steppin' up to first grade: October 2013

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!

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.