Why is it that breaks never feel like breaks?!?

I am hoping that everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving filled with delicious food and great family time.  Mine was nice but went by way too quickly.  It feels like I just left school and was looking forward to some relaxation time.  However, the reality of it is that it's really already Saturday night and I have more things on my to do list than I have hours to complete them in!  OOOOOOOHHHHHHHH NNNNNNOOOOO!

I have decided that my theme from now until our winter break will be gingerbread men.  I have been bouncing back and forth between all of the units I have purchased on TPT and trying to plan out what to do and when.  It currently looks like a paper explosion in my living room.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I will get some pictures up towards the end of next week.  I haven't tried doing that yet on here so it might take a bit of trial and error.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend,
Erin

Wrapping up the Week!

So as Friday approaches and I look back on my week, I can do nothing but smile!  After an extremely stressful month of October and many moments of frustrations, things seem to be sticking with my little ones.  We are making some great progress and are becoming more eager to learn skills that challenge us.  That alone is a huge step for my group!  

I have been playing around with some unit ideas this week.  Be on the look out for some sneak peeks soon!
What are some units or activities that you would like to see?!?

~Erin

Nothing Like a Monday Field Trip

So today I had my second field trip of the year.  It was my lovely class, the K class that we share a classroom with, and one of the first grade rooms.  A wonderful group of kids eager to step out into the chilly 30 degrees to take a hike through nature.  We had set up this field trip at a not too far away nature center to review our recent study of the four seasons and to take a look at how animals use their surroundings to survive.  Now keep in mind, this week the temperatures were in the 60's so I was thinking this trip was going to be amazing.  A great review accompanied by fresh air-teacher heaven!  Mother nature, however, had another plan and decided to change dramatically overnight on me.  We spent a mere 20 minutes outside observing bits and pieces of nature while trying to reassure the kids that they were not going to freeze! :)  Have to love the over dramatics!  Overall, the trip went well.  The kids had fun and appeared fully engaged minus the thawing out part.  Upon returning to school, we discussed what we did on our field trip and the kids drew their favorite part.  Tomorrow we will revisit our discussion and create a class book revolving around our field trip.  How do you extend the field trip experience in your classroom?

Hope your week has started off well!
Erin

Hello to all in the blogging world!  Here goes my first attempt at this new adventure known as blogging.  So I have spent countless hours stalking the internet for blogs that will inspire me to become a better teacher and I have now reached that point where I would like to do the same for others.  As you read along day to day, I hope that you can gain something to take with you back to your classrooms.  Please feel free to offer suggestions and questions as we take on this adventure together.  This is going to be a short and rather blah post due to the fact that I recently took cold medicine to combat this cold that I am trying to will away as quickly as possible.

Until next time-
Erin