I am excited to be linking up with Kelley at Teacher Idea Factory in her first linky party!

Not my actual one , but mine is similar.

I just love reading the The Kissing Hand every year!  It is one of my favorite books to start off the year.  I feel like it really helps my Kinders feel better about being away from Mom and Dad.  For some of them, this is really the first time that they have been away from their parents.  I decided I wanted to do something different this coming year so I came up with this cute raccoon.

I am linking up with Kindergarten Lifestyle in a Memorial Day Sale!  Everything in my store will be on sale for 20% off on Sunday and Monday.

On Monday, my husband was trying to get my computer to print on our new printer. {Last week he bought a wireless printer - Yeah!}  He was having some problems with it and we were both getting frustrated.  Finally, we just decided to go to bed and work on it Tuesday.  On Tuesday, I was out shopping and had to call my husband about something.  He told me that he was on the way to my in-laws. {We eat there every Tuesday night. Yes, I like my in-laws. lol}  Anyway, he was a little later than he should have done.  He told me he had just picked up something he bought for me - a new computer. YEAH!!!  My husband said he thought I needed something better to make my items for school and TpT.  How sweet is he?  I love, love, love my new computer!  I'm still in the process of moving everything over to my new computer and learning how to use Microsoft Publisher 2010.  {I've been using 2007.}  My old computer was a netbook and my new one is a laptop.  I love having a bigger size screen and a full size keyboard again.  Love it!

This week has been much better listening wise.  We have had a fun week.  On Monday, we did a mini-unit on The Very Hungry Caterpillar.  We then did our usual day on Tuesday (reading groups and centers, writing, math).  On Wednesday, we watched our school's annual musical.  This year the students preformed Guys and Dolls, Jr.  The music teacher outdid herself this year!  The students did so well!  Today, we went back and did our usual day.  The students are really enjoying our literacy centers this week and have been actively working, even with only 8.5 days left.  The groups that I have been meeting with have been playing my Strike CVC game.  My lower group is still working on blending so for a few students I will say the sounds and they will say the word.  Other groups read the  words themselves.  I am so proud with how well my students are reading!  They have made so much progress this year!

Here is a little freebie I made with my new computer.  I wanted to try out a few things that are new in the 2010 version of Publisher.  The clip art is by Scrappin Doodles.

After a rough week {listening apparently was an option this week lol}, Friday and Saturday brought me many smiles.  Friday was Field Day.  I love watching my students do all of the activities!  It's so much fun to see the students cheer each other on as they do the potato sack race or do the water cup race!  In the afternoon, we had popsicles.  So here begins my smiles.

1.  All of the students wanted us to read the jokes on the popsicle sticks.  Most of them were, let's say, quite lame.  One however made me and my bestie laugh.  I thought I would share it with you and maybe it will give you a laugh too.

I just love a good book fair.  Don't you?  I took my son last night to the book fair at my school.  He likes to check everything out before he commits to anything.  We ended up coming home with 5 new books.  {That's pretty good for me - lol}. This is what Colton {with a little help from Mommy and Daddy} picked out.

Today is Multicultrual Day at my school.  Each pod {group of about 8 classrooms} is given a continent to explore and then each class picks a country from that continent.  In the past, my classes has explored Italy, Brazil, and Ecuador.  The Kindergarten Hall {as we like to call ourselves} was given the continent of North America.  We focused on the United States and Canada.

We talked about the United States flag and the Statue of Liberty.  We made these flag hearts from Teri at A Cupcake for the Teacher.  {We had to modify it a little bit to fit what we had at school.  White construction paper at my school at this time of the year is a prize to be won.  I lost.  lol}  We also made Statue of Liberty pictures based on the directions from Deanna Jump.  I just love how both of the projects came out!  Everyone who saw our projects loved them too!

Ah, summer - so close, yet so far away!  Ok - not that far away.  We have 18 days left this year, but there is so much that needs to get done in those 18 days.

I am joining up with Hadar, April, and Teri in a Summer Bucket List Linky Party.





{1}  I am attending the I Teach K conference here in Las Vegas.  This year I want to make sure I take all of the wonderful ideas and get them ready to use in my classroom.  Last year I attended and had such good intentions.  This year I will use the great ideas!

I hope everyone is having a great Teacher Appreciation Week!  This post is kind of all over the place, but it has a happy ending {at least I hope you think it does}.

The Kinder classes at my school have started to practice the songs for our Kindergarten Program we have at the end of the year.  One of the songs that we are performing is One Small Voice off of Jack Hartmann's CD I've Got Music In Me.  I get chills every time the students sing it.  I just found a video of Jack Hartmann teaching the signs that go with the song.  I am big into signing with children.  My son uses ASL as his main form of communication. {He has autism and is just learning to talk at age 6}  We are going to teach our students the signs and hopefully they will get it in time for the performance. I'm sure they will do great.  They are such smart Kinders!  Here is the video I found of Jack signing to One Small Voice.

I'm so excited that I can share my recipe form I used with my class. The cute border is from Scrappin Doodles.  {Please let me know if it downloads for you - I'm still kind of new to all of this. lol}



Have you had a good Teacher Appreciation Week so far?  I know that I have.  On Monday, students brought in notes and pictures for us.  I love all the drawings that my students make for me - so cute!  The PTA had Tropical Smoothies and cute notepads for us.  Today, students brought in some of my favs.  Such great families! {Our PTA had us fill out a form.  My bestie and I were a little embarrassed when it got sent home, but the PTA assured us that parents wanted to see them.}  The PTA brought around a healthy snack cart filled with granola bars, yogurt, fruit, and water - YUM.  They also gave us some cute pencils. We have a great PTA!

Hope you are having a great week too!

I want to thank everyone who visited my blog yesterday during the Jackpot blog hop.  I was so excited that so many people visited my new blog, became followers and downloaded my product on Teachers Pay Teachers.  Thank you - you made my day!  I hope everyone has a great Teacher Appreciation Week!

Ok - now to Kinder recipes.  We made a mini-book last week called Recipe for a Plant. We then used the book to write a recipe for a plant together.

My students wrote their own recipes the next day.  I just have to say that I love how Kinders write, especially how they write recipes.  So cute! Here are a few of my students' recipes.


So proud of this student!  She remembered to put the silent e at the end of cake.


This student did a great job too!  She added a lot of detail to her pictures and her writing {see the 3 eggs in her picture on the first step}.


I love how he Kinder spelled Parmesan cheese!

This activity was a lot of fun for me!  My students did such a great job!  I love looking at what they were able to write at the beginning of year and looking at where they are now.  They have grown so much!

Now the pirate ship pizza.  My son's favorite book as of late has been Curious George and the Pizza Party.  In this book, George is very curious and takes many balls of dough and makes one large ball of dough.  It ends up being too much and George cuts the dough into different shapes.  The children end up making pizzas that look like rainbows, houses, and stop signs.  Well, Colton is into pirate ships so my husband helped him make a pirate ship pizza.  It turned out so cute!

Teacher Appreciation Week is here!  I am so excited for my first sale at Teachers Pay Teachers!  I have put my entire store on sale for 20% off from May 6-8.  Use the code TAD12 for an additional 10% off from TPT.  That is a total savings of 28%!

Thanks to Donna at Peace, Love & Learning for the cute graphic {which just happens to match my blog}.