Sunday, March 20, 2016

Spring Fever and Spring Break!

Hello to everyone!  I hope that Spring Break has you feeling refreshed and ready to come back!  This time of year is always so busy and exciting, especially at M.G. Ellis.  Let’s start with the Heart Walk and Health Fair that we have every year at the beginning of March!  This is an event that I (Cindy) along with my lovely committee put together at our school.  We invite parents to come and do a 30 minute fun walk around our playground area, facilitated by our awesome P.E. teacher Mrs. Hamilton.  Afterwards parents get to visit booths that give them lots of information about how to stay healthy by getting their weight and BMI, insurance, and local dentists offices just to name a few, a big thank you to Lynne our school nurse for her hard work in getting all of these wonderful people together.  We had over 160 people in attendance this year!  What a great turn out!  I was sooo busy during all of it that I only got a few pictures.

 
Last week, wait the week before spring break haha, we talked about rainbows, St. Patrick’s Day and leprechauns.  Sandra asked her little ones: “What would you do if you found a pot of gold?”  They made this super cute anchor chart, put their ideas on a cloud then, they added a rainbow chain attached to a pot of gold.  Her display looks AMAZING don’t you think?!

 The next activity I’m going to show you is one that we’ve been doing for a few years now, I really love this activity.  We asked the students, “Who is worth more than gold to you?”  We started out with this anchor chart to help them write about who they chose, along with two details of why that person means so much to them.  One of my students said, “My teacher is worth more than gold to me.  She gives me hugs and teaches me about everything.”  That students is now my all-time fav!---Just kidding I love them all!  Here’s a picture of my example and some of Sandra’s students’ writing.  I decided to add a rainbow to the top and make my pot of gold black just to change it up a little bit.

My class did the leprechaun directed drawing from First Grade Blue Skies again along with a modified leprechaun application we didn’t get to finish L.  This year I let them use liquid water colors to paint the background after coloring their leprechauns with crayons.  I was very nervous about using liquid water colors with my kids but, then I had the great idea of letting only half of them paint at one time, while the other half was busy doing something else, and let me tell you, it really saved my sanity!  I know, “Let it go Cindy,” but spilled liquid water color is something I can’t! LOL!  Some of the kids got fancy with their painting!  I will definitely let them use liquid water colors again.  Yay!  I made a modified, "What is your leprechaun name?" off of a list of named I found on google images.  Once again the kiddos got a kick out of their leprechaun names.  Some of them were very fitting of them! ;-)  I posted them on the wall so the parents can try to find which one belongs to their little one.


Sandra did a leprechaun craftivity from our hero, the wonderful, Deanna Jump!  She paired it with our “How would you catch a leprechaun?” cause and effect writing activity.  She also did this super cool paper strip rainbow from Pinterest.  What looked to be super simple turned into something a little more challenging for kinders.  There was something about folding the papers over to the opposite side that was a little tricky.  None the less Sandra got them through it and had these beautiful finished products to show for it.  The kids wrote about what their favorite color was and two things that are that color.


That was the week before…Spring Break!!!  Sandra, left on an adventure to Thailand (can’t wait to hear all about it), while I stayed home.  I feel like we’ve been running full speed since we came back from winter break.  I made it a point to try to do something every day as a sort of soul cleansing.  My spring break was awesome!  I had brunch with family, loved on my nieces and nephew, had long and unrushed talks with friends, watched Zootopia (it was soooo good!) with my family and relaxed with my love and my fur baby as we binged on Netflix and Hulu.  



 
I couldn’t ask for more, my heart is full, my body is recharged and I’m ready to welcome my little loves back to school with a smile and a HUGE hug!  Helloooooo springtime!  What did you do for spring break?  Let us know. J  Have an amazing week back at school friends.
-Cindy and Sandra

Sunday, March 6, 2016

Dr. Seuss - Read Across America Week!

You’d think I’d be all Seussed out, but I couldn’t wait to blog about our crazy, busy Read Across America week. We actually started our Dr. Seuss unit a week early, so we had 2 wonderful weeks of Seusstastic learning. Here is Cindy and some of her cutie's.
Our librarian organized some “Seussy” activities for Read Across America week. On Monday, it was Cat in the Hat day and everyone could wear their favorite hat. Tuesday was Grinchiest Green day and we all wore a green T-shirt. I don’t have anything green, but I borrowed and wore a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle shirt from my brother. My kiddos thought I was soooo cool lol. Wednesday was Foxiest Socks day and we got to wear crazy socks. I finally got to wear my BACON socks...YAAAAS!!! Thursday was Red & White Stripe day. Finally, Friday was We Love Seuss day and we got to dress as our favorite Dr. Seuss character. Many of the teachers at our school dressed up and so did Cindy. Thank you Ms. Rosales, Mrs. Campos, Mrs. Abilez and Ms. Barajas for letting me use your wonderful pictures. 
Our librarian gave all the teachers that dressed up a Dr. Seuss bag with a book, pencil, eraser, bookmarks and candy. That was awesome! Thanks Ms. Patton!! 
Cindy made these really cute Thing 1 & Thing 2 crafts with her class. She took their picture and turned their face into a coloring page. For the writing, they wrote about their favorite Dr. Seuss book. The bulletin board display turned out really cute.
We made these really cute hats that we saw on Kindergarten Smorgasbord. They are super simple and easy to make. We made them in about 10 minutes. 
We also made these Cat in the Hat crafts. Here is a picture from our colleague Ms. Guzman.
We made green eggs and ham and made a graph. Everyone loved it this year!! My students said I should be a chef hahaha!! After making this wonderful concoction, my kiddos wrote a “How To Make Green Eggs and Ham” paper.
This was just a really fun filled week of Dr. Seuss!!
Happy blogging - Sandra & Cindy