Five for...School's Out for the Summer!

It does not even seem real yet.

I checked out on Thursday. Spent yesterday shopping with my hubby. And now here I sit on a Saturday, trying to believe I do not have to work next week!

So...I've got a few fun pictures for this week's Five for Friday post.

1

I love adding in some exciting projects at the end of the year to keep my kiddos engaged. They really enjoyed using computers to type their animal research papers!

2

We took a field trip to the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve.

This sweetie thought he should read in the one room school house. :-) 

3

I'm trying to organize my new open shelving in my laundry room. I'd like to try something like this for my liquid detergent. 

Has anyone tried it? 

I've read that some of them get "clogged" and don't work well... 

4

New position = new space.

As I explained in this post, things are changing for me next year.

I'm moving from 2nd grade/K-2 science teacher to the Title I teacher (reading specialist). I'm very excited about the change, but I have a lot of work ahead of me.

This office will be my new "space" for most of the day. My time will be split between two buildings so I have another office there to set up and organize as well. 

5

We had some extra time the other day so I broke out the puzzles. It is always interesting to me and a little sad to see that some kiddos really don't know how to do a puzzle or where to start. They always enjoy the challenge though!

Bonus

Happy Summer to me! 

A new laptop means I will get lots of work done this summer, right?

I hope so...a little TPT and hopefully a whole lot of writing!

Field Trip

We made it through our field trip to the zoo on Friday!!!  I don't know about you, but field trips exhaust me (mentally and physically).  I tend to worry the entire week, praying that I have done everything and set up everything that needed to be done and set up.  Then on the field trip, I'm praying everything goes well and nothing happens.  I saw this saying and thought how true it was.........

I don't know how many times I counted on Friday!

The kids had a great time and it was a beautiful day to go to the zoo (74 degrees!).  I think some of the animals at the zoo were feeling how I was feeling (many of them were asleep).  Here are some of the pictures that I snapped:

This is exactly how I was Friday night!

Have a great weekend!

Lots of things going on!!!

Sorry for the late post, I'm not sure where this week has gone but I can say it has been pretty hectic. Starting on Monday, we had to say our good-byes to our 12 year old dog.  :-(  He was diagnosed back in December with cancer and his tumor had gotten a lot bigger and he was getting weaker.  My husband and I didn't want him to suffer therefore, we had him put to sleep.  

Now our other dog that is 2 years old is missing him terribly.  We are trying to give her as much attention as possible.  Now, we are debating if we should get another puppy.  They say that Siberian Husky dogs do better with having a companion.  My problem is that I don't know if this old lady can keep up with a puppy!  We will see!

Tuesday-I woke up with a fever and ended up having to get a substitute for the day.  I will say that I slept until 11 and then from 12-3:30.  I went to the doctor at 4:30 and back home and asleep again at 8:00 until my alarm in the morning.  The sleep was very nice!  

Along with being sick, my stepdad had surgery to remove some kidney stones.  Everything went great with the surgery.  

Wednesday-At our school, we do AR reading and if the kids had an 85% average on their AR tests then they got to go bowling in the morning.  Our librarian set it all up.  The kids had a blast!

Thursday-We started our 10 day countdown like Crystal was talking about in her last post.  Only we didn't do balloons because my co-teacher doesn't like the popping of the balloons.  She came up with the idea of using little cups, pinning them on the bulletin board and putting tissue paper around them.  Well, when putting it together I had to tweak it some because it just wasn't working out for me.  (I'm not very crafty).  

Today, if they hadn't moved their owl down yesterday for behavior they got to do what was in the cup and it was painting.   They were thrilled!  We haven't used paints too much this year so this was a real treat!

I've made it through so far and now tomorrow is our field trip to the zoo.  It is supposed to rain here but we are hoping it holds off until we come back from the zoo..........fingers crossed!

Have a great day!

Field Trip Exhaustion and Volleyball Mom

I survived the Pumpkin Patch! 

We went on our field trip yesterday and it was great. I had so many parents come along I didn't even have a group of kids with me. I just walked around and checked on the kids...so why was I so exhausted? I came home and took a nap! Ha!

This morning, I put on my "volleyball mom" shirt and headed to the league tournament for my daughter's middle school team.

Kansas sunrise...It was a beautiful sunrise as I drove to the tournament.

Our team went into the tournament 9-1 and ranked 1st in our league. We played pool play in the East Division, avenged our only loss for the season, and came out 5-0 for the day. Monday we will play in the league semi-finals (east and west) and hopefully advance to the finals. :-)

So proud of these girls! My daughter is #25.

Finally relaxing a bit tonight...catching up on Person of Interest. Tomorrow is the finale to our Missions Conference and 60th Anniversary at church. Then next week parent teacher conferences...can't believe how fast this year is going!

Field Trip to the zoo!

Well, we made it!  We went to the zoo for our field trip on Friday.  All of those who know me, know that field trips stress me out!  LOL!  I am a little controlling and the idea of not having all the kids in my sight makes me nervous.  :-)  We had a lot of parents come with us so we break up into small groups and just walk around the zoo the entire day except for when we have lunch together. 

 

The trip really went well.  We got some great close up pictures and it was a beautiful day (77 degrees) with no rain and it wasn't too hot or too cold.  The kids had a great time and I will say that coming home they were really tired.  The kids that were with me kept telling me in the morning that they wouldn't get tired and that they wouldn't be sleeping on the bus home.  LOL!  Well, by afternoon they were saying that their legs were hurting and that they were tired.  Needless to say, one of them was the first ones to fall asleep on the bus.  So, if these 7 year olds were tired, you know how tired this old lady was and how much I needed to rest up this weekend. 

 

Check it out:

We even got to see the elephant training show.

Yikes!  Glad the glass is thick!

 

 

 

Kids at the beginning of the trip (all smiles and full of energy)

 

Kids on the bus ride home (TIRED)

 

Kids on bus ride home that said that they wouldn't get tired and sleep on the bus!  LOL!

I hope all of you mothers have had a great Mother's Day today!  Have a great week!

 

 

 

 

 

First Field Trip of the Year!

Let me start by saying that I am not one that gets really excited about field trips, in fact I am quite the opposite.  I STRESS out about them!  I worry about all of it from making sure it was set up right to how will the kids do while we are on the field trip.

 

This past week, we were learning about communities and decided that it would be fun to go to the fire station to tour it for our extra fun thing that we do on the last day of the week.  They just finished building a fire station that is less than a block from our school.  So, we thought it would be a perfect little field trip....no need for a bus and it could be a fairly quick field trip.

 

We went on Friday and I was so impressed with my kiddos!  They did an outstanding job and set a great example on our field trip.  Throughout the week, we discussed the field trip and how to behave.  We also wrote about what would be good manners to have on the field trip.  In the end, I should have thought more about my quote on Wisdom for Wednesday because I worried about nothing!  It was a fun field trip and like I said, I was very impressed with how my kiddos behaved.  The other exciting thing about it was I also learned some neat stuff from the firemen that I didn't know about!  LOL!  The firemen that did the tour did an outstanding job with talking with the kids and giving them information about their jobs.   Check out the pictures below. 

 

I hope all of you have a great week!

 

 

 

 

Field Trip to the Zoo = Sleeping Kids!

Whew! We are exhausted! Today was our big field trip to the zoo. We left at 8:30 this morning and headed to the zoo (about 45 minutes away). It was such a fun day. I had one in my group who wore a watch and decided to be the official "time-keeper" for us. He told me the time at least every two minutes - seriously! LOL! There was a few times when he would say, "It's 10:26" and a few seconds later, "It's still 10:26." Kristi and I had a lot of good laughs today!

Here's what some of the kids looked like on the way home... I had 6 go to sleep. Kristi had 0 go to sleep...our classes are so different! Glad no one snapped our picture because we probably looked just as tired, but I promise I did not fall asleep on the bus. :-)

Quite a difference from when we left... Our 10 day balloon countdown had "1st graders are so bright, we have to wear shades." Kristi and I bought them all sunglasses (party favor aisle) and gave them to wear on the field trip. They were so excited.

Oh, and here's one picture of fun at the zoo. You'll notice the timekeeper pointing to our twins. Kristi and I each have one of the twins so we teamed  up so they could walk together. They are such cuties!

TWO more days! Tomorrow we're cleaning in the morning, then having an AR party - watch a movie and floats. Friday is Field Day!

I know some of you have more days left, so hang in there!

Crystal