Scare and Share Blog Hop!

I'll be the first to admit, I am not huge on Halloween.  I don't know what it is... We definitely celebrate the trick or treat tradition with my kiddos (who have not one, but two costumes this year!), but I'm just not that into the scary parts of it.  I know... Lame. :)

Anyway... Some of my Indiana Teacher Friends and I are giving you some major fun this weekend!  You won't want to miss out on this!

First up, a FREEBIE!  My kids love seek and finds... You know, Where's Waldo style?  We've been doing this with sight words forever, but we recently started using these for number recognition.  Some of my sweet little kiddos struggle with number recognition, and these help so much!  Check it out here:

Also this weekend, we will be throwing one of our famous $1 sales!  I have four fantastic resources marked way down so you can enjoy them!  Here's what you can get for next to nothing!

I just love the cuteness of this pack!  It's jam-packed with math and literacy stations perfect for kindergarten!

This is by far my favorite pack.  It has some technology components within it, which makes my heart happy. :)  Plus, who doesn't love pumpkins?!?!

I know I just said this, but this is one of my favorite resources as well.  It's user friendly, and packed with not only fun activities for Thanksgiving, but is also very academic.

I just love teaching our Gingerbread Man unit around Christmas!  These activities would be perfect for your classroom in December!  

Check out what other Indiana Bloggers are selling this weekend:

An InLinkz Link-up

Now, hop on over to my friend Sarah's blog to grab another freebie!

Five for Friday!

This Five for Friday will likely be sort of all over the place and to the point...  All at the same time. :)

It's Fall Break y'all.  I'm not kidding when I say I needed this week.  I always forget how hard the beginning of the year is on a person.  Every year, I say that it's just too much for a person to handle, and every year, right around this time, the light bulbs start going off, and I fall in love all over again.  I'm beyond excited to see what my little kindergarteners accomplish this year.

Anyway... Here ya go!

We have been studying leaves and scarecrows this week, and the kids have been using technology to enhance it all!  Here are a few pictures from the week.

We also learned about adjectives in language arts, so I thought it would be perfect to integrate that skill into our leaf study.  We took pictures of our leaves and uploaded them into PicCollage.  Then, the students chose two adjectives to describe the leaf.  We focused on size and color words, so this guy chose the words "mammoth" and "green".  It just so happens that mammoth was a vocabulary word in reading this week, so you can imagine my excitement when he explained his word choices to me!

We used eBackpack to label scarecrows on Wednesday.  The kids did the work digitally, then submitted it to me to grade.  It's so nice not to have to deal with as many papers, and the kids though it was soooo cool.  eBackpack was purchased by our district, but the app Showbie is very similar.

We took a nature hunt earlier this week as well.  Instead of heading out with clipboards, paper, and pencils, we headed outside with our iPads!  The kids took pictures of specified items (a bird, a bug, sticks, red, orange, and yellow leaves, etc.) and PicCollaged it up.  They were so incredibly engaged, learned some important stuff, and had FUN doing it!

Some Indiana blogging friends and I are hosting a sale this weekend!  Click the link below to check it out!  LOTS of great deals!

Just because I can... I'm ready to spend Fall Break with these two rascals!  We have lots of fun planned... Check back next Friday to see what we were up to!

Currently

My favorite month is here! :)

I'm linking up with Farley for Currently.  Because that's what you do at the beginning of the month. :)

Listenting

Over the summer, we took the plunge and got rid of Dish in every room but our bedroom.  We now have just regular channels in our living room, so we live for syndication.  It's a good thing our all-time favorite shows are all in syndication!  HIMYM is my absolute favorite show ever (even though the finale was a total dagger in my heart).  Rules of Engagement is hilarious, but I can't stand watching Oliver Hudson as mean old Jeff Fordham in Nashville now.  Community was a show I could not stand when it first came out.  Now, my husband and I can't get enough of it!

Loving

Fall is my favorite (only to Christmas). :)  Pumpkin flavored anything (umm...Pumpkin Spice mini muffins, anyone?!?!), sweaters, tall boots, leggings...  It's just the best.  Plus, Fall Break is one short week away.  My family has lots of fun stuff planned for that week.

Thinking

Can I get an Amen?  Fridays are my favorite day of the week.  Remember that song, "It's Friday, Friday, gotta get down on Friday"...  

Wanting

Like most of you, I'm sure teaching has consumed your life from the moment school started until now.  I spend a good chunk of my weekend cleaning my house, but with two young kids with LOTS of toys and big imaginations, it takes no time for it to become a disaster zone.  I don't mind cleaning the house, but in my dreams, I will stay in my pajamas all day Saturday and do nothing but watch Food Network. :)

Needing

Like I said, my family and I have lots of fun planned for Fall Break!  I must start getting things together for it!

Trick or Treat

Treats, of course!  My entire store is 20% off until Monday, including my newest creation!  Check it out!

Peek at Our Week: PBL and Fire Safety

Happy Sunday!  I'm linking up with my favorite, Deedee, to fill you in on what we will be doing in the land of Room 100 this week.

I'm so excited about this week in our kindergarten classrooms.  We are starting our first "real" PBL project!  If you've followed my blog for a while, you know I love using PBL in my classroom.  I dipped my toes in the waters last year, and I am excited to expand on it this year.  In true PBL nature, my students have no idea about our project yet.  We will begin our project on Tuesday, when our resident firefighter (first grade parent and former kindergarten parent) visits our classroom to tell us that our school needs an updated fire escape map.  Our firefighter friend visited our classroom during community helper week, so we already have some background knowledge of fire safety.  Having this information in our schema will help us in organizing our project.

After Mr. Firefighter leaves, we will go right into the organization of our project.  All three classes are working together on this project, so we will be meeting in our large group each day this week.  We will fill out our knows/need to knows/next steps chart, then break into our committees:  Photography (to take pictures of each staff member to place on the map), labeling, and digital production.  While students will get a choice on the committee they will join, their teachers already have an idea of who will go where.  

This is my first time to attempt this project, so I will blog about it post-project.  I'm excited to share it with you!

In addition to our PBL unit, we will also be using a lot of resources from my colleague, Lindsey!  She has created a couple of great resources for this week.  Check them out!

Seriously, adorable.

I'm also excited to be getting all prepped for our pumpkin unit!  Be watching for lots of activities coming your way in the next week or two.

Here are my detailed plans for the week.  Enjoy!

What are you up to this week?  Link up with Deedee to tell us all about it!