Ready....Break!

Spring Break is here, and I'm pretty sure the teachers were way more excited than the kids to see it. We have had the worst case of Spring Fever I have ever seen. We've had it all this week: excessive talking during lessons,  endless tattling, suspensions, even throwing rocks with intent to injure.

I'm hoping the break will a) cure our Spring Fever and b) "activate" the 2nd major growth period we see in kindergarten. I'll just have to wait and see.

Until then, it's rest and recuperate for this teacher. Woot!

I love my job!

Recap

The end of the year is upon us, and it has gotten crazy. So here is a quick recap of the happenings of our week.

Monday was...well, a Monday. Lack of sleep over the weekend made it a hard day for many of my sprouts.

Tuesday was Transition Day. In the afternoon, all of kindergarten visited a 1st grade class, while we kindergarten teachers met with incoming Pre-K parents to introduce ourselves and give them a little preview of  what to expect in kindergarten. It was pretty cool to meet some of our "new" parents, and my kids LOVED first grade. They were captivated by Mrs. P, the 1st grade teacher they visited, and have asked me every day if they can go back to first grade.

Wednesday was the EHES Teacher Appreciation Day. Our awesome PTA put on a baked potato lunch for all teachers and staff. I received lots of "treasures" from my darling class.

Thursday we started work on our Mother's Day cards. Instead of doing the watercolor cards this year, my kids were given total creative freedom. The only rules were A) Only the outside was to be decorated today, and B) they had to sound out and spell "Happy Mother's Day." They did a fantastic job, and even wrote a few lines of poetry to their lucky mamas.

Friday(Today) we finished up our Mother's Day cards, and made our bath salts. My kids had a blast mixing everything together in the bag, and they loved the scent we used (peppermint). We also (reluctantly) released our butterfly friends into the wild.

It has been a crazy, wonderful week, and I am ready for the weekend!

Friday Feature: Kites

I found this awesome website that shows you step-by-step how to make a kite. Best of all, they actually work!
Check it out!    Kites

Kissing

Spring is officially here, and my sprouts have a new founded affection for each other. Not a day has gone by this month, when I have not heard "Ms. S! He kissed me!" or "I have a boyfriend, and I'm going to kiss him." Even I'm not safe. Just the other day, a friend came an gave me a chair hug (I'm sitting in my teacher chair, they wrap their arms around my neck, and press their cheek to my cheek), sneaked a peck on the cheek, and ran off back to her center. All I could do was laugh when I heard "I kissed the teacher!"

I love my job!

Zoo shirts

So I have been a lazy bum and haven't posted for a while. Our Easter egg hunt was a great success, and now we are on to our next big spring event...the Zoo! We are blessed to be one of the few (if not the only) in our district who are taking a field trip this year, and we are making the most of it. I learned that it is a Kinder tradition at our school to make shirts for our kiddos to wear in the field trip. Now, I can be as crafty and artsy as the next teacher, until it comes to paint. The mess and stress drives me crazy. But we did it, and it was soooooo worth it.
Who knew that sharpies, sponges, and a little bit of paint could make such adorable creations?

Ready

So it's the last day of Spring Break, and I am more than ready to see my cherubs again. I've been housebound for the past 48 hours due to the "blizzard," and used the time to get some school projects out of the way. Our new center system is complete (for now), and our classroom website is finally up and running. I am excited for spring and all the newness it brings, and the growth I am sure to see in my sprouts. I'm ready for discovery and exploration and lots of laughter and learning. I love my job!

Tophat Tuesday...

aka Terrible Tuesday! We continued our Dr.Seuss week today, focusing on the Cat in the Hat. During Bell Work, students colored, cut, and assembled their Cat in the Hat hats. We all had our hats finished/mostly finished by the time it was time to go to our "special assembly." Now, I am all for school plays, and for showing of all of the hard work the wonderful 2nd graders have done, however, this was the worst week ever (for kindergarten) to have a play. My little ones were already excited about Dr.Seuss week and all that it entails, but disrupting our morning routine and not having enough time to even do calendar makes us certifiably INSANE. Not to mention that today was the first class rotation for Dr. Seuss week (instead of all of us coming up with numerous Seussian activities, my team decided we would choose one activity and rotate our classes in the afternoon). And that our special was combined with 1st & 2nd grade today.

By center time, my kids had transformed into little ping pong balls; they were bouncing off the walls. Thankfully, we were able to reign it in a bit with a never-been-read-or-heard-before Dr.Seuss book, and then outside recess. Then we went home.

Thank goodness for Spring Break! I don't know how much more of this Spring fever we can take!

Spring Fever...

has sprung. It was positively insane today.

On the news a few weeks ago, a kindergarten teacher was in hot water for cutting one of her students braids. Of course, the mother was irate, and the teacher was appropriately disciplined. Her reason for cutting the braid...the student would not stop playing with it.

A few weeks ago, I laughed...today, I totally know where she is coming from.

While I was able to control my emotions enough to avoid making the 10 o'clock news, getting through today was as hard as whistling peanut butter. Every 10 seconds I was reminding a talkative student that it was learning time, or "helping" someone control their bodies (by helping, I mean isolation and think time, otherwise known as a timeout). However, we managed to make it through all of our lessons today, and even managed to squeeze in some extra outside play time (to get the wiggles out).

The highlight of our day was an unexpected visitor, or visitors: Travis & Presley They even brought us gifts (an autographed book and DVD for every child). We were so excited to meet Presley, and we were even allowed to pet him! I wish I would have thought to grab my camera, everyone was amazed/in love with the dog. You'll just have to take my word for it, it was great!