Spooky Savings!

Pop on {over} for some spooky savings!  This sale will last about as long as my hidden stash of Reese's cups...

Thankful November, day 1: Candy

For the most part, I try to spread positive vibes.  Some days, it's much more difficult than others but I'm human and I do my best. I fully believe that focusing on the negative aspects only increases feelings of blah, so I try to find things to be grateful for.

Day 1: I'm thankful for candy

Last night was Halloween.  We stayed in to greet trick or treaters and make sure the pup was okay.  We anticipated a lot of door bell ringing and knew that would drive her crazy if we weren't here.

I am grateful that we have a home and live in a neighborhood with lots of cute kids.  My first few years in Las Vegas, I was living in an apartment. I'd buy candy, dress up, and be severely disappointed when only a handful of kids would show up.

Last year was our first Halloween in our home and we had a pretty steady parade of visitors.  Last night was no different.

I'm thankful that we were financially able to pass out candy and treats to children. 

I'm thankful to live in a home in a safe neighborhood with lots of children.  

 I'm thankful we have a few left overs to munch on. 

I'm thankful candy will be on sale today (yay!).

I'm thankful that B and I have different favorite candies, so my Twix bars will be safe because he reaches for sour candy and suckers first.

I'm thankful my school does a candy donation drive to donate to {Opportunity Village}, a local charity.  I love working at a school that emphasizes civic involvement and giving back to others.

Next year, I'll be stocking up on non-food items as well to be part of the {Teal Pumpkin Project}.  

I didn't find out about this great program until it was too late, so I'll be buying a fake pumpkin this week (when they are super on sale) and painting it teal.

As a teacher, I'm hyper-sensitive to students' allergies.  The Teal Pumpkin Project raises awareness for food allergies.  Participants have non-candy treats to hand out as well, such as pencils, erasers, crayons, etc.  I'll be stocking up on these items when they're on clearance and be ready for next year.

What are you thankful for?

Revisiting October goals

Since it's October 31st, I should probably revisit my {October goals} that I set earlier this month.

1)  For the love of all things holy, I need to finish this dang book:

 Um....nope. I did read The Crossover for Battle of the Books though! 

2) Purchase and start this highly anticipated book:

In the middle, must finish by Wednesday because of a {competition with a student}!

3) Work on our wedding website.

4) Buy a new computer.   We just need to order a case for it.

5) Make the second {DEN ambassador meeting} even more awesome than the first!  I've already got a few more teachers interested in attending, which is great. I have to upload some videos and complete homework by December, but I've got time!

6) Attend a cultural event.  We're actually going to Greek Fest tonight, so this one will be easily accomplished!  One of the great things about Vegas is that there are lots of fun things like this.

Done.

7) Visit the {Bellagio gardens}. 

Nope.

8) Make something with apples.  It might be an apple pie.  It might be apple cinnamon sangria.  Okay, it will probably be the sangria.  A friend just sent me a video of a new recipe and it looks fairly easy.

Nope.

9) Have a girls day.  We had a {Jamberry} and {Younique} make up party, so I'm counting it!

10) Catch up with old friends.  Yes and no. I have some calls to make.

11) Start Battle of the Books!   We've had our first few meetings, we got the kids notebooks, we've got our system structure set, we've got our first fun activity (Paper Slide videos) planned, and I've read my first book {The Crossover}.  The goal is to read all 8 by April.  

12) Catch up on grading (almost done), finish the next two regions for social studies (the West Region is part way done), and maybe even get ahead in terms of planning (a girl can dream).

I have 33 essays left to grade and enter. The West Region and Great Plains regions are done, I'm just working on the Midwest.

13)  Continue to be extra patient with my students.  Some of them have a lot going on at home and act out in school because they're having trouble coping.  This is totally understandable, it's just taking some additional patience on my end.  Patience that I quickly feel I'm running out of.  It's hard with 34 students.  It's hard when some of them are able to focus for thirty seconds at a time and constantly shout out.  It's hard to continue to be patient when I have ten different private hallway conversations with a student on a daily basis about class norms.  But...it's necessary.  

Yes.  I even added another, putting me at 35.

14) Figure out my school costume.  We're doing a theme for fifth grade...and the theme is balls.  We're not the most appropriate ones, I know.  It's more of a joke for the adults.  I'm thinking of being a disco ball or a bowling ball.  Totally fine costume by itself, but then when the teachers realize that all of the fifth grade teachers have something to do with balls...hilarity will ensue.  The kids won't get it.  But it makes us giggle. 

I was fantasy football.  I wore UNLV grad robes and carried a wand and a football.  Mrs. H wore a jersey, pink witch hat, and carried a wand.  Together we made sense to some.  Not everyone got it, but we're so punny.

The rest of the grade level was a magic 8 ball, an eye ball, and a gumball machine.

So apparently my "top ten" got a little over zealous and I now have 14 goals for the month.  But...overplanning is how I live my life.

Then life changed, goals changed, and I got only part of what I needed to accomplish.  Good thing November starts tomorrow!

What did you accomplish this October?

The Perfect Storm

After a thrilling weekend in Arizona, the harsh realities of Sunday night seem to be hitting harder than normal.

This week brings:

• An hour long Battle of the Books meeting after school
• An hour of tutoring after school (one of my students missed an entire week)
• An observation
• A parade
• Making a Halloween costume
• A four hour grad class on Thursday
• An upcoming FIVE day weekend for students (Friday is Nevada day, then next Monday and Tuesday are staff development days)

Then...this:

Perfect storm indeed.

Meet Our Pumpkin

As I previously {shared}, our school has a great tradition of decorating pumpkins about book characters.  Each class gets a pumpkin (which are donated) and decorates it.  You can't puncture or pierce the pumpkin in anyway, but the kids have lots of fun with it.  The younger classes tend to have parent volunteers or the teacher make the whole thing...but that's not how we roll in fifth grade!  This was entirely done by my students. 

As a class, we voted on characters and brainstormed our options.  I had student helpers stay after school (with permission) to help decorate.

We voted on Harry Potter and here is the (almost) finished result:

In the library, Harry has a scarf, wizard hat, and wand (aka a chopstick).

Voting starts next week!

Yeah...we're going to lose.

One of the adorable traditions at my school is the fall decorating of pumpkins for the library.

We get a bunch of pumpkins donated and each class gets to decorate the pumpkin based on a book character.  I tried to slap a post-it on our class pumpkin and say "this is a gourd, we read informational text" but was vetoed.  The pumpkins have to be based on a book character (not a recent movie character).

The pumpkins also can't be punctured in any way because we want them on display in the library for a few weeks.

The primary classes usually produce the most adorable pumpkins because parent helpers or the teachers spend hours crafting very adorable and very complex designs.

Mine however, is completely student driven...and it shows.  

Volunteers stay after school and armed with paint and big ideas, they navigate working together to create this work of art that will be on display for the rest of the school.

I'd love to do this:

However, we haven't read any books on mummies and my students are very excited about all their ideas.  We have an online poll going, but then will turn that into a survey (embedding that technology folks!)

The current winning idea is...

The Minotaur.

From Greek Mythology.

Something tells me we're not going to win the cutest pumpkin contest, but if my students have fun making it, that's all that matters.

October Goals

As I {previously shared}, I got through about half of my {September} goals...and that's okay.

Let's do some goal setting for October!

1)  For the love of all things holy, I need to finish this dang book:

It's good, I'm just struggling to find time to read independently...without pets on my lap.

2) Purchase and start this highly anticipated book:

I thought it was Annabeth's brother, but alas, Magnus is her cousin.  It's in the newest Scholastic book flyers that I distributed, so I'll be buying myself one.  There were lots of other great books, so I might spend some of my points and stock up on new things for my students.  

3) Work on our wedding website.  We decided (okay, I decided) to make a free one to fill our out of state guests in on events.  I've started one on the knot, I just have to finish it.

4) Buy a new computer.  B's is....eight.  Yes, eight. It's a third grader.  It's time for a new one.  We're visiting my family at the end of the month, so it's a perfect time to get my brother's feedback (since he works for Microsoft) and get a new one.  It's not perfect timing (because it never is), but we've been putting this off for about a year.  He needs it for school and I need it for work.

5) Make the second {DEN ambassador meeting} even more awesome than the first!  I've already got a few more teachers interested in attending, which is great.

6) Attend a cultural event.  We're actually going to Greek Fest tonight, so this one will be easily accomplished!  One of the great things about Vegas is that there are lots of fun things like this.

7) Visit the {Bellagio gardens}.  We went over the summer and enjoyed their underwater display, but I guess they've changed it again for fall.  It's free to get in and there's a chocolate store nearby.  If B doesn't want to go (or has class), I'm sure I can talk some of my gals into going...right?

8) Make something with apples.  It might be an apple pie.  It might be apple cinnamon sangria.  Okay, it will probably be the sangria.  A friend just sent me a video of a new recipe and it looks fairly easy.

9) Have a girls day.  We're doing a Frankenstein Jamberry Wrap Swap on the 17th and playing with make up (always fun), but I want to do a happy hour with my bridesmaids (the ones that are here).  I also want to do a happy hour with some of my lovely coworkers.  Y'all down for that?

10) Catch up with old friends.  It's been far too long since I've talked with some of them on the phone.  There's been some childish antics with "friends" here, so I'm ready to cut my losses and focus on the amazing people that I do have in my life.  

11) Start Battle of the Books!  Mrs. H, the librarian, and I have been hyping this up to the fourth and fifth graders.  We're collecting permission slips and getting ready to start our after school book lounge.  We're offering the kids some guidance, but the Battle of the Books is totally up to them.  We wanted to give them extra reading time in the library after school and offer structure, but it's up to them.  

12) Catch up on grading (almost done), finish the next two regions for social studies (the West Region is part way done), and maybe even get ahead in terms of planning (a girl can dream).

13)  Continue to be extra patient with my students.  Some of them have a lot going on at home and act out in school because they're having trouble coping.  This is totally understandable, it's just taking some additional patience on my end.  Patience that I quickly feel I'm running out of.  It's hard with 34 students.  It's hard when some of them are able to focus for thirty seconds at a time and constantly shout out.  It's hard to continue to be patient when I have ten different private hallway conversations with a student on a daily basis about class norms.  But...it's necessary.  

14) Figure out my school costume.  We're doing a theme for fifth grade...and the theme is balls.  We're not the most appropriate ones, I know.  It's more of a joke for the adults.  I'm thinking of being a disco ball or a bowling ball.  Totally fine costume by itself, but then when the teachers realize that all of the fifth grade teachers have something to do with balls...hilarity will ensue.  The kids won't get it.  But it makes us giggle. 

So apparently my "top ten" got a little over zealous and I now have 14 goals for the month.  But...overplanning is how I live my life.

What will you accomplish this October?

Halloween Math Games

Halloween is a special day in elementary school.  Between lots of costumes, our school wide dance party to Thriller, and the looming five day (yes, 5 day) weekend for students, there wasn't a lot of focusing on work from my students.

Instead of fighting for their focus, I did math games.  They were aligned to the standards and students were working on math, but in a fun way.  

Game 1: Decimal Place Value Spooky Sort, created by Jennifer Findley

We have been working on rounding and decimals, so this was perfect for them to round to the specified place value!

Game 2: Adding and Subtracting Decimals, created by Jane Feener

This was perfect for my students!  I'd just explicitly taught adding and subtracting the week before so it was a great spiral review.

Game 3: Sweet Rounding Decimals, created by Fun in Fifth Grade

Again, another awesome center to review math concepts!

Oh, did I mention all these fabulous games were free?  Be sure to leave their creators some love on TpT!

Percy the Pumpkin

As I previously blogged about, my class designed a Percy Jackson pumpkin.

I'm going to preface this picture with the disclaimer that it was 100% student made.  All I did was supervise and provide the paint.

The backside has a trident, waves, skull, and Riptide.

Here's Percy:

You can vote for our pumpkin here!

We really want a popcorn party :)

Halloween

When I asked a colleague if the kiddos were allowed to wear Halloween costumes to school, I got really excited when I learned how into Halloween we are at our school.

There is a parade. 

I can have a class party.

The kids wear costumes.

Hooray!

I originally found this idea online:

I double checked, no food allergies!  However, I don't necessary want to give them snacks that are completely sugar.  I also would most likely damage these in the process of transporting them from home to school.

So I compromised with these:

I purchased the large tubs of cheese balls at Target and used the snack sized ziplocks.  While these aren't the healthiest snacks, they won't make a huge mess (like sprinkles or frosting), they are portion-sized, and I could accomplish the whole class for under $10.  B gets the left overs which he's pretty excited about.  I used 1/2 of each color tub, so if you wanted to stick with just one color for cheese balls, your cost would be even less.

(Plus I could make these while dealing with a migraine)

I also created a permission slip for students to participate in our class party, that way I am being respectful of my students' religious preferences.  They can still eat of course, they'll just visit another classroom during our "Halloween" party time.

I've also learned through the experience of having several dozen cupcakes to ask students to bring in different items.  I will also be providing capri sun, that way we don't run into the situation where we have two liter bottles and no cups (again, from experience).  Plus capri suns are less likely to spill.

This year I was proud of myself for creating different categories for families to pick from.  For example:

___ sugary snacks (candy, muffins, brownie bites, cupcakes (no bright colored frosting))
___ crunchy snacks (pretzels, chips and dip, crackers and cheese)
___ healthy snacks (cheese and cracker tray, fruit tray, veggie tray)
___ paper products (napkins, plates, cups, utensils, tissues, paper towels)
___ classroom supplies (expo markers, post its, glue sticks)
___ we are unable to donate at this time

Hopefully this will spread out the snacks :)

Now it's time to find where I put my ASU grad robes because for the last several years, they've doubled as my Gryffindor Quidditch robes because I go as Ginny Weasley. Always.

Pumpkins

Even though October snuck up on me, I'm excited for the plethora of pumpkins in my life.

I don't like carving pumpkins. I don't really like pumpkin flavored or scented things.  However, I think they're cute and have ceramic ones in my house.

I checked with my students and they all celebrate Halloween, so I put up this banner in my classroom:

My students also requested a fall scent for our classroom diffuser, so I bought an apple cinnamon one.  For me, it's worth $5 to make them happy and have them feel like it's their classroom too.

At my new school, we do a pumpkin decorating contest.  As a class, we will vote on a book character to paint on our pumpkin.  I posed the question to my students on weebly (our class blog) and of the 30 responses, 28 of them are for Percy Jackson.  Well I guess we don't have much of a say!

One student wants to also add a trident (Poseidon), skull (Hades), and lightning bolt (Zeus).  I'm letting them take the reins and while we may not win, I will be proud that my students completely designed and painted the Percy Pumpkin!

Math and Food

Whenever possible and appropriate, I try to bring food into the classroom.  Students are automatically more engaged in the lesson and it's a great motivator (if you don't do your best, you don't get the treat).

One of my favorite things to do is use Hersey's kisses as a concentration game for math.  I use the white version of these:

I put the stickers on the bottom of the candies.  I use multiplication facts for my fifth graders, but you can use any operation depending on your students' ability level.  I put the product on one candy and the equation on another.

Students put the candies face down and play concentration.  It's a great center for holidays or special occasions.  

The prep work takes about twenty minutes and I'd recommend writing on the stickers prior to placing them on the candy.

(ELA connection: You could do Greek and Latin roots or affixes where students match the affix with the meaning)

I plan to do something like this around Halloween because the students will most likely expect candy so at least there is an academic purpose!