A Little Walk Down Memory Lane and a FREEBIE

Well as you can see, it's been awhile since I've been active on this little blog. Each time I get really ambitious and plan to share something amazing, life gets in the way. :)

I had extremely high hopes of continuing to blog last year and was VERY surprised to find out I was pregnant again. So now I've got to littles 2 and under and am back in the classroom doing what I love. 

 

I realized after taking a break, that I've never really explained the meaning behind my blog name. I thought since I was jumping back on after all of this time, it was a good segway into all the sharing I'm planning to do soon.

STEPPIN' UP TO FIRST GRADE....

Well back in 2010 (I KNOW, I can't believe it was really that long ago!!), I was a new teacher, eager to learn and implement as many good ideas as I could get my hands on. I became obsessed with Cara Carrol at the First Grade Parade and Abby Mullens from the Inspired Apple. 
I loved how they made learning fun, challenging and most of all I was so inspired by their passion and excellent teacher resources. I aspired to be just like them. So, I decided to start this little blog to document my teaching journey and capture the snapshots of successful learning moments. 

As I was thinking about the name and racking my brain to come up with something original, an event that we participated in at our school kept coming to mind.

Each year, our school would do "Step Up Day." This was a fun way for the students in each grade to step up into the next grade level and "test it out". Since I started out teaching a kinder/first combo, in some ways it always felt like Step Up Day, thus the idea formed and my blog came into fruition. 

Here's a little sneak peak into what "Step Up Day" looks like when preschoolers come "Step Up" into my kinder class.
Since none of the other classes participated in Step Up Day, my current kinders stayed with me and helped buddy up with the preschoolers and set an example for them. It was really sweet to see them trying so hard to do a good job. *We always do "Step Up Day" during our spring semester when my kinders have matured and can do a good job helping. :)

Depending on the amount of time we have and how large the group is, we may start with a brain break to get everyone's wiggles out before we sit still.

Last year, our preschool wanted to send me 20 kiddos {a big group}, so we decided to split our Step Up Day into two mornings. 
The pre-k kiddos joined us for a little more than an hour. 

I decided to read a story, color and trace letters then share a treat at the end of our time. *It's always a good idea with littles to give them something sweet to remember how fun your classroom is, this way they want to keep coming back. ;)

I choose the books "If You Give A Cat A Cupcake" and "If You Give A Dog A Doughnut" by Laura Numeroff, mostly because of how predictable the writing pattern is (which kids always love), but also because I could make treats that matched our theme.

So here is the schedule I followed:

11am- Read Story (after the story ask lots of questions)

11:10am- Model writing a letter C (or letter D for dog)- then explain how they were going to trace their letters on the page I'd provide. 

11:20am-Get everyone settled at the tables working with their buddies. Tell the kinder to help the pre-k kiddos. When they finish tracing their letter C, give them a coloring page to accompany.

11:40am-When things are winding down, have everyone clean up and get ready for a treat. Pass out the cupcakes (or doughnuts) and ask the kids to share with their partner their favorite part of the story. Then ask them to raise their hand and share what their partner said.

11:50am-Start cleaning up and get ready to send the pre-k kiddos back to their classroom. 

 Feel Free To Grab a FREE coloring page HERE

End of the Year & Maternity Leave

Well, the time has finally arrived! It's just about time for me to take my maternity leave and for us to meet our little guy. I think I've been dragging my feet a little since I have been feeling so good and I love my students so much. I didn't want to leave them until I absolutely had to!

My last day is tomorrow and my due date is on Sunday- not sure I'd recommend this or ever do it again, but it seemed to work out well this time around.

There has been so much preparation leading up to this point, I almost don't know what to do with myself now that I'm getting ready to say goodbye to my students and hello to my son!

I wanted to share some of the fun things I have done to wrap up the end of the school year.
#1) Balloon Countdown

Each day we have been popping a balloon the help us stay excited and focused as we gear up for the end of the school year.

This has been an awesome tradition that has made our end of the year routine extra special.

A couple of our favorite highlights thus far include:

Making lemonade

 The students loved learning how to make lemonade from scratch. I let them juice the lemons. Then we added boiling water to make the sugar dissolve and finally added cold water at the end. We popped it in the fridge for a bit and enjoyed it at the end of the day. It was a sweet treat and a fun way to incorporate our science unit (states of matter/molecular movement) into a cooking project.

Paper Airplane Day

We watched this youtube video to give us a refresher on how to make paper airplanes, then we went outside and tested them.

It was fun to see which airplanes flew the farthest.

Solar Smores

We had so much fun with this one! 
I was able to find all the ingredients at the dollar store (one of my favorite places to shop!). 
Before we took the smores outside, we voted on how long it would take for the smores to melt. Turns out the majority of the students were close. The smores didn't fully melt until around 2:45pm. 

The smores in the process of melting...

And the verdict: They were melty and hot and delicious; definitely a HUGE hit!

Book Exchange Day

We teamed up with our 4th/5th grade class and brought in books.
This was a fun way to gear the kids up for summer reading. Hopefully they will devour their new books and read, read, read this summer!

#2 Staff & Student Gifts

Since my hubby is the principal, I agreed to help him put a little gift together to thank our staff for all of their awesome service this year.

If you are interested you can download these from my store:

Teacher Thank You Tags

And these fun goodies, I made for my elementary team. 

I made these goody bags for my tutoring students.

Since I'm also taking maternity leave from tutoring, I wanted to leave them with a little treat until we pick back up later in the summer.

You can download this tag for FREE 

 I filled them with a few fun things to thank my students for all of their hard work!

I found these cute little treat tags on TPT and am planning to have my sub pass them out on the last day of school.

Snag yourself a free copy HERE

#3 Thank you Sub Basket

My sub will be taking over for me starting Monday and I wanted to make sure she feels welcomed and appreciated.

I was fortunate enough to find most of these items in the Target dollar section.

Here are some of the essentials:

-Notepad & pencils

-Chocolates

-Candle

-Tissue

-Hand Sanitizer

- Throat Lozenges, Tic Tacks, Aleive & Chapstick

#4 Surprise Baby Shower!

My coworkers and students surprised me with a sweet shower this afternoon. All the elementary kids made cards (which were so cute and hilarious) and we played baby shower games and ate cake. At the end, they sang the baby a lullaby (twinkle, twinkle). It was absolutely fabulous!

I sure am gonna miss my sweet school community and students, but I feel so grateful for the incredible year we have had and extremely excited for this next big step!

Wordless Wednesday~ Easter Fun!

Linking up with Miss DeCarbo for Wordless Wednesday!

What are you doing to celebrate Easter with your kiddos?

I am really looking forward to our little celebration. 

Tomorrow we will be doing an egg hunt, doing a fun little creativity and then at the end of the day I'm gonna pass out treats with these tags:

Feel free to download a copy HERE

What are some fun traditions you like to do with your kiddos for Easter?

December Currently and a FREEBIE!

It's that time again! I'm linking up with Farley over at Oh Boy 4th Grade for the December Currently.

Here's what's going on currently in my world:

~Listening to~
Disney's animated A Christmas Carol I've got a confession for ya: I actually love watching kids movies! When I'm home alone, I usually browse by Fox Family to see if there is anything worth watching, and for the months of October and December I am one happy camper since they show 31 Halloween movies and now they are celebrating 25 days until Christmas with Christmas movies GALORE! I'm in heaven.  I also love A Christmas Carol (animated version) because I know two people who actually worked on that movie! Two of my co-workers have husbands who work in the movie industry. It's cool to know the person behind all of those special effects- I think it makes the movie more interesting :)
~Loving~
Dressember
Recently I learned about this amazing movement. The challenge is to wear a dress for all 31 days in December to raise awareness and funding to help fight human trafficking and violence against women.  I feel like it is something little that I can do during the holiday season to try and make a difference and be a voice for the voiceless victims. 
Here's how my challenge is going so far:

< Day 1     Day 2>

< Day 3    


                       Day 4>

If you are interested in learning more about the Dressember movement feel free to read about it HERE

And if you want to join the movement or do something incredible this December feel free to check out my page HERE

~Thinking~

All about Elf on the Shelf!

Our elf has been up to some funny things this week. I'm trying to brainstorm some fun things to surprise my kids with for the next 2 weeks. 

~Wanting~

To pig out on Christmas cookies. I got invited to a holiday cookie party tonight. I'm required to bring 72 cookies to exchange at the party.

Let me just say- it's taking ALL the self control I have to not eat my cookies before bringing them to the party! AHHH! So tempting!

It's a fun tradition that started 4 years ago. 

I love the idea of bringing 6 dozen cookies to the party and exchanging what I baked with everyone for a dozen of each of their cookies.

That way all of my holiday baking gets done in one night- and I don't have to mess up my kitchen! HA!

I'm looking forward to sampling all the tasty holiday treats tonight!

Oh and in case you're wondering what I decided to make:

Lemon Squares

If you are interested in making them here's the recipe:

Lemon Squares

Ingredients:

1 C butter (2 sticks)

2 C flour

1/2 C powdered sugar

4 eggs

7 TB. lemon juice

2 C white sugar

1/4 C flour

1 tsp. baking powder

Icing:

2 C powdered sugar

3 TB butter

3 TB lemon juice

Directions:

Mix the first 3 ingredients to a cornmeal consistency and pat into a 9"x13" pan.

Bake at 350 degrees for 20 min. Put the next 5 ingredients in a blender. Blend well.

Pour over warm crust and bake for 25 min. 

When crust cools, glaze with Icing.

To make icing, blend powdered sugar, butter and lemon juice. Spread on cake and let cool. Cut into small squares.

Enjoy! :)

~Needing~

To seriously finish up some TPT units I've been working on for awhile now! It may not happen until Christmas break when I've got a good chunk of time and some serious caffeine in my hands! :)

~Giving~

And lastly, I'll be giving away a little FREEBIE!!

This year for Christmas our elementary students will be performing for their families. Each class was responsible to prepare and present something and I thought it would be fun to teach my students a poem.

Since I could not, for the life of me, find a Christmas poem to teach them, I decided to just go ahead and make one.

It's not a masterpiece by any means, but if you're in a pinch and need something cute for your kiddos to share- it'll do just fine.

Feel free to download yourself  a FREE copy. Just click on the link below:

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Christmas-Poem-1596845

And to help you all get in the holiday spirit I thought I'd leave you with a little something fun!

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Five For Friday!!! Thanksgiving FREEBIE

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

http://doodlebugsteaching.blogspot.com

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!