Centers and Messes....

Life has been a little crazy since I last posted. I have been very busy.
 Monday I weighed in for my first week of Weight Watchers and I lost 5 POUNDS! Yay! I was so excited. Tuesday I went to sushi with my dear friend Bri and her mom. We had a great time. I sure hope she can find a teaching job around here so she can move back. Everyone say a prayer!
Yesterday I wasn't feeling so well so I just laid around after work.
Today Remy and I were very productive! I taught summer school this morning and then when I came home Remy and I cut the grass. I borrowed my aunts lawn mower and he used to other one and we accomplished 2 acres. It looks amazing now. Remy also weed-eated around the house. Then we picked blueberries. Yummy!

Another reason I haven't been blogging lately is because I have been working on some centers. My husband is amazing and doesn't complain (too much :) ) about the mess I make in our living room.

Here is a picture of all my mess in the living room. 

I have so many projects that I am working on. When I started my job many people gave me stuff. I have never had a chance to go through anything because it has been so hectic. Well, last week I found 2 make and take center books that someone had given me. They are awesome! I have been working on those and will post pictures when I finish.
Now I am just waiting on my laminate to arrive in the mail....

So good your husband will even eat it!

Today Remy and I went grocery shopping at Walmart. I have started Weight Watchers again so we were figuring up all the points as we shopped. I'm sure we looked funny.

 Well I have grown to like rice cakes. The only ones I have ever had are the cheesy ones that are in chip form. I have never tried any others. I saw the big chocolate ones and they looked yummy. They also had a recipe on the back and I wanted to try it. 

Let me tell you! It was delicious!

One chocolate rice cake- 2 points

2 TBSP fat free cool whip- 0 points

1/4 serving light chocolate syrup- 0 points

strawberries-0 points

It was so delicious! Remy even ate 2 of them before I could even eat 1! Of course, when you have more than one it adds on the points, but it is a definite must try! The next one we will try will be pizza on the cheese rice cake! I never thought I would be blogging about how good a rice cake is..... ha ha

Fly swatters and flowers...

I know you are thinking I am crazy from the title, but I promise I am not!
I have been trying to think of creative and cute ways for the kids to enjoy "reading around the room" or "writing around the room" during center time.
This is a cute idea I came up with. All the materials I needed were fly swatters, ribbon, flowers, hot glue gun and a container.

These are my materials...

I glued to ribbon around the metal part of the fly swatter and I glued a flower to the plastic part.

This is what I came up with! They turned out super cute!

For the container I bought a cheap cereal dispenser from Walmart and only used the bottom part. I decorated the top part with flowers so it looks cuter. 

TA-DA! A cute storage container for them. The kids will love to use these as pointers when they read around the room :)

I am very excited about them, and I think they will be too!

Popcorn Math!

Have I mentioned that I love my school? Everyone is great and we are like a family. We are blessed with talented and creative people. One of those people is Paula Dees. She comes up with the best centers and is always willing to share. This is one of her ideas that I made. I do believe mine is a little "cheesier" :)

This is called Popcorn Math. It is a game to help the children with addition or subtraction. I got the popcorn containers from the dollar section of Target for $1.00 each (I bought 8). The container that is holding them is a drink container from a local grocery stores deli. I went online and printed out the clip art and laminated it with my new laminator :)

The "popcorn" is actually cotton balls that have been painted to have the popcorn look. Mine is cheesier than Mrs. Paula's because I had the kids in my class do it, and they got a LITTLE carried away with the orange paint. But hey, I just have CHEESY popcorn :)
They use the popcorn to count out their problems.

The problems are on tickets. I have different color tickets for different color groups so they don't get mixed up or fight over them. On mine, I put addition and subtraction problems.

This is the first project I have completed for math this summer. Mrs. Paula is giving me some more ideas and I will make those as well. I have also been researching and thinking of other centers. Isn't it great to have fabulous and creative people at work who are willing to share ideas?

Laminator!

I just purchased a laminator for the house and I LOVE IT! I have many projects that I will be working on and I will post pics when I finish. I have already started one, and it should be finished this week. Look forward to pictures :)

Summer School and Cakes :)

This week has started off with a bang! Summer school started yesterday and I have 12 kids in my class. It is hard to get adjusted to only having 3 1/2 hours with the kids to teach Reading and Math. We have 30 minutes of computer lab daily and a 30 minute lunch, so we have them a total of 4 1/2 hours. It ends July 15th and I feel like I have so much to cover before then. It will be a fun 17 more days!

My mom and I have been taking a cake class. We took one a couple of years ago and really enjoyed it. Then I started work and it was too exhausting to do that and teach, so we are doing it over the summer. We go on Monday nights and it is a lot of fun. 

This is my cake from last week. It may look pretty but it was a COMPLETE disaster. I just laugh about it now. We are required to make our own icing (which calls for Crisco). My dad said we were NOT allowed to use Crisco because it is so bad for you, so we used butter instead. AWFUL! It wouldn't have been so bad if we hadn't put the icing in a cooler... lets just say there was icing running everywhere and ALL over the place. It didn't even make in home in one piece because the top slid off. Needless to say, it met the trash can!

 

These are my cupcakes from this week. We made the icing the real way and they turned out cute. Remy took them to work for his co-workers. (sorry for the awful photos, my camera broke and my phone camera only works one way- I have to buy a new camera)

We start doing fondant in July and I am REALLY excited!!!

Blueberry Fun!

So yesterday Mom and I went to see the movie Bridesmaids. Definitely a funny one!
When we got back we went to pick blueberries at my aunts house. I had finally convinced Remy to help us pick(he is the one that eats them ALL and never wants to help). We picked for about 45 minutes and came home with a TON!

Here is a picture of all the blueberries we picked. The picture doesn't do it justice. They are in a big colander and it is completely full.

So this morning for Father's Day I made blueberry pancakes. Mom and dad came over before church to eat some. They were yummy!

They may not look pretty, but they were yummy! We were able to use our big griddle we got as a wedding gift. Big mess, but great time!

Now off to church for our pastors last service. Pretty sad :(

Happy Father's Day to all the daddies out there :) Mine is the best!

More TO-DO's....

So as I have been thinking I am remembering more and more that I want to do this summer.

I want to make different centers for math, science and reading to use in the classroom. As I finish something I will post it. I am VERY excited about this :)

I have also BEGAN one of my projects. I have painted the letters for MRS GODWIN. I am thinking they need another coat though...

Notice all the junk around it to hold it down.

 I didn't want the trash bags to blow around and mess up the letters. 

Science Pictures...

I know you have all been DYING to see what I did and got for FREE at my workshop :)
First off, if you can ever go to a workshop given by Learners Advantage, DO IT! The lady who gave the workshop (for K-2) was Heather Cloud and she was AMAZING! It was the best workshop I have ever attended. She kept us busy and it was A LOT of fun!

Now to the good stuff... (all credit goes to Learners Advantage and Heather Cloud)

This is precious! A fun way to teach the 5 senses! Googly eyes (see), marshmallow for nose (smell), bells for ears (hear), Twizzlers for mouth (taste), and sand paper for hands (feel)

It was really cute and would be a great item to add to 5 senses. The kids could also decorate it with hair.

Moon Sand!

Just add sand, cornstarch and water! You can also add glitter and food coloring to make it fun!

Animal activities

One Tiny Turtle is a precious book! We read this book and then did different activities. one of the activities was the frog cycle. I loved this one! Although I didn't finish yet because I cannot draw a frog! The eggs are actually bubble wrap. That was my favorite part!

Plant Activities

Time For Kids are great books. The pictures are AMAZING.

 We also made a cute plant life cycle wheel and my favorite is the flower! The flower itself is made out of an egg carton, stem, leaves and roots are made out of pipe cleaners. This was a very fun and simple activity. A way to expand on the activity would be to have the kids label all the parts using actual labels. Love this!

 Some more cool books (Day Light, Night Light, The Popcorn Book and Push and Pull), a flashlight and a thermometer. We did a neat experiment with a cup of water with a thermometer in it and flashlights around it. We had to see if light heated water and keep track of the temperature every 10 minutes. This would be a great activity to do outside in natural sunlight as well (it was raining and we were unable to do it outside).

A fun tic-tac-toe game (bad picture) 

Magnifying glasses and sorting rings. 

I had an amazing time and it was definitely worth it. Next year I want to try to go to the Math workshop like this. I heard it was a lot of fun as well. 

Science...

Today I attended a science workshop. I think it was one of the coolest workshops I have EVER been to! We did many hands-on activities and even got FREE stuff! Yes, FREE! We received 3 books, a thermometer, flashlight, some cool Venn diagram rings, and we even made moon sand! I go again tomorrow and I am really looking forward to it. I will post pics of all my freebies after tomorrow. 

Summer To Do LIST

I am sure this will be added to, but the list is already pretty long...

1. organize shelves behind my desk
2. organize counters and games
3. organize cabinets (when I started people were very generous and gave me A LOT of stuff. I have had NO time to go through it and see what would be beneficial... this HAS to be done this summer!)
4. organize room (can you tell I need to organize?!?)
5. go through books
6. pressure wash mat (I have had it since I started and it needs to be cleaned... BAD!)
7. Re-do bulletin boards in room
8. hang class pictures
9. Buy MRS GODWIN letters and paint them to go outside my room (letters have been bought!)
10. make gorilla cut out of wood to go outside room
11. Make cubbies for my classroom. We only have hooks and they are too tall, and too close together and just a mess! I NEED CUBBIES!

This is all for now.. It will be added to for sure :)

A few pictures...

One of my favorite wedding pictures... 

Now a few classroom pictures...

This is a desk a dear friend in Pennsylvania gave to me last summer. We were visiting because her daughter was getting married.... I had HUGE plans for this desk :)

Now I have my listening center on it! The kids love it and it has cute little gorilla knobs (have I mentioned I am  obsessed with gorillas? Hence Godwin's Gorillas theme :)

Have I mentioned my husband is AMAZING? Last summer this was our BIG project. It took us about 3 days and working in the classroom until 11pm. My husband drew everything and we both painted it. I absolutely love it! 

Summer!

Summer is finally here! I have many things planned this summer. Two days this week I will be attending a Science workshop (I have heard we get lots of freebies, so I will post pics). I will also be teaching summer school which will begin June 20th. We have two trips planned. One to Texas to visit my husbands friend and another to Louisiana.

 I am excited for everything on my "summer classroom list" to be completed. I'm not so sure how excited my husband is to be doing the list....