Shopping!, Muffins for Mom & Tacos!

I am about to head out and go shopping, I got to make sure I have everything for the week. It is another busy one!

We will be having our special ladies come in on Friday for Muffins with Mom, so we have to finish up our books, make a movie and practice our songs. I am still looking for a little gift idea that would go good along with our muffin theme...if you have any good ideas leave me a comment! :) I also have to get the supplies for "Tea Time"- muffins and tea! Do you do anything special for your students' mothers?

We started our books last week, here are some of the pages that the kids wrote...

"My mom makes me feel special when she hugs me. I love it when my mom takes me for Menchies."

"My mom makes me feel special when she reads me a special story. I love it when my mom takes me to a special place."

"My mom makes me feel special when she gives me love. I love it when my mom buys me jewelery."

"My mom makes me feel special when she tickles me. I love it when my mom takes me to Menchies."

"I love it when my mom kisses me." *I love this illustration and speech bubble!*

We aren't done with our Cinco de Mayo fun...we HAVE to make some tacos this week! Yum!! We will be making this fun "How To" book to go along with are delicious learning! 

Is anyone else as excited for this TPT sale as I am?! I am running on "E" and I am looking forward to making some end of the year purchases to energize me and keep my instruction engaging for the last 23 days! :)

Thanks to The Wizard of Boz for this Graphic!

I hope you have a fantastic week! Don't forget to join in the Instagram fun this Tuesday! #teachertalktuesday :) @msshopesclass

 

Five for Friday

Perhaps the title of my blog should be Cinco para Viernes! It has been a fun filled week for Cinco de Mayo!

On Tuesday we read the book Chicks and Salsa. Then we made chips and salsa. Do your kids go crazy for anything "cooking"?! My mom went to school with me this day and we had a BLAST making the salsa with the kids. We even had a great plant mini-lesson. We talked about all the different parts of the plant that were going into our salsa. It was so much fun, AND my kids were too cute saying "OLE!". 

This week we also read Cinco De Mouse-o! Then we had fun with piñatas! I usually purchase a piñata for my class to celebrate Cinco de Mayo, but this year I didn't. (It rained here every afternoon this week, BLAH! In South Florida a rain storm is like snow. You don't leave your house!) So I improvised and made a piñata. Don't laugh! :) Did the kids care at all? "Goodness no!" (Pete the Cat voice!) They were so excited and we had so much fun! (I feel like I keep saying "it was so much fun", but it really was!) Since it was raining, we did the piñata inside. Everything was all good except I learned a lesson...don't put Smarties in a homemade piñata. Smarties flew EVERYWHERE!

The kids got to make piñata predictions and their own piñata. You would have thought it was Christmas!

How could I forget, we had to wear sombreros for all this fun! The kids were precious! 

 

We started our "A Muffin for Mom" book this week. We will be celebrating the special women in our lives by having "Muffins with Mom" and having tea time. This book will be one of the gifts we give our leading ladies.

Here is my first Currently! Go link up with Oh' Boy 4th Grade! Make sure that you remember the rule of 3! 

Alright, it is time for you to go link up! 

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Check back tomorrow! I will be part of a Blog Hop! Fun times!!

Celebrating Cinco de Mayo

Just wanted to share some of the fun my little friends will be doing in ELA centers this week...

We always start a new thematic unit by sorting "thematic" words by syllables and sounds (beginning sounds and vowel sounds). Introducing the words helps develop many of my language students' vocabulary and oral language skills.

In the pocket chart the students will be practicing 1-1 correspondence, finding rhyming and finding high frequency words they know with this Cinco de Mayo poem. The poems and songs in the pocket chart are always a favorite, for both the kids and me. (I love hearing them sing and read-- of course they mimic how I do it, which is always entertaining!)

At the writing center my little friends will be working on unscrambling the sentences!

You know those standards that are "hard" to get to, like CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.K.1b Use frequently occurring nouns and verbs. Well, this is one skill that we will be working on this week!

My class' favorite center is probably Read Around the Room. The kids will be on a quest this week to find the blends on the flags.

We still need lots of practice on rhyming and reading CVC words. Hopefully the Chip & Dip Rhyme Time will do the trick!

We will be making new words from the word CELEBRATING. I am amazed at how the kids have become so creative and independent at this activity! 

This week we will be reading lots of Cinco de Mayo nonfiction readers, but these are a few of my favorite picture book read alouds. 

If you are interested in any of these activities, you can find them and many more in this unit:

Corey from the Poolside Teacher...check your email! Thanks for your comment the other day, I pulled your name out of a hat and you're the luck winner! 

On a side note I am going to try something new...ooo! How daring of me! :) I don't use instagram personally, but I saw this on a blog that I adore (Mrs. Stamp's Kindergarten) and thought I'd give it try!

Join me! I am thinking it could be quite entertaining! I hope you join in too!! Go link up and share your username so that I can follow you! Click on my button or the link below to follow me on instagram!

Follow me on instagram here!

Happy Sunday!

Do I Smell Tacos?!?! Five for Friday & Friday Flashback

It is Friday, which means that my momma arrives today! Yay! :) She will be here in just a bit, so I wanted to share my week with you...take a peek!

1. After we read Jack & the Beanstalk we planted our own beanstalks. Our seeds had been in our greenhouses so we could observe them starting to come out of the seed coat and sprout. On Wednesday we took the seed and placed it in a clear cup with soil. Then we recreated the setting of Jack & the Beanstalk by placing a castle and clouds on a skewer. The castle says "___________ & the Beanstalk". The kids went BANANAS for this activity. Fe Fi Fo Fum. I found this idea from this great blogpost by Lessons from a Teacher. The plan is for the beanstalk to grow up the skewer. When it does, I will add the kids picture "climbing" up the beanstalk!

2. Not that I am counting...but... :)

29 was on Thursday when I took that picture, so really only 28 more days! I am running out of energy, I don't know about you!

3. If you know me at all, then you know that I LOVE me some tacos! Seriously folks!!! I get excited every year when May starts to roll around...yup...Cinco de Mayo!! It's the little things in life, right?!?! Well in honor of the great taco holiday my class always does some fun Cinco de Mayo activities. I get my class a piñata and we do piñata predictions. We make tacos, eat some spicy food and of course we wear some fabulous sombreros! It is a blast. The kids think it is so much fun to "speak" spanish (we learn a few words throughout the week). I love seeing my students excited about diversity. Cinco de Mayo is also a fun way to tie in a social studies lesson about geography and our continent of North America! 

I just finished up this unit and posted it to TPT. If you are celebrating Cinco de Mayo this coming week, check it out! HERE

4. So if you read my blog post last Friday, then you know that last week my little friends were not so kind and in rare form last week. This week I was on a mission to put a stop to that, because I wouldn't be able to survive 28 more days with craziness...no sir-ee! So this week I implemented "I Got My Eye On You". Here is how it works...

I had this little treasure box, and I put all my kids' numbers inside (each student has their own number- I do this for ease on my behalf for filing and bookkeeping but also for the students to have privacy for goal setting and behavior, etc) So before centers, walking in line, or anytime really- I pull out a number. The students don't know what number I have. I tell them that I will be watching the person whose number that I pulled very closely and if that person was appropriate and made good choices for the specific activity he/she earns a treat. Sometimes the treat is a skittle and sometimes it is a sticker. Other times I let them choose from things like sitting at my desk for the day, lunch with me outside at the picnic tables, no homework passes etc. All that really matters folks is that--- AHHHH! Life is so much better this week! 

5. This week I took time to relax and enjoy "the moment". I stopped by the beach this week to unwind and enjoy God's beautiful creation! It was beautiful. I have so much to be thankful for! 

If you made it all the way to the end of this long post, then I will give my Cinco de Mayo Unit away to one person. Just leave a comment below and I will choose a winner some time this weekend!

I hope you have a fantastic weekend! Go link up with Doodle Bugs and *Teaching Maddeness*!