Five for Friday (Saturday Edition)

Ahh, November.  My favorite month may have come and gone, but I love what November brings.  Holidays, family time, fun classroom experiences...  Great stuff.

I'm linking up with Kacey from Doodlebugs Teaching for Five for Friday.  

The fact that it's Saturday pretty much sums up how this month went:  Busy, busy, busy.  

Did I say busy?  Field trips with my classroom and my daughter's classroom (my son is in my classroom, so I guess he had a field trip, too), a quick trip to Disney World (Best. Week. Ever.), Parent/Teacher Conferences, our school's Fall Festival (I'm PTO president this year, which is a full time job in and of itself), my daughter's Fall Festival, both babies having the sickies... Not to mention the day to day responsibilities of being a wife, mom, teacher, friend...  I loved October, but November is a welcome sight.

Anyway, let's get onto this week, shall we?

This week was all about spiders, bats, and owls!  I'm not big on the scary aspect of Halloween, but I think there are so many academic "scary things" that can be tied into the week to make it full of fun and learning.  

On Monday, we focused on spiders.  That topic could be an entire weeklong unit, but we crammed as much as we could into the day.  We used the fabulous Deanna Jump's Spider Unit for many of our activities.  We also used Krea Hill's All Tangled Up! activity pack for this awesome project we did Monday afternoon.

The kids were given yarn, tape, and a chair, and had to use what we learned about spider webs to create one of their own.  You can see that some turned out amazing!  

The rest of the week was devoted to bats and owls.  These activities are some of my favorites of the year.  We get so deep into science, and I LOVE IT!  Here is a glimpse at our hallway display.

We also dissected owl pellets yesterday.  I always get our pellets from the local raptor center, so they are free, which is awesome.  

The kids are so funny when we dissect owl pellets.  By the time we do them, they know it's owl barf, and I always have one or two who refuse to touch them.  However, this year, all of the kids at least attempted to go through their little chunk of owl regurgitation. :)

I posted this sweet picture on my Facebook and Instagram on Thursday after being particularly frustrated with our math series' math lesson.  To put it nicely, it was horrible.  There are so many more engaging ways to teach these concepts.  So, what did this little trouble maker (me) do?  We threw out the math lesson, grabbed some ten frames and Halloween erasers, and went to town teaching two fewer.  The kids did GREAT.  I think they really got it.  They weren't getting it with what our math series was doing.  

November means Thanksgiving!  Do you still need resources to make your classroom a fun, engaging environment during the holiday season?  Look no further than to my Thanksgiving unit!

Click the picture to check it out for yourself!

It's 20% off until Monday!  Enjoy!

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!