Harvest is in Full Swing and Thanksgiving is almost here!! Yippee!

We had a wonderful Monday in my K/1 classroom. I've really been enjoying a Thanksgiving unit I picked up on TPT created by Kristen Smith. It has wonderful resources including two great printable books about the Wampanoag Indians and the Pilgrims.

You can find Kristen's unit at her TPT store:

All About Thanksgiving Unit

 Our Indian corn and tissue paper pumpkins! (They made the pumpkins and paint dot corns in art class)

 Our Pilgrim quilts :) We didn't have fabric so I just cut up paper squares and had them glue them in different patterns.

 Look at how our pumpkin seeds have grown!! We can't wait to take them home tomorrow!

This is included in the Thanksgiving Unit. It was a fun way to show students a visual representation of our class findings. We all voted "YES" that we loved crockpot pumpkin bread! It was so tasty!


Last week we made an Indian corn tissue paper craft and feather headbands (also found in Kristen's unit) and today we made crockpot pumpkin bread and pilgrim quilts. All of these activities were a blast!
After all of our studying and crafting and learning about the first Thanksgiving, I can say I CAN NOT WAIT for Thanksgiving to get here next week.

On another note, has anyone ever tried cooking a whole chicken in a crockpot?
I did it yesterday for the first time and I all I have to say is WOW! What an amazing discovery I just made.
It was awesome! I prepped my chicken (rubbed it with spices, salt, pepper, etc.) then stuck it in the crockpot (I forgot to add any extra stuff like water or onions) and cooked it on low for 8+ hours.
When we got home, I peeked inside the crockpot and when I poked the meat, it fell completely off the bone. BEST MEAL EVER… Not to mention, cooking a whole chicken will provide meat for several meals, so I am all set and prepped for the rest of the week. Thank you Jesus!
It wasn't super fancy, just tried and true- Here is the recipe I used to make my chicken:

Crockpot Roast Chicken

If I don't happen to post again before Thanksgiving, I hope you have a wonderful holiday with all the people you love!

Happy Fall and Happy Halloween Everyone!! I've got a fun fall FREEBIE for ya as well as a little blurb about our crazy week in K/1.

This week was a short one for us and I can't complain about how nice the timing worked out :)
 (no crazy kiddos here at school on a sugar high).

We had a 2 and half day week!!! Thats right, only two days and yesterday was a half day. We have parent teacher conferences today and tomorrow so instead of dealing with sugar crazed kids, we get to meet with their parents and the kids get to work off their sugar highs at home.

Unfortunately I don't get to be home tonight to pass out candy for our trick or treaters, but I'm sure my husband will be up for the challenge. I was really looking forward to it since it would be our first halloween in our new home, but alas, work trumps holiday activities.

Here is a little peek into our classroom and what we did during our super short week.

On Monday we made pumpkin pie from scratch. (which I am now kicking myself for not taking pictures!!)

We also made these super cute crazy pumpkins. I found the idea on pinterest. When I tried to look up the link so I could cite the source it directed me to website with recipes and no trace of the picture so this is the best I can do.
 Here is the link if you want to see the original idea. Crazy Pumpkin Faces!

Here are some of our really cute pumpkin faces:

     The pumpkin on the far left is supposed to have braces! (I thought it was hilarious!)

  The pumpkin on top is supposed to have a big black mustache (so stinking cute!)

We also managed to plant our own little pumpkin patch in our classroom which turned out so so cute!

(I found this sign in a free unit all about pumpkins thats on TPT, I loved all the resources in it!)

            I'm really hoping to keep these seeds alive and growing until they sprout so I can send them home with the kids. I confess I don't have the best track record of keeping things alive (plants and pets) so this is a major test to see if I can it!
If any of you have any suggestions on how to keep these seeds alive, please feel free to comment! I will welcome your advice and feedback!

And last but not least, here is the fall freebie I promised: 

Fun Fall Writing Activities Freebies

This is the first mini unit I've ever created and needed to make a freebie before I could start creating larger units.

And so without further ado-- Happy Halloween, my fellow teaching community!

So Many Updates!

 


 Well my life has been very busy and full of exciting things since the last time I posted anything on this little blog. I admit I am embarrassed I haven't posted anything on here since 2012!!! 
But alas, its a new school year and I'm working on setting new goals, so this is my latest attempt at growing as an educator and documenting the learning process as I go along. 

    I thought it might be a good idea to fill you in on all the exciting things that have been going on in my life, which might also explain why I was so absent in the blogging world.
In the past year and a half, I got engaged, became a homeowner and got married. The long months leading up to the wedding were full of DIY pinterest projects, many (probably too many) Etsy purchases,  countless hours researching wedding and teaching blogs, discovering a new love for teaching and travel and getting settled into a new home.

This past summer, I got married to my best friend (who happens to be my co-worker). I teach kindergarten/first grade at a K-12 private Christian school and my husband teaches 6-12th grade Spanish and Algebra. So I guess you could say between the two of us, we've got all the departments covered. 
  Because our school community is so small and we are close to many of the families, we decided our wedding wouldn't be complete unless we were able to share it with our students so we invited my class (K/1 kiddos) as well as many elementary, middle school and high school students to join us in celebrating!

It was a perfect day!! Here are just a few of many photos. It will definitely be hard to pick our favorites for our wedding album.

We had our reception at the beautiful Cline Cellars in Sonoma, CA.

We had such a crazy, hilarious, wonderful wedding party! 

A pic from our honeymoon in Maui, Hawaii.

That about sums up my life for the past year. Thanks for stopping by and giving my blog some lovin!!

Later this week I will be posting some fun teaching resources so stay tuned and check back in to grab some fabulous freebies!!!