Silence for Sandy Hook Elementary

More Fonts!

The obsession continues!  Here is another set of fonts that I made.  My favorite one is Charlie Christmas.  Making that one kept me busy while I was watching the Ravens game.  :) I hope you like them!  If you want to download them head over to my TpT store!  They are free for personal use!

Fonts! Fonts!

I learned how to make fonts!  Ah!  New obsession!  Thank goodness Thanksgiving break started today.  It will give me a little down time to play and not feel so guilty about all of the other things I should be doing.  Check them out and let me know what you think!

I added a few more!  Grab yours for free here!  I have two collections available for free download.  :)

If you're wondering who Cooper and Charlie are.....they are these two fellas. 

If you like the fonts and want to download them, you can grab them from my TpT store!  I hope everyone has a great and relaxing break!  Check back if you like them!  I am working on my second set now.  :)

Clipart! Clipart!

I'm making a little more progress!  I made my first set of clipart images, nothing too fancy, but I'm still excited about them!  They are for sale in my TpT store!

Cooper and Charlie get excited when I get obsessed with projects like this because they love nothing more than to snuggle up on the couch.  :)

I hope you had a relaxing Election Day!

It's been a while....

There is just never enough time in the day is there?  Seems to be a constant battle to be fought.  I have been using any spare time that I get to try to play with Photoshop Elements.  I have learned a lot thanks to YouTube.  :)  It really is amazing all of the things you can learn on there.  I love it.

The last time I posted I was learning to make digital frames and now I have learned how to make digital paper.  Woot woot!  I am pretty excited.  :)  I love using the paper to make backgrounds for my whiteboard.  Jazzes things up a bit.  Here is the new bundle I created.  If you're interested, click the title below to check it out!

Holiday Bundle

Clipart and Graphics!

I have recently become obsessed with attempting to conquer the unfamiliar world of Photoshop.  I love making things "pretty" and really wanted to learn how to make frames and borders, etc.  We had a 3 day weekend this weekend so I figured it might be a nice time to give it a shot.  After hours on the couch today fiddling around with it and watching tutorials, I am feeling a liiiitttle bit better. Nevertheless, I have a feeling it will be years before I understand all that this program has to offer.  So here is what I have accomplished after way too many hours.  I love using flower frames to jazz up my classroom posters, daily slideshows, and printables.  Click on the title to download!  Did I mention they are free?!  :)

Flower Frames

Leave me a comment if you like!  Also, follow me for much more to come.  I bought this bad boy today.  It is the Wacom Bamboo Capture Pen and Touch Tablet.  It is going to help me make more pretty things.  :)

I am working on making doodle frames and borders and hope to have some finished this week!  Check back soon!

Fonts Fonts Fonts!

Back to school tomorrow!  Ah!  While I was trying to get some things together I got distracted when I went searching for some new fonts to use this year.  I LOVE fonts as many of you probably do as well.  I just can't get enough of them.  Thought I'd share my favorites in case anyone was looking for some new ones to add to their collection.  Click on the font name below to find where to download them.  I love browsing DaFont and kevinandamanda.com to find new ones!  What are your favorites?  Please share!

ck handprint

Hello Belle and Hello Skinny

Smiley Monster

mtf pork chop

Have a great day if you're going back tomorrow.....or if you're one of the lucky ones with a few more days left of summer to enjoy!

~Abby

Back to School Activities

Holy moly!  I can't believe summer has gone by so fast.  I find myself saying that every August.  Hehe..  I'm getting a lil excited though.  :)  Every year I use the same books to go over behavior, rules, expectations, yada yada.  This year, thanks to Pinterest, I was inspired to switch it up.  There are so many new books that I find it hard to keep up, but I chose these three to try start spicing up my back to school collection.

Lacey Walker Nonstop Talker

You Get What You Get

My Mouth is a Volcano

I bought them all on Amazon and they are all super cute.  The illustrations are amazing and the stories are all focused on specific student behavior.  My favorite part about the stories are that they all depict the character learning a lesson about behavior in a humorous kid friendly way.  If you want to check them out, click on the title and it will take you to the Amazon site.  I am borderline obsessed with Amazon.  It makes my life so much easier on so many occasions.  

I made a couple printables to go with the stories.  Since I don't know my kiddos yet, I tried to make them all so they could be adjusted to what they are capable of.  Students can illustrate or write their responses.  Most of my students came in writing sentences last year (thanks to our fabulous kindergarten teachers) so I shall see what this new batch is like very soon.  Click on the title to download.  Leave me a comment if there are any other great stories I should check out!  I hope everyone enjoys their last little bit of summer!

Back to School Bundle

Balloon Popping Bash - Manic Monday!

I am, probably like most of you, looking forward to summer and am itching to get a jumpstart on having some fun! As I was perusing Pinterest not too long ago, I came across Krista's post over at Stellar Students about an activity she does for the final 15 days of school.  She came across the idea on Ms. Gray's post on Here We Go Loopty Loo.  Basically, you "pop" your way through the last 15 days of school.  Little pieces of paper hold the secret special activity that you will complete the next day.  One balloon is popped each afternoon for the following day's activities.  Krista hung the balloons from the ceiling as you can see below.  Unfortunately we are not allowed to hang anything from the ceiling so I plan to pin mine to the bulletin board.  I am so excited I found this idea!

I made a couple of freebies to help my team and I prepare for the activities.  The first is a letter to explain the activity to our parents and alert them to check the students' home folders each night because they may need to bring in an item or two to be prepared.  The second two are the letters I plan to send home the day before we do the relay race day and beach day.  They explain to the parents what the students will need the following day.  The last three pages are the activities that I plan to use the last 15 days.  I cut them up and put them in the balloons.  They are all ready to be popped!  We will pop our first balloon this Thursday!  The countdown begins Friday!  The kids and I are so excited!

If you'd like a copy of the packet, click here!

Here are the activities I plan to do on some of the various days!
For craft day, I am going to make this really cool snake craft out of paper plates.  I found the idea at Crafts and Art for Children.  We are also going to read one of the Jimmy's Boa books.  

For the paper airplanes, I think I am just going to let them be creative.  This video may help start them off.

For Beach Day, students are going to bring in beach towels.  We are going to do our 100 Book Challenge on the beach towels (outside if weather permits) and we are going to play Beach Blanket Bingo (that's just a fancy way of saying bingo on beach towels).

For relay races day I usually borrow a couple of items from our gym teacher.  I was going to do about 5 races.  Here are the ones I plan to do.

Hula Hoop Relay and Wacky Waiter Relay from Disney's Family Fun website.
Balloon Relay, Animal Relays (they race to the different cones moving like various animals), and finally the ball hopping relay (students put the playground ball between their knees and hop to the cone and back.
I plan to do each relay through twice.  It will be a good practice for Field Day!

Mystery Guest Reader - Depending on the day we pop that balloon, I will try to get the nurse, or a 2nd grade teacher, or a past teacher to come share their favorite story.  Basically whoever they will think is cool and I can talk into doing it.  :)

For Croon a Tune - I made a playlist called Karoake in YouTube that we are going to sing along to.  I had to watch a billion to find fun songs that were totally appropriate.  Sometimes I wish they made a radio version and a classroom version of certain songs.  One word can make the song off limits.  

For Watermelon Day, I found many cute activities on The Lemonade Stand.  Students estimate the weight and circumference, etc.  They also get to enjoy yummy watermelon slices!

~Abby

Graphics by Scrappin Doodles fonts by Kevin and Amanda.

My Summer Bucket List

I was just at talking at lunch today about all of the things I would like to accomplish this summer, and then I saw the Summer Bucket List Linky Party that April posted over at A Modern Teacher.  It encouraged me to put all those ideas in one place.  

I want to make these for my classroom:

I saw them on The Boutons and I've had my heart set on making them ever since.  My school is pretty ancient and we have old wooden seats.  These are going to brighten my room right up.  (I think I'm most excited about actually picking out the fabric.)

Then I saw this table at Rehder Rainforest and really wanted one of these for my back room where the students do their center work.  (This might be aggressive for me, but I want to try!)

I have dreams about making about a billion and one resources for the classroom as well, but we shall see.  I'd really like to get some of the things together from the camping uint that Ms. Carol put together over at The First Grade Parade.  The "We are Happy Campers" display is to die for.  So stinking cute.  I want to do it for Back to School night.

I would like to make these for my house....

I found those on Lemonade Making Mama.  To go along with that, I need desperately to print out some new pictures.  I can't remember the last time I actually ordered prints.

For me, I just want to spend some qt with my dogs, read many books, and have time outside in the sun.

Aren't they handsome?  They are very excited for summer break, too!  Head over to A Modern Teacher if you want to link up!

~Abby

 

Teacher Appreciation Week

Our PTA apparently knows how much we all love food at our school.  My GOD have I felt appreciated this week.  I have had a full belly each day to prove it.  Monday started out with a ridiculous breakfast spread.  Tuesday they managed to top that with an omelette bar, complete with two chefs!  Today you would not have believed the amount of dishes and desserts we had to choose from.  Tomorrow will surely be my favorite though.... dessert AND candy buffet.  Woot! Woot!  They also made this fantastic bulletin board.  The entire week has been a Hollywood theme.  I couldn't get over how stinking cool it was.  It is a little hard to see all of the details, but it has all of our names and a bunch of other creative details.

Another thing I am so thankful for this week is my new blog button that Leslie, over at Kindergarten Works, made me!  I was so happy I came across the Free Blog Button post on Teaching Blog Addict.  Thank you so much, Leslie!  Check out her awesome handiwork!  Be sure to grab it from my page if you'd like.  I'm a newbie and would love all the help I can get spreading my blog around.  

I hope everyone is having a great Teacher Appreciation Week!

~Abby

Soil Sammies

Every year at school we have a “Green Week” during April. Each day that week we emphasize different environmental awareness topics. It was an idea we got from one of the Maryland Green School trainings a couple of years ago. Each day we also wear a different color to represent the focus. That idea came from another teacher from our school. The two ideas together have been a big hit and the students and teachers look forward to the week every year.

My favorite day of the week is the “Fossil Fuels Friday.” It is my favorite for a couple of reasons. One, we are encouraged to teach outside as much as possible and use as little energy as possible. We also do a mini version of Earth Hour which is a worldwide initiative that focuses on saving energy. The administrators get on the announcements and alert us that Earth Hour is beginning and we turn everything off. The hallways, classrooms, etc. go dark and we teach outside (or inside, sans electricity), but we definitely headed outside. During that time we worked on our “Soil Sammies.” I did this activity a couple of years ago, but there were definitely things that I didn’t remember, so next year I will definitely be setting aside more than an hour to get this project complete. Phew. In order to make your own Soil Sammy, which is kind of like a natural Chia Pet, you need the materials listed below.

You begin by putting the grass seed in the nylons.  On a sidenote, this slipped my mind when we were making the first four.  As a result, those Sammies look more like monsters because their hair (grass) is growing all over their face.  Next, you add the 3 cups of soil.  Since we were in our capacity unit at the time, I had the students measure out the grass seed and soil themselves.  (I think this is the main thing that I didn’t account for when I planned this activity for Earth Hour.)  Now as you add the soil, you have to shake the nylon so that the soil moves to the bottom.  I thought that this was going to rip the nylons, but my teammate assured me it wouldn’t.  She was right.  She is so much better with these kinds of projects that I am.  I am not what you call a “Green Thumb.” After that, you tie off the nylon and set it on the top of the cup, with the nylon string hanging into the cup. You have to make sure that the head is big enough to sit on top of the cups you buy.  We used the large Solo cups so we had to make them pretty fat to keep them from falling in.  Then, we added eyes, noses, and mouths with glue guns.  Any materials will do, but we used foam shapes for the noses and pipe cleaners for the mouths.  Finally, we filled the cups with water.  (Careful, don’t fill them too high or when you set the heads back on, the waters spills out.  I made this mistake a few too many times.)

We put our new friends on the windowsill and then just had to be patient.  When we got back to school on Monday, NOTHING had happened.  I was just as bummed as the kids.  Well, like I said, not being a green thumb, I was told I had to be more patient.  You can see how they have progressed.  

Here is what our Sammies with facial hair look like...I think they have character.

Now after about ten days, you can see the hair is coming in full force.  Some of them are growing like crazy!  We are going to give them haircuts soon.  The kids are pretty excited.  I am too, because I obviously made one.  Hope everyone is having a great week!  Let me know if you like Soil Sammy and/or if you have anything cool that your school does to celebrate Earth Day.  We are always looking for ideas!

~Abby