.

HAPPY HAPPY WEEKEND!

Five for Friday and Funny Kid Friday!

Time for another Five for Friday with Doodle Bugs and Funny Kid Friday with Kid People Classroom!

I had a fun week- with not toooo much "schooly" in it, but I did find some things that I really liked, so I thought I would share those.

I have loved reading all about the I Teach K convention, and seeing all the wonderful, happy pictures. I am so proud of so many of my friends for their accomplishments and acknowledgments!

My wonderful friend Sandy, from Kinder-Gardening has been making theee most fabulous aprons to use in the classroom, and they sold out right away at the conference!  YOU GO SANDY!  They are just amazing for teaching- and the kids LOVE them!  They are useful for everything- making sight words, sentences, number sentences, ordering numbers... I LOVE mine! You can get one at Sandy's TPT Store!

Dan Colquhoun (Rockin Dan Teaching Man ) had his songs highlighted at different presentations because they are AWESOME!  The kids have so much fun learning with them. I am so excited that even more people are going to be using them. The link will take you to his Youtube channel!

My sweet Susanna's graphics (Whimsy Workshop) were used all over the place at presentations- and of course they were.


They are also AWESOME.  I use her products in my classroom all.the.time. I am thrilled for her work to be recognized even more!

I am SO glad everyone had such a great time.  I had a wonderful week, too.

First of all, my sweet, sweet friends Amy and Holly took me away for my birthday.

When we went to get Holly, she had taken the shirt I gave her from school that I kept as an extra- and fashioned it into her travel shirt. It says, "Trust me. I'm a doctor."   I knew we were off to a great start...

They planned such a fun secret get-a-way, and we had so many laughs and so much fun!  AND a facial.
For a minute, I was really excited scared because our hotel was RIGHT NEXT to a plastic surgery office.  I didn't know what they had planned...
Here was our spa- ahhhhh.

Before the facial... aka no make-up.

None of us had ever had one... so 50 was the year for me to have one, don't you think?

We ate

 and ate

 and ate

great food.  We saw an Arthur Treacher's- but were too full of fancy food to eat there. I haven't seen one of them in YEARS and had such great memories of going there with my mom and sister when I was younger.  Maybe they are all over and I am just missing out.

We saw Tammy.  Oh my gosh.  Tammy!

 We shopped, shopped a little more, ate a little more.

We talked and talked and talked, and talked some more- with lots of laughs sprinkled in all along the way.

We were trying to get lucky.  That is how crazy we got in that department. Holly got us scratch off cards!

We are all refreshed and ready for another year of school.  AND the facial people realllllly want to see us back in 6 weeks, so- you know- it's sort of like a required doctor appointment, I am thinking.
Probably not- but still- I am not waiting another 50 years! What a blessing to have such perfect friends.

Our last night out the back window

Since I came home all refreshed and renewed... I found some new words to live by for my new year.

I found Marc and Angel Hack Life, and spent all morning there.  I love reading lists of do's and don'ts- I just do- so I did, nodding my head all the while I was reading. I am such a list person- these were great for me.  Here are some of my favorites.

The first list I read was 10 Habits You Must Quit to be HAPPY. Luckily I don't do some of these, but these were my favorites.

Quit procrastinating your goals. 

Some people dream of success while others wake up and work hard at it.  Action and change are often resisted when they’re needed most.  Get a hold of yourself and have discipline.  Putting something off instantly makes it harder and scarier.  What we don’t start today won’t be finished by tomorrow.  And there’s nothing more stressful than the perpetual lingering of an unfinished task.

The secret to getting ahead is simply getting started.  Starting, all by itself, is usually sufficient to build enough momentum to keep the ball rolling.  So forget about the finish line and just concentrate on taking your first step.  Say to yourself, “I choose to start this task with a small, imperfect step.”  All those small steps will add up and you’ll actually get to see changes fairly quickly.  Read Getting Things Done.

So- I started my 10 Minute to Toned Arms.  I realized that "pinning" something doesn't make it happen.

(PS- that's not me. haha...yet... well, never, but whatever.)

Quit trying to be someone you're not. 

One of the greatest challenges in life is being yourself in a world that’s trying to make you like everyone else.  Someone will always be prettier, someone will always be smarter, someone will always be younger, but they will never be you.  Don’t change so people will like you.  Be yourself and the right people will love you, and you’ll love yourself more too.  The Road Less Traveled.

(Oops- It sort of sounded like I wanted to be her in the picture above.  Well, sort of with the arms. )
                                                                                  
Next- I LOVED this whole list-  16 Things You Shouldn't Have to Justify to Anyone. It's just good to read and remember.
Don’t change so someone will like you.  Be yourself and the right ones will love the real you.

I loved this entire list, too-  30 Challenges for 30 Days.  I started to pick favorites but there were too many.  OF COURSE the entire list is overwhelming, but I could pick a few to concentrate on.

And finally, I loved reading 10 Choices You Will Regret in 10 Years.  Again, these were great to read through and think about so you don't have any regrets that you can avoid.

                                   

And- on that note, I sort of loved this saying- WOW.  True.

                                   

                           

Now... for Funny Kid Friday!
                                                          
This is a quick one that reminded me of last week's story.

One morning during our story on the rug, a little boy in the book we were reading didn't hear his mother calling him.  My little girl sitting right in front of me said so sincerely, "Oh I HATE that when my ears go blind!"

Another time, I had these balancing birds (which I have had forever) out for the class with our science center.

When one of my little guys from my class last year stopped by to see me in the morning, he said, "OH I remember those! I love those! We don't have anything fun like that in our room this year. We only have iPads instead." 

So... take that, Technology!  

Have a wonderful weekend!