School's Out for Summer....at least for us

Yay!! School is out for summer! We are so excited to have some much needed time off! (If you call wrangling your own kids all summer long time off!) Confession: Lisen and I are currently sitting at Panera WITHOUT our kids and LOVING every minute of it! We are brainstorming some really fun beginning of the year activities that we will be creating over the summer, so be on the look out for them in our TpT store soon!! Keep an eye out for some fun freebies to come! Sorry this is so short, but we are excited to get started.
Lisen here...This is also so short because my husband has called 3 times in the last 10 minutes with my one year old twins screaming in the background! Apparently my free time is over and I have to head home to be mommy!!!
Katie here....I am going to use this time to pretend to still be working at Panera and instead be doing some retail therapy (what the hubby doesn't know won't hurt him, right??)

Have a great summer to those of you who are off. For those of you still working, sucks to be you hang in there we are praying for your sanity you can make it!!! (we think we hope).


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Camp Read a Lot & a freebie

Wednesday was our Reading Celebration day and Katie and I had our kiddos celebrate the down time between programs with some Camp Read a Lot fun. As we expected, we ended up with periods of time between all school activities that weren't really conducive to long activities, but needed filled with something semi academic!

We had our kiddos bring in all kinds of things for our "camping" and they were so excited about it. We pretty much let them do whatever they wanted within reason! I had kids make tents with their blankets and read under them with their flashlights. They also were extremely excited about being able to read with thier shoes off! (It's the little things!!) We read by ourselves, with partners, with partners from other classrooms, and listened to books being read on Tumblebooks. It was quite a hit and REALLY easy to plan. Just the kind of activities we like at the end of the year!

Our first grade has done Camp Learned a Lot for at least 15 years and I am in the middle of redoing all of their stuff for them. I get really excited about creating new units and activities and the fact that our first grade teachers are pumped about it makes it even more fun for me!

Here is a little activity that I threw together for our kiddos to work on in one of our 15 minute downtimes!
Click here to grab it!

We only have 3 1/2 days of school!! Woo Hoo!!! How many days do you have left?




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Talent Show, Field Day, and Reading Celebration Day

This is going to be a CRAZY week! Yesterday we had our first and second grade talent show tryouts. These are always a hoot! Any first and second graders who want to try out get to perform in front of their peers, teachers, and of course, parents. You can't even imagine how many amazing jump rope, hula hooping, made up karate, and dance routines we get to enjoy!It is actually one of our favorite things to watch! We of course also sit there watching the cutie patootie first graders and crossing our fingers that we get this one or that one next year. There might also possibly be a few yikes moments as we watch some of the more active little cherubs and decide that we had better start mentally preparing ourselves with an extra dose of patience in case that one is in our class next year! My class had several acts and so did Katie's class. We found out today which acts made it to the "big" talent show, aka the all school talent show. Almost all of our kiddos made it and my class is going to be performing together also. My kiddos love the Good Morning song by Mandisa and got wind that there was a dance routine (zumba) on youtube. I gave in and showed it to them one day during indoor recess. They LOVED it!! I immediately had 20 little darlings begging to learn the dance and perform it in the talent show. Well, when they were that excited I had to give in! We practiced at indoor recess, in the few minutes of downtime before we went home, and some kiddos even practiced at home. I told our music teacher to NOT put us in the big show (I have to stand in front of my kiddos and do the dance too so that they get all the moves right) but she decided that my kiddos were so cute that she had to put them in. Of course they were soooooo happy excited bouncing off the walls thrilled that I had to give in. Even if it means that I will be in front of the whole school and tons of parents doing a dance... Even if what people will be looking at is my rear (not the best view) because I will be facing my kiddos who will be on the stage... Can you tell I am not bouncing off the walls thrilled myself!? But my kiddos are so excited and they are actually all working together and being sweet to each other, so what can you do!? Then today we had field day. Great...Fun... Exciting...Happy kiddos...EXHAUSTED TEACHERS!!!! Our PE teacher switched the format up this year and it was actually much nicer, but we still only got a total of 50 minutes break time and were outside all day with the whole school of children. AND it was really really warm today! Did I mention that I am tired? I just got my girls to sleep and plan on sleeping as soon as this is posted! At least until one of my girls decides they need fed! Tomorrow is reading celebration day and Katie and I sent home notes (last minute plan!) telling our kiddos that we were going to do camp read alot. The kids can bring a sleeping bag, flashlights, stuffed animal, pillow, and snacks and anytime that we are not in a reading assembly or award program we are going to camp out with good books in our classrooms! The kiddos are very excited which is going to make our day easier. It's the little things like this that get us through the last 5 & 1/2 days!!! We hope your last few days of school are going smoothly and that you get to do fun activities and just enjoy your kiddos before summer.
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12 1/2 days, Be kind, & Teacher Appreciation

Hello! I hope you are enjoying your weekend! I know I am loving mine! I got to stay home with my girls on Friday, due to a lack of babysitters! So I started my weekend Thursday night and am absolutely loving that I still have tomorrow off! We were told at our last staff meeting that we should minimize drawing our kiddos attention to the fact that we only have 12 1/2 days left of school. We are not supposed to be doing any kind of countdown at school so that the kiddos don't realize that we only have 12 1/2 days left before summer. We are supposed to do only educational activities for the last 12 1/2 days of school...are you getting my theme here??? WE ONLY HAVE 12 1/2 DAYS UNTIL SCHOOL IS OUT!!!! I always hate those end of year pep talks about learning until the last minute! Of course we are still teaching, but come on, the kids are starting to check out mentally and we have to do some fun things to keep their attention! Is anyone else jumping through hoops to keep their little darlings engaged in some type of learning?? Katie is currently internet-less (hmmm is that a word?) so I am posting about a really neat idea that she did this week. I actually walked in on the tail end of it and ended up standing and watching because I was so enthralled! Then I had to have her tell me what she did so that I could do it in my classroom. Katie said she actually found the original idea on a blog or website, but doesn't remember where. So if you know where this idea started from let us know so that we can give them credit! Katie took the original idea and added to it to make it more personal for her second graders. We have really been having a tough time with helping our kiddos understand that they need to be kind and how hurtful words can be. This idea REALLY hit home with our kids! Katie gave each of her kiddos a piece of blank paper and asked them to draw a picture of someone who was very important on the paper. She didn't tell them why there were drawing the picture, but really stressed that it needed to be someone important to them.

Then she had the class sit in a circle and they went around and said something hurtful. The kids really said some mean things like, you are ugly, no one likes you, you are dumb, etc. Each time someone said something hurtful everyone put a fold in their picture. After they were done they then went around and apologized for what they had said. Each time an apology was said everyone unfolded their picture one fold. When finished they had a picture with a lot of lines in it. Then Katie talked about how words hurt and change you and that even when you apologize you have still changed the person that you hurt. The kiddos looked at their pictures and were able to see that their was no way to make their picture look like it had before the hurtful comments. It was a really powerful visual and I can't wait to do this with my kiddos on Monday. If you are having some kindness issues in your class and decide to try this out we would love to hear how it worked for you!!! TPT is throwing a Teacher Appreciation Sale starting tomorrow and running through the 8th. We are participating and you can get 30% off of our items if you use the code on the banner!!

We have some fun items on there if you get a chance to check it out!!! I know we will be doing some shopping of our own! Here are some of the items we have in our store. End of Year Fun

Graduation Certificates and Awards

Inference Island

Summer is Coming End of Year Math and Literacy Centers

Nate the Great Series Activities

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