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Five For Friday!!! Thanksgiving FREEBIE



I'm super excited to be joining the blogging community again and linking up for Five for Friday!





Well, what a week! Its been a blast getting ready for Thanksgiving.

Check out all the fun we've had!



Indian Corn and Pilgrim Quilt crafts:

These are both from Kristen Smith's Thanksgiving Unit.
We loved learning all about Wampanoag Indians and Pilgrims this month. I thought these crafts would be a great way to wrap up our unit. I'm absolutely LOVING all of this color!






Persuasive Writing Activitiy: 
No Turkey for Thanksgiving!

I already shared this on my Wordless Wednesday post, but I just had to sneak it in one more time and shout out another big THANK YOU to The Applicious Teacher
I was the lucky winner of this unit last week and it seriously couldn't have come at a better time!






Another activity I managed to squeeze in this week (and when I say squeeze I mean wrapped it up with only 20 minutes before school was over!) was making, tasting and graphing all about crockpot pumpkin bread.
So we started the baking process yesterday around 11:30am. The kids helped me mix in the ingredients and put all that spicy pumpkin deliciousness into the crockpot. And ALAS 3pm rolled around and we still were looking at a brown pile of goop. Not golden brown bread which we were hoping we would find.

*Teacher Confession* 
After the kiddos went home, I stuck the pumpkin bread in our school's oven for about 20 minutes and what do ya know? We finally had bread! So we had to wait until this morning to eat it. 
Normally this wouldn't be a problem, but we had a special school event which made squeezing in any routine classroom activities a challenge.


So here were the results. Overall, I think we got a pretty positive response :)



I thought it would be fun to send my students off for Thanksgiving break with a little something. 

I made these tags and tied them to bags with pumpkin play dough.




 Let's just say  they were a hit!

And then, I thought it might be fun to also use the gift tags to show my coworkers some love. I gotta say, I seriously have the best coworkers. I can't emphasize how grateful I am to work with amazing teachers and friends! They inspire me.
So this was just a fun little way to let them know.


 If you like my tags you can download them for FREE. Click HERE!!!!



And finally, one of the highlights of our school year… Our school's Thanksgiving Feast.

Every year my entire school (K-12) gathers together to take time to share a feast and share in our thankfulness for the community that we are apart of. 
This is the only school I know of that does this, but I've got to say I think this tradition is one of the things that makes my school such a special place.

Take a look:

We have two long tables that seat all the students and staff. We also pair young students with older students, so the little guys have a "buddy" to help them get their food, carry it back to the table and help them with anything they need.
I always love watching my kindergarten/first graders interact with high schoolers. The older students are always so helpful and seem to love getting to interact with the little guys, I mean after all how can you not be charmed by those little smiles- Ta Die For! 
Am I right?






And lastly I'd like to leave you with this fun one:

One of my kiddos came to school dressed like a pilgrim (they could dress up for our feast) and we realized we looked a little bit like twins. Too cute!

Well, I think that's a wrap folks! 

I'm signing off for the next week. We are heading to the land of frozen tundra (the midwest) for a family Thanksgiving and cousin's wedding. 
 Wishing you a very very Happy Thanksgiving!

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Wordless Wednesday~Turkey Crafts



I'm linking up again for Wordless Wednesday


This week I had an exciting thing happen to me.
 One of the teachers I follow on Facebook was doing a giveaway and encouraged all her followers to like her page, comment on the product and tag a friend. I have done this so many times with other giveaways, in hopes that I would be a winner. 

Well, what do ya know- winner winner chicken dinner- I FINALLY WON something! I was so surprised and ecstatic! I mean seriously I felt like I won the lottery. I know that's a bit dramatic, but it's a really good feeling especially when you aren't expecting to win anything.

So I actually won two units. The first one is pictured below and the second one will be featured in my five for Friday post.

The units were created by The Appleicious Teacher
and all I can do is rave about them! 

They were seriously a godsend and I found it so easy to work them into my lesson plans this week.

The pictures below show examples from this amazing unit: 





Students had to write a persuasive essay trying to convince their reader to eat something other than turkey for Thanksgiving. Their arguments were very cute and convincing. I mean come on, who wouldn't want to eat ice cream for Thanksgiving??






So here are my questions for you:

1. What kind of fun crafts do you do with your students leading up to Thanksgiving?

2. Have you ever won a unit from a Facebook giveaway?

Wishing you a Wonderful Wednesday!
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November Currently


So, all I have to say about posting this currently so late in the game is that it's been a VERY busy 2 weeks (to say the least)!

Well, better late than never don't ya think? :)

So here we go- I'm linking up again with Farley from
Oh Boy 4th Grade to share my November currently.


~Listening~

*This one's a bit personal, but it's really what I'm listening to*
To Joyce Meyer on Youtube. I have to admit, I never considered listening to her until recently, and honestly I don't know what took me so long! I was so challenged and genuinely encouraged to grow and change just from listening to this inspiring woman. 

This particular video was especially convicting:
I think the topic "defeating bad moods" is particularly relevant. 
I used to be a really moody and I thought it was justified, but lately I've started to rethink that concept. This is definitely something I don't want to be characterized by and after watching this, I realized this is something that can change. What a relief!

~Loving~

November Artwork!

 It's been fun getting ready for Thanksgiving with my students. We have been talking about what we are thankful for and let me tell you, I was very thankful for THIS freebie on TPT. Aren't these little turkeys adorable?
I thought this was the perfect template!

Our school's art teacher created these crafts with our 2nd/3rd grade class and 4th/5th grade class.
Aren't they amazing!



~Thinking~
All about Thanksgiving!!
Seriously its getting so close and I can almost taste all that scrumptious comfort food!

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday pretty much because I'm a Major foodie and I can't get enough quality time with my fam. I love that this holiday is all about food and family and I am so excited to celebrate it again in just a few short weeks.

This year, we get to celebrate with even more family and will be traveling to Ohio to celebrate my cousin's wedding and Thanksgiving (all in one amazing week). 

I hear there might be snow :)

Which leads me to what I'm now Wanting:


I'm thinking since I will be traveling to the land of perpetual winter, it might be a good idea to invest in some cute ankle boots :) I may have a shoe obsession, but I think this purchase might be justifiable.

~Needing~

A Vacation- and I'm so happy to say I will be taking one Thanksgiving week! I am beyond excited to see all my cousins and celebrate with them all!

~Reading~


This is one of my all time favorite turkey/Thanksgiving books. Its super cute and funny. I'm looking forward to reading this to my students next week!
You can pick up your copy HERE

With one more week of school (we get Thanksgiving week off! woohoo) I'm am gearing up for our final week before we are on break. I am very thankful for that :)

Have a wonderful weekend!

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Wordless Wednesday- 50th Day of School!!

I'm linking up with Miss DeCarbo again for Wordless Wednesday!


Today was our 50th day of school. What a fun celebration we had!




Every year our elementary (grades K-5) get together to celebrate the 50th day of school.  We've got about 35 kids so we split them up into 4 groups and have each group visit a different station. Every group gets a color coded "necklace" to wear.
After they visit a station, we put a sticker on their necklace to help them keep track of how many stations they've visited.

We used Cara Carroll's 50th Day Mini Unit which you can download HERE!!!

Here are the stations we did this year:
 
Delicious Doubles (adding double numbers) and ABC order word sort

 50 seconds activity where students do an exercise/activity for 50 seconds and count how many times they complete it.

And measuring the circumference and area of the records.

Wordless Wednesday question for all of you:


How do you celebrate the 50th day of school?



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