Spring Happenings

Hope spring is treating everyone well.  I recently returned from an 8 day vacation in Mexico for my spring break. This is the 3rd time I've gone to the Tulum, Mexico Riviera Maya area with my family to have some much needed rest and relaxation.  As I walked the beaches each day I found heart stones to add to my growing collection.

There are signs of spring in my own backyard too. A bird has set up her nest on my patio.
It right in front of the sliding door so I'm not sure if mama bird will be happy with Harley's "protect the yard morning barking" every morning.

And I get to see this mule pulling his owner in a rickshaw on the walking path near my home.

Happenings in my classroom include administering the state field test. We took the first portion on Friday. One down, 2 more sessions to go! My kiddos did their best!

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Pupster in the family

Meet Bodie, my dog nephew!

He's my brother's new pup and just meant to be with him.

My brother's elderly dog died about a month ago and I just knew my brother would have to get another companion soon.

One night, mid February he called me and was so excited to have found a beautiful female lab running loose. He couldn't find the owner right away, and was willing and ready to be her new owner, but she was a mom and was obviously still nursing pups. So he posted signs and called local vets to try and find where she belonged.  The next evening, he called again and was happy to have found the owner along with her 9 pups.  The puppies are part lab and bull mastiff so Bodie is going to be a bruiser!

On another note, have you heard about TPT's 3 Million Teachers Strong sale coming up this Thursday and Friday?  You can shop away with BIG savings at this site wide sale! Use the special TPT3 code at checkout for an additional 10% off.

You might look to pick up some staples for the classroom like my many task card sets. Some of my best selling task card sets are

Or you might want to pick up my NEWEST money saving bundle of Swat It Grammar Games

Get 7 games for $5.00 off buying them individually!

Don't forget about stocking up on Spring lesson ideas like Earth Day!

My best seller is my Litter Bugs Project

or my Power Over Trash Writing

On your mark, get ready, set, GO fill up your carts!

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Teaching the Dream of MLK

I posted about the resources I've used to teach about Martin Luther King on the ATUE blog the other day.  See it HERE

And today I just found this tribute song to add to my lessons.

    

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Snow Beautiful

Well, it's a sunny 75% in California and I just got back from walking Harley.

He's decked out in bells and jingled all the way on our walk.

Since snow is a rare occurrence here I wanted some holiday inspiration.

"Snow" Beautiful

Falling Snow from Matt S on Vimeo.

Wishing everyone a wonderful holiday!

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Happy Turkey Day

Happy Turkey Day Song!

Click to listen:

Boy my Thanksgiving this year has me feeling like I'm running around with my head cut off.

To give some background, my family dinner is postponed this year until Sunday since my mom and dad are out of town. And since they've always cooked the turkey no one else wanted to take on that job. My ONLY job today was to take the turkey out of MY freezer and drive it over to their house to thaw out in their fridge for the next few days. Sounds simple, but not really. Yesterday my automatic garage door was acting up and not shutting properly, so I put it into manual mode.  So I got up this morning, put the frozen turkey in my car, manually lifted up the door, pulled my car out and then the trouble started. I got out of the car to pull the door back down and my middle finger got caught and pinched in the now closed garage door. I was literally stuck to the garage door. I started hollering for help like crazy.

Luckily some volunteer workers for the annual Turkey Trot heard my ruckus and I told them to call 911. After what seemed like forever a police officer saved the day and pulled up the garage door and I was released. Now I'm nursing a big, fat bruised finger and I REFUSE to park my car back in the garage until I can get someone to figure out how to get my garage door to work properly. Said car is sitting in my driveway and I'm icing my finger.

Hope everybody else's Turkey Day was a little less hectic.

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Teaching about Immigration, Ellis Island and Today's Pilgrims

My class just finished an in depth author study of Patricia Polacco.

We learned how her family immigrated to the U.S. from Russia.

I read the book Coming to America to teach more about the immigration process.

Then we explored Scholastic's site on immigrants which includes video clips of immigrant children today as well as background on Ellis Island.

Finally, we connected Patricia Polacco's family history of being Russian immigrants to the novel Molly's Pilgrim. A video is available for the story too that we compared the book to.

View a video clip

To wrap up our pilgrim and immigration focus students made their own Molly's Pilgrim doll.

 

I recently started a Facebook Group for teachers to share ideas, questions, and inspiration. 

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Classroom Management: Tips for Keeping Kids on Track

I posted over at All Things Upper Elementary today about ways help students stay focused and on track.

Pop on over to read more

~Enjoy

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Happy Birthday Harley

My Harley is 9 years old today so he got some special treats.

I got him Biscotti biscuits with chicken and cranberries

Also did you know that Chick-Fil-A hands out dog treats?

I had Harley in the back seat the other day when I went through Chick-Fil-A drive thru.

The cashier saw him and offered me a biscuit.

Since Chick-Fil-A is closed on Sundays, I couldn't treat Harley to that on his birthday, but maybe I'll take him tomorrow.

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California Dreamin: California Regions

I just love this California Region song

What a perfect way to learn about the central valley, mountains, coast and desert regions of the Golden State.

Even Harley loves cruisin' California!

A good car ride makes a dog's life.

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I recently started a Facebook Group for teachers to share ideas, questions, and inspiration. 

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The Elements

I'm soon to be wrapping up a science unit on matter.

One of the final lessons on elements, compounds and mixtures is more difficult to grasp.

So I turned to finding these catchy songs as a resource:

The Periodic Table Song

My students couldn't get enough of listening to These Are the Elements Song

Study Jams also had a quick video on compounds and mixtures

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