Celebrate the Small Things

It's officially SUMMER VACATION! Even though I have District Math Training for 3 days next week, summer vacation has started for me. I'm sure you all would agree that the end of the year is a mix of emotions- sad to send your sweet little ones on to the next grade, heartbreak knowing you may never see some of these precious little ones again, and excitement for a teaching break. The one emotion I'm always haunted by is did I do enough? Did I challenge my bright/gifted kids, did I help the socially struggling child, did I teach enough to my below grade level ones? I always have to smack myself aside of the head and celebrate the small things. Everyone in my class will not benchmark on grade level. Every student in my class will not be ready for the next grade. But every child has grown and changed for the better. Celebrate the small stuff- The last month of school Little 'T' was able to say good bye to mom at the door (she didn't need to bring him in crying every day), Little 'M' moved from a level A to level 4 and now knows his alphabet, Little 'C' can go to the bathroom and come back on time (I don't have to go find her 15 minutes later), Little 'H' actually talks loud enough to be heard and uses lots of expression, Little 'B' is smiling and laughing (which he never did until after Christmas), Little 'K'  stopped tattling, Little 'B' wrote a series of chapter books about bongkie an imaginary creature, and the list goes on and on. At our good bye faculty party one of my favorite teachers who is moving on into the district next year, reminded me that TEACHING IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING THERE IS. We touch these precious little ones every single day for nine months. I may not be successful in getting them all up to grade level but at least I know I touched their lives for the better. So celebrate the small things and now go enjoy your summer!

Prayers for Oklahoma

My heart is hurting for the people of Moore, Oklahoma. What a horrible tragedy. Sending prayers and thoughts of love your way.

Talented Nikki from MelonHeadz always captures the moment just right with her wonderful art work.

If you would like to help the Oklahoma relief efforts check out Teachers Notebook.

End of the Year Survival

Wow! It's been over a week since my last post. So sorry. I'm incredibly busy like all of you trying to finish the school year. I'm putting my slide show together, memory books, doing grades and report cards, portfolios, practicing dance festival, field day activities, plus trying to babysit teach my little firsties. My hubby says it's crazy being married to a teacher in May and August and I'd have to agree.
I know I have a few new followers (and some of you may have forgot about these or missed them) so I just want to link up to some of my older post from last year showing what I do at the end of the year that is SAVING my sanity right now.

My kiddos LOVE the Behavior BINGO! I got this idea from Camille over on Fun For First. 

You can check out the post HERE.

I'm trying to keep my kiddos busy with educational things so they don't get too hyper. We are doing some great reviewing with these things:

Tic-Tac-Toe (these are on my Teacher Shops)

Scrambled sentences (also on my Teacher Shops)

Wipe Out with calculators

I posted this freebie last year HERE.

And on the last day, I have my kids for about an hour and a half so we will be doing some fun relay games. 

You can check out that FREEBIE post HERE.

I hope we all survive the end of the year!

Big SALES!

Teaching is the greatest profession and Teachers are AWESOME!

It's Teacher Appreciation Week and you don't want to miss the sales.

They have already started on Teacher Notebook. My shop is on sale from May 4th to 8th for 20% off then add additional 10% from Teacher Notebook for a 30% discount!

Plus you can enter to win a $100 gift card from Oriental Trading. 

But there's more!

TeachersPayTeachers is also having a sale on May 7th and 8th.

My shop will be 20% off on those 2 days and if you use the promo code: TAD13 you'll get an additional 10% off.

So it's time to clean out your WISH LISTS and get what you've been wishing for.

I've added some new packets lately and they are on sale!!! You might want to check them out.

A BIG THANK YOU to teachers everywhere!!

Happy shopping!

Patterns and Conjunctions

I hope everyone is having a fantastic week!
I've had district inservice today and headed to another one all day tomorrow. I hate doing sub plans and leaving my little ones but getting out of the classroom is sometimes a nice break, if you know what I mean.

We've been doing patterns all week and I'm sad to see that it's not on the new core. I hear kindergarten doesn't have it either. I've also noticed money is no where to be found. What's with that?!? Oh well, we did a really fun thing with patterns and my kiddos LOVED it! I'll have to save it for next year for one of those end-of-the-year fluff activities I guess.
My firsities LOVE these:

And I look for every excuse I can think of to use them. When I pulled them out this week, I heard my kids start cheering!

I made a little sheet that they could do dot patterns according to the labels I had directed.

They worked great in Math Stations!

If you'd like to download a copy just click HERE!

I have also been teaching Conjunctions this week! It's new in the common core this year and I didn't have anything. So I put together a little packet. I just uploaded it to my shops. 

Just click on my shops in the side bars of this blog for a link.

I also found a cute video on YouTube that my kids liked from School House Rocks.

Just search Conjunction Junction and it will pop up.

I hope everyone has an awesome rest of the week.

Thanks for stopping by!