Five for Friday {May 31}

Well, I'm a day late, but I still wanted to share my FIVE for the week!  We are down to 3 days left, and life at school is b-u-s-y!  Lots of fun, a little bit of fighting (some of my sweeties just need a break from each other!!), and some great learning is still happening.

Here's what went on this week!

1.  The end of the year means loads of assessments!  The kiddos got comfy to complete their final writing assessments of the year.  So proud of my talented writers!!

2. WORMS!!  I LOVE teaching worms at the end of the school year.  The kids are CRAZY about the squirmy worms.  So much fun.  I took an idea from my bloggy friend, Nicole, and had them feel cooked spaghetti noodles without looking and then guess what they were feeling.  Lots of great predictions and a really fun way to introduce our worm study!

Eeeeee!  The worms!  We all LOVE them!!!  After lots of discussion about how to care for our worms respectfully, we enjoyed an abundance of time with them this week.  

3. The balloon-popping has been an absolute riot.  My students come in EVERY day soooooo excited to see what the activity or special treat for that day will be!  And then to hear their little conversations like "Pick your own seat day has been soooo fun!  Better than bubble gum day even!!" and "Every day gets more and more fun!!".  Makes my teacher heart feel all warm and fuzzy!  A couple of the fun things we did this week were:

Smelly Marker Hand Shapes

I have a "Star of the Day" program in my classroom.  Every day, the STAR gets to choose a Mr. Sketch scented marker and I draw a star on their hand.  The kids loooove this, so on this particular day everyone got to choose a color and special shape for their hand.

Sidewalk Chalk Party

We enjoyed this special activity with our 4th grade reading buddies during our last time together.  The sidewalk in front of our school looked so bright and colorful when we were done!

4. We took one final field trip for the year to the Outdoor Discovery Center near our school.  Outdoors + animals + a smart guide that shared LOTS of fun facts = an awesome way to spend one of our final afternoons together! 

 5. The town I grew up in hosts a 5k race each Spring to benefit the American Cancer Society.  I decided not to run it this year, but my son wanted to sign up for the 1-mile fun run.  A few minutes before race time, he was so excited to see his teacher show up to cheer him on!  What an awesome teacher he's been blessed with this year.

He ended up coming in 2nd place for his age group.  Way to go, Trey!  You persevered and met your goal!  We're so proud of you!!

  

One more weekend of report cards and schoolwork... I think I can, I think I can!

Five for Friday {May 24}

Thank goodness for Kacey's Five for Friday link-up or I might never update the blog in May!  'Tis the season for late nights and no free time!  8 more days of school here and I've been throwing myself a pathetic pity party all week because my hard drive crashed on Monday night and I have been without a computer all week.  BOO!  I think that they (the techy, waaaaay-smarter-than-me guys for my school district) were able to save everything from my computer, but I've been on a loaner machine all week with just the very basics and (GASP!!) NO cute fonts.  Not a single DJ or Rowdy font to be found, which is just about too much for me to handle.  I'm pretty sure that my co-workers have had enough of my whining and complaining, but I will be sooooo happy to have my computer back in my hands again next week!

Anyway...onto the fun of my week!  We have been busily wrapping up our school year!

1. We took a field trip on Tuesday to a local farm called the Critter Barn.  I have taken my students on this trip for the past several years and they LOVE it.  The baby animals are soooo sweet and the day (although a bit smelly) is always a super fun experience for the kids.  Plus, this year, we were sure we were going to get rained on all day long, but NO!  It was sunny and GORGEOUS!  A perfect day!

Serenity loved the ducks...

...Seth loved the bag swings...

...and Keagan loved the peacock.

Isn't his drawing so sweet?  He's taking a picture of the peacock. :)  There was LOTS of picture-taking on our field trip!

2. Wednesday marked 10 days of school left for us.  I have had an idea stored away in my mind since last Spring (Thank you, Pinterest).  I knew that I wanted to CELEBRATE our final 10 days this year, so I printed off some fun activities and grabbed some balloons.

I stuffed the slips of paper into the balloons and hung them from the ceiling.

We've popped a balloon each day.  We're having so much FUN!!

 

I plan to do another post listing all of the things we're doing.

3. Oh. my. goodness.  We've been working on writing letters during our writing workshop time.  This is the sweetest letter ever that one of my students wrote to another student this week.

 Dear Thomas, I wish you were my brother.  You would be a great brother.  You are soooo kind.  Love, Emily

This next one made me smile for a couple of reasons.  He was the first person to think of writing a letter to ME!

 Dear Mrs. Sloothaak, You do hard work to make fun thongs (ahem...things) for us.  Love, Thomas

He wrote thongs instead of things!  hee hee

But still, so sweet.  I love Kindergarteners.

 4.  We've been discussing habitats and animal characteristics in Science.  Today, the students got to make animals out of clay.  Melt my heart...they were SO cute.  Not to mention that the clay kept them engaged and calm for close to 30 minutes.  A PERFECT end-of-May science lesson.

 Mama and baby penguin

 Black widow

Elephant

5. Not school-related at all....my new TOMS!  Happy Mother's Day to me!!  I love TOMS and these are super duper adorable and OH so comfy!!!

Happy holiday weekend to you!!

Five for Friday {May 17}

It's Friday again!  Only two Fridays left in the school year for me.  I can hardly believe that my sweet littles are so close to first grade!

Here are my five randoms from the week:

1. This....

...and this....

...have been my best friends lately!  I spent all day Wednesday completing running records for my students (that was SUCH a fun day!  Love to see them reading!!), and every spare moment in the classroom this week completing year-end assessments.

We had LOTS of celebrations as my students realized that they have become READERS this year!  The sight word assessment had them all wearing big smiles!!

(You can grab these STAR awards from my TPT shop for free if you'd like!) 

2. We needed something fresh for our afternoon choice time.  I'm not sure why I had forgotten all about my easel, but I pulled it out and the kids LOVED it!  And, of course, I loved that it was a quiet, calm activity...at least for four at a time!

3. We've been following the growth of pea seeds planted in sand, soil, and pebbles.  The three sand plants were looking awesome until this week when they finally decided that sand just isn't a good place for them to grow!  Still keeping an eye on what will happen with our pebbles plant.  So far, it looks pretty good.  And, of course, our soil plant is thriving.  The kids love checking these every day.

4. Have you heard of this book?  Our staff read it during March is Reading Month, and I was inspired to implement a daily DEAR time in my classroom.  I have grown to LOVE that time!!  We spend ten minutes each afternoon just reading silently (that includes me!), and then the students take five minutes or so to share about their books with each other...like a partner "book review" time.  This is definitely something I will continue in the future, and I would recommend this book as a good summer read.  It is geared more for upper el/middle school classrooms, but I had some good take-away even for K.

 5. Instead of being Mrs. Sloothaak today, I got to be "Trey's mom" on a field trip with his class to the zoo.  He has had such a wonderful Kindergarten experience.  I almost don't want to see the school year end because it means his year is over!  I had the best time hanging out with my guy and his school buddies today.

Five for Friday {May 10}

I'm excited to be back, linking up for another Five for Friday with Kacey at Doodlebugs!

This is the first full week I've been back since Spring Break, and BOY was it jam-packed!  Between school and family, I was running around and my mind was spinning all week long!  Anyway, here are my 5 randoms for this week!

1.  I had the best time planning gifts to spoil my kids' teachers this week for teacher appreciation week.  A few years ago, I had a student who brought me a small gift every day of the week.  I thought it was such a special way to be spoiled, so that's what I did for my son's kindergarten teacher this week.  None of the gifts were big, but we had something special for her each day.  I hope they helped to make her feel SO appreciated this week!  This was one of the gifts we sent.

And a reminder that being a K teacher, and having a kindergartener, means that my work is never finished!!  Teacher at school and teacher at home!  My son wrote this sweet letter to his teacher this week.  He really took his time and worked so carefully.  But...look!  Trey!  You MUST begin each sentence with a capital letter!!! :)

2. The town I live in (Holland, MI) has a festival every May that attracts tourists from all over the place!  It's called the Tulip Time festival.  Tulips line the streets of Holland and it is so beautiful!  The weather was perfect this week, so we headed downtown to enjoy the tulips and some junk food as well!

3. Thursday was the BEST day of my week!  I got to spend my day learning from Kim Adsit at her "DI for the Little Guy" seminar.  She is AMAZING and such a master teacher.  I loved her sweet southern accent and her sense of humor.  Awesome, AWESOME!  I felt so silly asking her for a picture, but I just had to!

4. My students' Mother's Day gifts turned out so adorable and they LOVED them!  Heehee!  Thanks for the inspiration, Pinterest! :)

5. We wrote our last letter of the year to our Kindie pen pals in Colorado today. :( 

Only 17 days left!

Race to 100....and a bloggy break

Who knew that such a simple game could be so LOVED by my students??!?  I whipped up a version of this game around Christmas and my kindies enjoyed it so much that I've made a couple of different versions since then.

"Race to 100" is the simplest concept ever.  It's a partner game -- each partner chooses a color.  One partner rolls a dice and colors that many squares.  Then, the next partner rolls and colors.  They continue taking turns, coloring the boxes in order.  The person who rolls the exact number to land on 100 is the winner.

I usually make enough copies that each pair can play twice.  The winner of the first game brings that page home, and the other partner takes the other one home, whether they were the winner or not.  They love it.  

This game board is fun and Springy, and the KPM Doodles clip art is so cute!

Please grab a copy for yourself if you'd like it!

On another note, I will be taking some time away from the blog while I tend to a situation that has arisen in my life.  I am needed for my family right now and just am not in a place of having the mental energy needed to maintain this blog effectively.  In time, I will return.  I look forward to that day!

Spring Break is slipping away... {boo!}

The to-do list for my Spring Break was long.  And I got a lot done.  Not everything, but a lot.

BUT...the top of my to-do list was to spend oodles and oodles of time with my kids, to not wake up to an alarm clock, and to relax and enjoy!  SUCCESS!!  I did all of those things, and it was FAB!

Today, I was too lazy to do much :), but I did manage to complete a TPT product that I've had on my list for a while.  This write the room activity will be perfect for Spring, and the graphics from KPM Doodles are so cute!  I love the bright colors -- they have me dreaming of temps in the 60's and 70's (yes, we're still in the 40's and 50's). 

 I'll be plugging this in to my next round of literacy stations, and I know that my students will be glad to have our write the room station back.  We've been without it for several weeks since it took me so long to get a new one made!

Click here to check it out on TPT

I'll give this away to the first 2 people who leave me a comment.  Make sure to leave your e-mail address so that I can send it your way!  Hope you're having a great weekend!

Girls only lunch

A few months ago, a colleague of mine hosted a girls only lunch in her classroom.  She invited only the girls and had a special table set up just for them.  I LOVED the idea so much that I stole it!  Isn't that what all good teachers do??? ;)

Actually, I asked if she minded if I used her idea and, of course, she didn't mind at all.

This is the first year that I've had students at school for lunch.  My previous eight years of teaching Kindergarten, we had a half-day program, so I had close to fifty students each year and no students there for lunch.  

I can't say enough good things about the switch we made this year to full-day K.  I LOVE it for so many reasons...and at the top of my list is the difference it's made in my relationships with my students. Spending all day with them has allowed me to KNOW my students and invest in them so much more!

I was so excited about the idea of having a special boys lunch and a special girls lunch.  Of course, ladies first, so I put together this invite and passed them out to the girls a few days before the big day.

While the girls went to get their lunches from the lunchroom (my cold lunch gals waited in the hall), I quickly set up our special picnic area in an open carpeted space in my classroom.

Each of the girls decorated place cards and I made them each a treat bag to take home.  Just jelly beans, a click pencil, and a fun eraser.  Nothing big, but hopefully a reminder of how much I value them!

 I made some girly cupcakes for a special dessert treat.

We had the best time!  We chatted about clothes, jewelry, and getting our ears pierced!  Such perfectly girly conversation!

The boys will get their turn next month, but this time was just for my girls!  After we had finished eating, one of my sweet girls said "I will remember this day forever!".  They might not remember it forever :), but I do hope that these nine sweeties ALWAYS remember that they are special beyond words!