It's the most wonderful time of the year! I am so excited to be joining up with Doodle Bugs Teaching and posting my Five for Friday :)
Elf on the Shelf
We've been enjoying some elf on the shelf shenanegans!
We needed some new supplies.
The kids got a kick out of this one!
Elfies
We updated our instagram board and gave it a Christmas twist!
How adorable are these? Am I right?
Elf Craftivity
I picked up the freebie on TPT. It was a wonderful writing activity that my students thoroughly enjoyed. It didn't include a face or arms, and my students were eager to add more expression to their projects, so I allowed them to cut their heads out of colored construction paper and add them to it. I think they turned out pretty cute. This little guy is my favorite- Look a those eyes and the front teeth! Seriously adorable!
Christmas Advent Devotional
This book is so beautifully written. We have been reading it each day during Bible and coloring an ornament to glue on our trees.
The words and story are incredibly moving.
I love how it allows us to take a quiet pause and reflect on the joy and reverence of the season.
Door Decorating Extravaganza
My class and the 4th/5th grade class decided to get into the holiday spirit and make our hall extra festive. I absolutely love how our doors turned out.
Well that's all for now folks. Stay tuned next week, I'll be sharing all about our Christmas heritage projects and reports.
Well, I think it's probably best for me to start by apologizing for taking so long to update all of you on my latest news. There is definitely a good reason I haven't been blogging for the past few months.
Right around the time school started, I received some news that has been pretty darn hard to keep a secret for so long!
I'm going to have a BABY!!
My husband and I are so excited!
It's been so fun sharing it in all different ways with our very large and loving community.
We told our families pretty soon after we found out, but decided to wait a little while before sharing with our school and church communities. This gave me plenty of time to go on pinterest and find some cute ways to break the news.
Here is how we decided to share with our co-workers:
I strategically placed this by the entrance of our staff meeting. You know teachers can't resist deep fried sugar at the end of a long day so it was a pretty safe bet everyone was gonna make a stop by the baked goods before getting settled in for our meeting.
It was so much fun to sit and watch everyones reactions!
A few weeks later I shared the news with my students. I decided to "dress up" for halloween and chose a costume idea that would be slightly hard for them to recognize.
The idea was totally lost on them! Which was kinda funny.
Then to break the news, I had them sit on the carpet and told them we were going to play a game of telephone. I put dashes on the board and left them blank. After I gave the class each word, I wrote it on the board and let them try and decipher the code. It wasn't until the final word (baby) that they started to get really excited!
I was able to film their reactions to the last word and it's pretty cute to see how quickly they figure it out!
*I mention my "unspoken" in the video.
Basically, my class and I have prayer requests that we write on the board and pray for each week. I told my class around the time I found out I was pregnant that I had an unspoken prayer request, which means it's important but to private to share the details. They were really curious what it could be, but I told them we had to wait and keep praying. About a week before I was planning to tell them the news, I mentioned that I would share what my unspoken prayer request was-which actually built the suspense a little bit more.
It was a fun segway into making my announcement.
Finally (after a few more weeks) we decided make it public and put it on Facebook. I waited until we had called family and friends so we could tell them personally.
Here is our announcement:
*My first names Abbie and my husband's name is Brian so I thought this was a fun idea.
It's not my original idea (you can guess where I found it!), but I hadn't seen any of our friend use it so it felt original to me.
We decided to do the photoshoot at an old one room school house (where we took our engagement pics) and I couldn't be happier with how it turned out!
Now that I'm heading into my second trimester (next week), I should be feeling a lot more energy and be able to re-join the blogosphere.
Wow! Can you believe it's been so long since I posted anything?
Sorry to leave you hanging all summer.
I decided to go on a break and fully enjoy my vacation.
Now we are back in business and I am SO EXCITED about this new school year.
Well my first big update is that I no longer teach Kindergarten/First Grade.
This year I am teaching a First, Second and Third Grade class.
Yep, you read that right- 3 grades!!!!
I don't have a very large class this year so it feels like a manageable challenge.
I'm very pumped to link up for Five for Friday! It's been so long, and it feels incredible to link back up with this wonderful online community of educators.
This story was such a huge hit- I can't emphasize enough how much my kiddos loved it. I chose to show the youtube version of the story being read aloud by Arwen Sharp.
Some people have a serious gift for reading children's books aloud with animated expression on tone (I don't feel particularly amazing at this) and this lady is one of the best I've ever heard.
Check out her rendition of this book
After listening to the story, we discussed as a class reasons it took us so long to finally arrive at school…i.e. what we did during summer vacation.
Then we did this cute little follow up craftivity to write about some things we are looking forward to this year. *when you lift the bunny, students' writing is displayed underneath.
This is only 2 parts of an amazing unit I found on TPT created by Linda Kamp. It was the best way to start the new school year and I'm so thankful I stumbled upon it! (the night before school started, which led to me rewriting my whole weeks worth of lesson plans, but it was definitely worth it. My kids were thoroughly engaged in all the mini lessons it provided)
This was another amazing pinterest find! Seriously what did teachers do before pinterest and the internet?? I'm sure glad I can teach with the help of technology.
This FREEBIE was created by A Learning Affair was so much fun!
This activity was a great way to encourage team building and problem solving. In retrospect, I think I should have put the students into teams of four instead of groups of two.
All About Einstein
I always like to kick off science for the year by sharing an inspiring scientist with my students.
Last year I read Meet Einstein and it is one of my favorites, but this year I stumbled upon On A Beam Of Light, and I think it's even better.
It illustrates the way Einstein was different than others, but how that difference set him apart in a wonderful way. It also beautifully describes his life story and accomplishments.
My kids were mesmerized and inspired.
We then drew ourselves as scientists. I encouraged the kids to draw themselves with all the "tools" they might need and the uniform they might want to wear.
They blew me away with their creativity!
*I decided to do a directed drawing to show them what was expected, and let me tell ya- they did not disappoint! :)
Not sure if you can see that little light bulb, but it says "idea"- just way to cute, right?
She created the coolest back to school unit. The activity I implemented this week is called the Friend Wanted activity.
After the students wrote their friendship advertisements, I typed them up and posted them on the bulletin board. As instructed, I covered each student's name with a post it and let the kids read each others ads and try and guess who wrote it.
This was a big hit!
I could keep going, but I'll just save some fun updates for next time. Stay Tunned…. Happy Friday Everyone!
