My Funny Little Gingerbread House!

You know that this is the time of year to read about the Gingerbread Man and all the Gingers in his family.  So I thought that it would be fun to make a gingerbread house again this year, with my kiddies and then use it as a behavior incentive!  If the kiddies have a great day in school, they get to put on one piece of candy each day to make the house very beautiful! It's coming together and we have a few more days to decorate!  The kiddies are very motivated to decorate this little house and I'm excited to help them stay on track with good behavior!

Have a great week and enjoy the holidays!

Time For A Sale!

Please jump over to my store during the sale!

It's time for a great sale at the TpT Store!  Thanks to Traci Clausen for offering this button to
everyone!  It's so cute and has all the important info!  Much appreciated!

I hope you've all enjoyed the Thanksgiving holiday, Black Friday, Black Friday Extended to Saturday and the next big event, Cyber Monday, coming up tomorrow!  Lots of shopping, shopping, shopping!

Have a fun day tomorrow!

Pumpkin, Pumpkin, What's Inside the Pumpkin? A Happy Little Science Experiment

Today was a great day to do science experiments with a fall pumpkin!  We weighed and measured our pumpkin.  We also measured the circumference of our pumpkin with a cool piece of yarn!  I offered a differentiated response sheet for my two groups so that I could meet the needs of one group and challenge the other group.

 When I pulled the goop and seeds out of the pumpkin, my kiddies were making faces and saying, "Ewwwww!!"  When I sent the top around for the kiddies to examine, they were laughing and saying, "Wow!  It smells good!  It's such a pretty color! It's slimy on my fingers!"

They really had a lot of fun and a ton of learning going on this morning in Room A-1!  Tomorrow, we'll plant the seeds so that we can grow another pumpkin plant!  We'll also work to discover if a different pumpkin will sink or float!

Thanks, stay in touch and have a great Thursday!

Say A Little Prayer For The Copier!

Hey all!
Sorry I've been out of touch for a little while!  I was a little overloaded with school and planning my youngest daughter's wedding!  It was a beautiful event and my part is finished so I'm trying to get back to normal  ---- whatever that means!! LOL!!

One of my friends at school snapped this funny picture of me in the copy room at school recently!  I have an interest (actually a small obsession really!)  in fixing the copy machine when it goes down because I think I can do it.   Most of the time I can fix the paper jams, most of the time I can figure out the problems, and once in a while I get lucky and I can make it work with a little prayer and some divine intervention!

There's always something fun going on in Kindergarten!  This day was no exception!

Hope your day is just as much fun and all your copier problems can be easily fixed!

Sunday Smorgasbord Linky Randomness

What a great 4th of July!  I hope you enjoyed the holiday!  It's fun to watch fireworks and even more fun to watch them from the deck at home!  

Here's a little picture of my sweetie dog!  This is the real life model for the clip art picture on this blog! 

My sweet little Gigi is an 8 year old girl that we've had for about 6 years!  Spoiled?  Completely!

Whenever I've been out of the house and come back home, she cries and cries until she gets a treat!  Spoiled, just plain spoiled!  I just love that girl!

Finally, I have been looking for a really good homemade vegan brownie and I think this may be the one! Its from Doron Petersan's book, Sticky Fingers' Sweets.  These are quite yummy!  I don't make these kinds of treats often, but the fam has been asking for "something chocolate!"  

So check out this old school Corelle plate!  New dishes are on the way, but there's some sentimental value to these!  I do love Corelle!  It's survived my everyday use and 2 kids!  Love it!

I hope you're doing just exactly what you love to do today, tomorrow and every single day after that!  

Have a great day!

Sunday Smorgasbord Linky Party!

Linky Party with Fabulous in First

I'm getting better!  This week my Sunday post is on Monday instead of Wednesday!  I should have the hang of this by next week and be right on time! LOL!

Even though I'm teaching Summer School this year, I still have lots of other things to keep me busy!  Here are a few of the fun things I get to do in my non-teaching hours! 

I LOVE TO READ!  I read and read and read about healthy nutrition!  This is the book that I've just started but I've read T. Colin Campbell's other books as well!  Have you read, "The China Study" yet?  Do it!  You'll look at nutrition with a new understanding!

                        My Current Read Available At Amazon!

Yep!  I'm a Spinning Instructor!  I teach at a local fitness facility AND I have my own Spinning bike that I ride several times a week!

It's a FABULOUS workout that has so many benefits!  Want to try it?  Please come and Spin with ME!

I'm a Certified Johnny G Instructor! 

bayareabikes.com/merchant/1173/images/site/spin_class_clipart.gif

Pilates!  

Love it!  I'm also a Pilates Instructor!  What a great way to build core strength and develop long, lean muscles! 

Great Core Workout

clipart: spot.pcc.edu

I also teach YogaFit, HydroRider and am certified to be a Personal Trainer!  

What are you up to this summer?  You can always come and join in the fun with me! 

Have a wonderful day!

July 4th Summer School Fun!

The 4th of July is coming up this week and here are some of the books that we read in our Independence Day, 4th of July theme for Summer School!  

We discussed why we celebrate the 4th of July and the history behind the holiday!  We made connections, text to self, text to text and text to the world!  The kids were so excited to read the book, "The Pledge of Allegiance" because during the year, they said the pledge everyday!

So I found this sweet little eagle puppet on DLTK's Crafts For Kids website!  Here's how our puppets turned out!

Eagle Puppet

Writer's Workshop this week was pretty fun!  The kiddies decided to write about fireworks and they worked on this during the week.  These are their thoughts on fireworks!

 I see fireworks when I look up in the sky.

Fireworks are cool because you get to throw fireworks.

This week our skill work focused on syllabication as well as beginning and ending sound review.  We picked words from our 4th of July theme and practiced breaking them down into syllables.  Then, we did a little practice sheet to highlight the beginning and ending sounds in words.  We headed to the computer to continue our practice!

This is a great game to reinforce and practice syllabication!

The Drum Machine Game

This is one of the computer games that I found that helps the kiddies to practice beginning and ending sounds!

Beginning Letter Sound Games

Ending Letter Sound Game

Do you have some great computer games that you would like to share?  Let me know about the great resources you've found to review and practice skills and strategies with your kiddies!

Have a great 4th of July!  

Enjoy the fireworks!

MyCuteGraphics.com

The "Hey! It's NOT Sunday, It's Wednesday!" Linky Link Up

Fabulous In First

Okay, I know that it's not Sunday but I've been really, really working on keeping up with Summer School  so I'm going to pretend that it's Sunday so that I can link up with my friend Michelle from 

Fabulous In First!  I like that this Linky Party is about random stuff because I feel like I'm bouncing all over the place lately!

Un (1)

We're working around the house this summer and I have about a million projects on my "Honey Do List!"  

The new roof was finished two days ago and it looks great!  We ripped out one of our bathrooms and we're remodeling it, updating it and replacing it with a newer, better, more modern everything.  I painted in the kitchen a little and I'm getting ready to paint my girls' bedrooms.  The list goes on and on!

Deux (2)

 I planted a bigger garden this year so I'm spending more time working in the dirt.  It's really difficult to get great tomatoes in our area so I need to grow my own every year!  This year I have planted 32 tomato plants at home and 3 at school!  I also planted green beans, okra, yellow squash, zucchini, peppers, banana peppers, onion, garlic, eggplant and sunflowers! I also grow lots of fresh herbs such as sage, rosemary, oregano, thyme, parsley, cilantro and tons of basil.  I know!  It's a lot!

Trois (3)

I have a long drive to school on the days I teach so I've decided to brush up on my French language skills!  One of my girls took French in high school and college and the other took Spanish so I have a variety of resources here at the house.  Maybe I'll get to put it to good use if I ever get to travel!  

Oui, oui!

Well, that's just a little of the randomness that I have in my world this summer!  I hope you're having a great summer break and that you're doing lots of things to keep you busy!  

This was fun!  Thanks Michelle!
Kimmie!

Next Up - 2 Weeks of Summer Themes - Fathers Rock and At the Beach

Here's a great book we read during Father's Day Week!   I wanted to share some of the activities that we've been doing in Week 2 and Week 3 during Summer School!  

Week 2 - Father's Day Theme

In addition to reading some great stories about fathers and the special guys in our lives, we also did some writing about our favorite men!  I had the kiddies do a nonsense and real word sorting game, a review of the vowel sounds and a sweet Father's Day card and craft!

Father's Day Craftivity

Week 3 - At The Beach Theme
We read this book and worked on vocabulary, main idea and details, setting, characters and plot.

We did Beach Umbrella Writing and Flip Flop Writing too!  Here are a few pictures of our great writing!

I found this clip art design at Black Dog's Summer Fun Coloring Book website. 

It was perfect for this writing activity!

The paper design is from Deanna Jump and Deedee Wills'

Writing Through the Year - Unit 3

"How To Writing"

 This was the template that I used for my model. We colored the umbrella and cut it out to use as our design graphic for our writing activity.  I didn't give the prompt, we decided as a group, how we would start the writing and the kiddies finished with their own ideas.

Here's the same paper template, but the graphic came from

Sweet Clip Art

To practice number writing, we filled in the blank June calendar from the Education Center, Mailbox Superbook, Grade K.  I really love the clip art and the boxes are big enough for Kinder size numbers!

Push Pin Art
Finally, I saw this fun craftivity somewhere but I'm not sure where and it's been a few years.  I couldn't find a link, but here are the pictures that I have to share.  We traced stencils of beach shapes and then used a push pin to poke holes along the lines of the designs.  When we finished we held it up to the window to see the light shining through the design!

Finally we used this game to review rhyming words.

The Sandpit Trucks

We used this game to practice sight words!

The Hiding Snails Game

Wow!  I'm finishing up the plans for this week. Week 4 is going to be the July 4th theme because we'll be off next week!  It should be fun, fun, fun!  

Have a great week!
Kimmie!

Summer School In Full Swing!

Hey all my friends!  So Summer School is up and running!  I was worried because I only started out with one little student but since the first day I've gotten a few more! Our program is spread out over the summer so I get to work with the kiddies on Tuesdays and Thursdays for 2 hours in the morning. 

I made a schedule so that I could offer structure and routine to the boys and girls that I'm working with this summer.
9:00 Class Begins/Attendance
9:00-9:15  Independent Reading (with support)
9:15-9:30  Read Aloud & Mini Lesson
9:30-9:50  Writer's Workshop
9:50-10:05  Word Work/Sight Words/Phonics/Phonemic Awareness
10:05-10:20  Math Activities and Review
10:20-10:40  Guided Reading Groups 
10:40-10:55  Learning Center or Craftivity
10:55-11:00  Computer Games to review skills
11:00  Dismissal

 Here's a template if you want to copy it! 

Date: Time	Activity	Lessons & Notes
9:00	Attendance	Sts:
9:00-9:15	Independent Reading (with support)
9:15-9:30	Read Aloud & Mini Lesson
9:30-9:50	Writer’s Workshop
9:50-10:05	Word Work/Sight Words/Phonics/Phonemic Awareness
10:05-10:20	Math Activities & Review
10:20-10:40	Guided Reading Groups
10:40-10:55	Learning Center or Craftivity
10:55-11:00	Computer Skill Game
11:00	Dismissal

I decided to pick a theme for each week because I love teaching with themes and it gives the kiddies something to look forward to and helps them to make connections to their own experiences. 

Here are the themes that I've picked for June!

Week 1 - Summer Is Coming!

Week 2 - Fathers Rock!

Week 3 - At The Beach!

Week 4 - 4th of July!

Tuesday of Week 1 was a slow start with only one student so we went outside to our assigned garden box space and planted seeds along with onion sets and 3 little tomato plants that I grew at home!  I'm hoping to do some writing and math activities with the plants as they grow!

Thursday was a fun day!  We had a few more students and we reviewed rhyming and sight words. I did a mini lesson on, "Books That Fit," picking books that are just right for us.  We chose several leveled books and had time to read a few to check the fit!  We also set up our Writer's Workshop folders and started new stories about summer break!  Word Work was a Real Word/Nonsense Word Game.  We practiced counting to 100 by 10's and ones!  Each day I copy a leveled book for each child and I give him/her a response sheet for the leveled book.  Those go into a Ziploc baggie and they take home the book to practice and then complete the response sheet at home.  We finished up the day with a short computer game time! 

Here's the link to the great rhyming game we played! 

It's an awesome and free resource to practice rhyming with your kiddies!

The Washing Line Rhyme

I hope you're having a great start to your summer!
 Have fun playing this sweet little game!

Kimmie!

School's Out But Not Really...

I have to admit that the last few weeks have been so very crazy busy that I have slightly neglected this blog.  No more!  I've promised myself that I will do a better job of blogging this summer! 

I see that there are several Linky Parties that are coming up and I'm going to do that this week!  I don't want one more party to pass me by!  Watch for me in those upcoming Linky Parties!

Are you on Summer Break yet?  I thought that I might take a break, but it's really just a Summer Pause.  After a two day weekend, I volunteered today at the downtown Cincinnati Public Library!  That was pretty interesting!  I love, love, love to read so having a chance to dig through thousands of books is pretty fun!

Tomorrow I start teaching Summer School, hence the pause and not the full break!  I'm excited to work with some of our Kinders in a small group for a couple of hours!  I hope that we'll make lots of progress this summer!  If you have great ideas and suggestions for summer themes or activities, I would love to hear from you!

Wish me luck tomorrow!  I hope you're having a restful summer break even if it's just a pause like me! 
Take Care!
Kimmie