Me Thinky I'll Linky!

It's Sunday my lovelies, that bittersweet day where you can still relax but you know the weekend is coming to an end. Sigh. Why are there not 3 days in the weekend? Didn't we invent 'the week'? Couldn't we have just added an extra day in there? I vote for adding "FUNDAY" after Sunday - who's with me?

I'm happy to be linking up today with a few fabulous bloggers!

First I am linking up with the ALWAYS incredible Lisa from Growing Firsties for her April Shout Out Linky!

I love this linky because I love bragging about my favorite bloggers out there! Here is how it works:

'Shout Out' two bloggers - one with more followers, one with less!

 My first shout out goes to an UNBELIEVABLE blogger who is beyond creative and truly someone I admire :) Teri from "A Cupcake for the Teacher" has the best ideas and has such an adorable blog. I'm sure you already know how awesome she is, but if you don't, be sure to stop by her blog and see all of the *fabulousness* that is Teri :)

Here are some of her adorable ideas:

    

I am SO excited to share this blog with you :)

DeeDee is one of the SWEETEST people ever and is beyond talented. She creates some of the cutest clipart. She was even so generous and contributed a whopping $25 worth of clipart to my 375+ follower giveaway! Here are some of her clipart sets:

  

She just started her adorable blog Doodle Darlin'. I know she would appreciate some love sent her way!

Be sure to stop by, say hello, and tell her I sent ya :)

 I am also linking up with Melissa from First Grade Smiles for her super fun "Let's Talk About Blogs Baby" linky party! You should definitely check her out and link up :)

Now I am linking up with the SUPER amazing Joanne from Head Over Heels for Teaching for her Spark Student Motivation linky! 

This year my students had a seriously hard time with their behavior during centers. They just could NOT get it together. After spending hours on pinterest researching different ideas, I came across this incredible idea from The Lesson Plan Diva. Click HERE to see her post!

She shared a super creative way to motivate students to behave during center time. It is called "Center Patrol" and here is how it works:

**Assign “Center Patrol” as a daily class job
**Designate a special spot in the room for the center patrol materials (center patrol paper on a clipboard with a special pencil)
**When centers get too loud, when students are out of their centers or not on task, ring a bell or call for the “Center Patrol”
**The center patrol will leave their center and grab the clipboard from the designated spot in your room. The center patrol is not allowed to talk. No student can question the center patrol.
**The center patrol places a check next to the name of any student that broke one of the rules. The center patrol is allowed to walk the room 2 times to patrol and then return to his or her center. They will put the clipboard back without any disturbance. Any student with a check will receive a consequence OR any student with a smiley face will receive a reward.

I created my own version of the center patrol form for students to use. Click the picture below to grab a free copy!

And FINALLY, I am linking up with Mrs. Reed from Flying into First for another fun and fabulous "Let's Get Acquainted" Linky party!

This weeks topic is: Stranded on an Island-What three things would you have to have with you?



NUMBER 1

NUMBER 2
MY BESTIE!!! Could not LIVE without my homegirl.

NUMBER 3
MY FAMILY
I'm pretty sure I could get through ANYTHING with these amazing lovelies by my side!

And here is a peek at my new Dinosaur Unit! This took me FOREVER to create, but I am so excited about it. I'm glad that I used it with my littles before I posted it because there were a few little changes I made to make it more teacher and kid friendly :) I hope you will check it out!

And please don't forget to enter my HUGE 375+ Follower Giveaway! Hundreds of dollars worth of amazing clipart and products! Check it out here:

 Enjoy the rest of your Sunday my sweets!

Love and Hugs!

DINO-MITE Dinosaur Fun, Comment to Win, and HUGE giveaway!

Hey you sassy things! How is your Friday going?! Mine has been full of ridiculous antics and overall chaos already and it isn't even noon. So pretty much the usual here in kindergarten crazy-ville. I am starting this post on my lunch break (though I won't be finishing it until later tonight) and I am being a total REBEL. Check me out, what a bad a**. If only my kids could see me now - blogging with reckless abandon and eating chocolate pudding with my hands because I forgot a spoon. MWA HA HA!

And now it is like 11 am on Saturday. I only got ^that ^ far yesterday because I ended up spilling pudding on my keyboard. And then I tried to clean it up, which made more of a mess. Then I dropped the paper towel on my lap and had pudding on my pants. And then, while I am frozen with pudding on my hands, pants, and desk (and probably face), my kids walked back in from lunch. They didn't skip a beat, despite the fact that it looked like I had crapped myself. I guess it's pretty normal for them to be covered in random food and slime. Sigh.

Well I wasn't at school on Monday because I had jury duty (seriously?! the day after spring break?! come on people) so I didn't get to do any fun things with the littles. When I came back Tuesday they were pretty stressed about my absence and were convinced that I had gone back under the knife for another knee surgery. I think I traumatized my kids when I was out in February and they may have a bit of separation anxiety. No, for real. One of my littles cries everyday on the way to lunch because she is afraid that I won't be there when she gets back. She makes me promise that I will not be going anywhere.

So of course I had to explain to them that I was not out for another surgery and that I had jury duty, to which they replied, "what is that?" So being the thorough teacher that I am, I decided to seize the teachable moment and introduce them to the judicial system. Just the basics. I explained that sometimes people make very bad choices and sometimes people just think that someone has made a very bad choice and it is up to the people that they choose to be on the jury to decide who is telling truth by listening to all sides of the story. And then I gave the example of how I act as the jury (ahem, all day long) when two of my littles run up to me screaming about one another and I have to listen to both sides of the story and figure out what really happened to decide what the consequences will be. LONG story short, they seemed pretty intrigued by the whole thing. They can truly understand anything when you break it down to their level.

And now I am linking up with the BEAUTIFUL Amanda from Teaching Maddeness for Friday Saturday Flashback. Man, I can't seem to be on time to anything. Better late than never I guess!

This week we learned ALL about dinosaurs and had a total blasty blast. I don't usually teach dinosaurs, but my kids seemed to have a certain fascination with them so I found a way to add it into our learning :) They are pumped up my friends. Literally. They were fist pumping and saying "YEA, DINNNNNOS" when I told them what we were learning about. We got off to a fun start yesterday by reading all about what paleontologists do. We read "Dinosaur Dig" by Susan H. Gray and the kids were really into it. It focuses on all of the different tools that paleontologists need on their journeys. It is a must have for a dino unit.

 

After reading the story, we created an anchor chart that focused on what tools paleontologists need. I found a few similar ideas floating around pinterest. One version is from the super awesome Sarah over at "First Grader... At Last!" and can be found HERE and another version is from the uber cool Courtney from Swimming into Second and can be found HERE.  While the kids were at lunch, I glued the heading and the picture of Paula onto the brown paper so it was all ready to go. Then I made it into a mystery game. I read the description of each tool and they had to work in teams to guess which tool it was. Then I glued the pictures and the description onto the chart. They really loved this activity!

  The kids completed a student version of the chart by choosing tools, drawing a picture of each, and sounding out the word to write it.

 

 

 We also read the story "If the dinosaurs came back" by Bernard Most. The kids were laughing hysterically at this story. It is SO super cute. They completed a writing response activity and wrote about what they would do if the dinosaurs came back. The ideas they came up with were hilarious!

 
 The next day, I discovered 2 eggs in my backyard and we had NO clue where they came from ;)
Ok, I guess I'll be honest. I bought them on Amazon for like super cheap. Click HERE to check it out.

 The kids wrote about what they thought could be inside the mystery eggs!

We had some predictions of chicks, ducks, birds, alligators, a variety of dinosaurs, humans, cheetahs, and my all time favorite - an Aye-Aye. Have you ever heard of this animal? I had not. Apparently he learned about it in an animal documentary he watched with his family. We had to look it up as a class and this is what we found:


What the he**? I don't know, but if that thing hatches from our egg, I'm gonna flip.
Moving on.
It still hasn't hatched yet, which I thought it would have, so we will have to wait until Monday to see what it is. In case you can't handle the suspense, it is a *SPOILER ALERT* dinosaur. I know, I never would have guessed it either.
We also created our own fossils using salt dough, which came out really cool actually!
(sorry some of the pictures are upside down and sideways. I'm not sure why because it is right-side up on my computer, and I attempted to fix it, but it won't fix. But you get the gist)

 

 The next day, our class became little paleontologists! EEK! It was so fun, I loved it. I found a bunch of different 'recipes' online for creating dinosaur eggs, but just mixed a few different things together and it worked out really well.
My Recipe:
(made about 20 small-mediumish dino rocks)
2 1/2 cups dirt
2 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 cups salt
1 cup sand
Water
(enough to make it into a dough, but not too much or it will be too sticky)
Here is how the mix looked before I added the water:

And after the water:

and I used these little dinosaurs I bought on Amazon (72 for under $10) and folded the 'dough' around them. I made into a rock shape and let them dry on the counter for about 3 days!

 The kids used half of a wooden skewer (as the rock hammer/chisel) to dig through and a paint brush to dust off the dirt. They also had their notebooks and a pencil to record observations, just like a real paleontologist!

 

WHEW, this post is getting seriously long. So sorry for the out pour here.  I didn't really blog all week because I was preparing for my giveaway, so this had become a debrief of the week haha.

During centers, the students worked on some of my BRAND NEW centers that will be available in my upcoming DINOSAUR UNIT!

 

 
 

 HOLY DINOSAUR OVERLOAD! So if you stuck around with me long enough to read this entire post, I am in awe of you. But I hope you will be glad that you did because I am giving away my new Dinosaur Unit to 3 of my fabulous followers! All you need to do is leave a comment below with one thing you liked from this post and your email! I will choose the winners either on Sunday night or Monday morning :)

 and don't forget to enter my MASSIVE 375+ follower giveaway. Click below to take you straight there!I am so thankful for all of the amazing old and new followers of my blog and appreciate you more than you know :)

LOVE AND HUGS SWEET FRIENDS!!