Tuesday, January 28, 2014

100th Day of School Fun

Can you believe we've been in school for 100 days already?!?!  

Well, as of Friday we will have!  I wanted to share my Night Before 100th Day of School Pack with you!

You can have your kiddos bring in 100 things and have lots of fun sorting and counting them.  There is also a class book to make about the items your kiddos brought in or would bring in if they could.  

I always begin our fun by reading Natasha Wing's story The Night Before the 100th Day of School.  You can click the picture below to go purchase it.  My kiddos LOVE her books!  



Here is my Night Before 100th Day of School Pack!  We used it last year and will be using it again on Friday, although since we've had so many snow/cold days lately we won't be doing as much as I had originally planned.  That's how life goes!  




We will be counting 100 Fruit Loops and making necklaces too!  

What will you be doing for the 100th day of school?  Share some ideas and I'll choose 2 people to send my pack to for *free*!  :)

Sunday, January 26, 2014

Everything You Need to Teach and Watch Penguins!

Almost two months!  I can not believe it has been almost 2 months since I blogged.  

I hang my head in shame....

I could give you a bunch of excuses about being busy and time just getting away from me, but I'll save them.  As fellow teachers I hope you understand and have some pity for me.  

I got my first student teacher this week and it has been great so far.  She is so eager to have her own classroom and is willing to help me with anything.  It has rejuvenated my teaching spirit....so much so that I just had to get back on here and blog.  

I don't think she's quite ready to accept how busy teaching life really is and how we don't always get to the things we want to even though we really, really want to.  She's refreshingly optimistic, even if a little naive!  :)

We have been spending a couple weeks on penguins and my kiddos are seriously penguin experts!!  Even my student teacher is impressed with how much they know about penguins.  

I want to share a couple packs that we have used and have been so helpful.  I also want to share some very fun and cute penguin videos and web cams.  

This will be more than you need for a 2-3 week unit on penguins.

First, we started with Erica's awesome penguin pack!  This pack is over 100 pages of penguin awesomeness.  Click on the picture for the link. 

This penguin fold and learn is so much fun for your kiddos too.  I used it last year and we will be making them again this week as we wrap up our penguin unit.  Click the picture for the link. 

Penguins Facts Fold and Learn

You can find all of my Pinterest videos *here* if you want to see more, but I've posted a few for you.  

Erica's pack has an attribute chart in it with four types of penguins so I found these short little videos to help my kiddos see and understand the different species of penguins.   

Emperor Penguin Video:


Macaroni Penguin Video:


Adelie Penguin Video:

We have also been watching live penguin web cams.  They are: 



They have certain hours they are available.  Other times they will play prerecorded videos.  You can even watch them feed the penguins.  Just a heads up, we did see penguins 'wrestling' this week if you know what I mean.  My kiddos thought they were 'playing' and 'trying to push each other off the rocks' and I wasn't about to tell them otherwise so use your discretion.  :)  

Thanks for letting me share our penguin fun with you!  My kiddos are very sad that we are ending our penguin unit this week.  I must say it is a great way to get through the winter blues in January.  

We will be ending our unit on Friday with a blubber experiment.  You can click *here* to read my post about it from last year.  I will share new pictures after we do it again this Friday.  

Hope you are staying warm wherever you are!  It has been crazy cold and snowy here!  We can have 2 more days off school, but then no more!  :)