12 Days of Christams Blog Hop! (Freebie!)

I'm linking up for Day 11 of the 12 Days of Christmas Blog Hop! It's 12 days of freebies from some great bloggers!

Here's my freebie! It's a fun little Snowman Time game with analog and digital time to the hour and half hour. You can play it as a pocket chart matching game or as a memory game! Click the image to grab it on Google Docs!

Now go enjoy the rest of the blog hop! Today you can visit:

Tomorrow's blogs are:



And, to go back to the beginning go check out:
 

Oh! and if you haven't entered yet, click here to go enter my giveaway for a $50 Kohls' gift card!

Here are all of the blogs that participated in this freebie blog hop! Go check each out to grab their freebie!

12 in 12 Linky!

Ok, so today Relfy was still in the rice. Darn that elf, he just laid there all weekend and didn't move at all! The kiddos were very puzzled about this, and conspiracies theories abound! There was glitter on some tables, certain items in the class seemed to have been moved around, what is that elf up to?! I have no idea, because I have a dilemma. You see I have 2 little boys of my own who believe in Relfy's magic. Thus Relfy has only a very small window of opportunity to be moving around, since those boys come into work with me every day and generally stay in my room until the bell rings and then hang out in my room after school as well. Relfy was going to get up to some antics during recess, but it has finally gotten chilly here in OK, so we had inside recess. Might just have to enlist a helper who can do some behind the scenes magic before we get to school each morning lol!

I am linking up with A Teeny Tiny Teacher and Miss Kindergarten for my 12 in 12!

12. Favorite Movie you watched:

Ok, I'm a big dork and I don't go to many movies. I also have incredibly poor memory and had to actually google movies that came out this year to figure out which ones I had actually been to! But I do remember going to see The Lorax  which was wonderful and I remember that my kids and I thoroughly enjoyed it!

11. Favorite TV series:

The Walking Dead (followed closely by The Talking Dead because I just cannot get enough of the zombie apocalypse!) I have loved this season so far, so bummed out that the mid-season break is upon us. I can't wait for the marathon on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day - if you have not watched the series yet, you definitely should  catch up during the marathon because it is the best! although, I have to admit to having a few questions: a) how in the heck did that screaming chick that died last week manage to survive almost a year in the zombie apocalypse?! You'd think that after the first month or two all the screamers would've been eaten already. b) Where is Malcolm and his kid? Will they ever meet up with Rick's group? c) Why do they feed Judith 8 ounces of formula at a time when they are low on formula?! What newborn eats 8 ounces?! Just think of how much they have to be wasting considering they have no refrigeration!


10. Favorite Restuarant: Ummm. Hmmm. I like them all. Really, if I don't have to cook it, or clean up after it, I am all for eating it! But, if I had to pick one I'd say Atlanta Bread Company just because Tuesday is Kid's Night and they have a balloon guy. And I get a cookie for dessert.


9.  Favorite New Thing you tried: Sadly, I can't think of anything new I tried this year. My astrological sign is Cancer, and I am a homebody who loves to snuggle up in bed and read. My idea of adventure is stopping at Hobby Lobby on the way home and trying to get out in under 30 minutes. When I feel really daring I pick up a book by an author I'm not familiar with, run a yellow light or break out the glitter at school....

8. Favorite Gift You Received: well it was my super comfy, electric blanky but those darn beagles chewed it up :(

7. Favorite Thing You Pinned: I am the world's worst pinner. I pin like crazy, I have multiple boards, and I've even attempted to organize them somewhat! But, I rarely go back to see what I pinned! It's like I have to pin all the new stuff before I can go back and actually use any of it! But, this one is one of the coolest and I'm thinking of sending out a call for milk jugs so I can do this in January....

Source: squidoo.com via Jennifer on Pinterest

6. Favorite Blog Post: One of the best things about having a horrible memory is that I can go back and reread old blog posts and have no recollection of actually writing it, so I always find little gems when I look back. One of my favorite posts was The Underwear Bandit Strikes Again. A close second was my 100th Day post since we had so much fun that day and I loved our projects!

5. Favorite Accomplishment: I'm the PTA president for our school and pretty much the only active member :( But, I managed to put together a Fall Carnival with only the help of 3 pre-teens! The pre-teens and I set up all the games, made the signage, prepared the nachos and chili, put all the drinks on ice, and briefed all the teachers on running their games when they showed up 2 minutes before the doors opened. I even ran the face painting booth and some very sweet children allowed me to draw on their faces and didn't even cry afterwards! We made a whopping $250 after expenses which is going to buy some paper and lamination!

4. Favorite Picture: 

Okay, this picture actually ran on my guest blog over at PreK + K Sharing, but I love it anyways. The colors just turned out so pretty and I love seeing them all together in the windowsill! 

3. Favorite Memory: Ok, this linky is seriously hard on those of us with bad memories! I have to take tons of pictures of everything I do to remember it, so its hard to think of favorite memories without looking through a photo album. I will share one from our trip to California this year. We went to Seal Beach and when we left I insisted on bringing 2 buckets of sand with us so I could use them in my sand & water table so my kiddos could experience real California sand lol. Well those 2 buckets managed to get knocked over and spilled about a dozen times on the trip back to Oklahoma, it was absolutely hilarious trying to keep those buckets upright while avoiding the "I told you so" looks from ym husband who thought I was completely nutty! I still have sand in my van from it! But, the kids loved seeing the sand and shells I brought back, so it was worth it in the end!

2. Goal for 2013: Go back to school for my Masters. I really want to, but worry about finding the time and adding to my already huge student loan bill!

1. One Little Word: Presence. As in, be present in the moment instead of thinking about work when I'm with my family. There are lots of times when my husband will get disgruntled because I'm not paying 100% attention to what he's saying because I'm trying to think of a new strategy to reach one of my kiddos or thinking about a project I'm working on etc. I want to be able to savor the time I spend with my family, my eldest will be off to college in just 5 short years! Of course, at work I need to be present in the moment to - sometimes I'm so busy thinking about the next thing we need to learn, or the next project, that I forget to enjoy the now and acknowledge the perfection of the moment.

Whew! That was harder than I thought it would be! If you made it through to the end, you are a rock star in my world! Remember to go and enter my giveaway for the $50 Kohls' gift card too!

Giveaway + Relfy Update + 4-Square Writing!

Hello! I have a super fabulous giveaway for you today, but first, a little update on Relfy, our Elf on the Shelf! Apparently Relfy is not aware that he is a Shelf Elf, because he hasn't been any where near a shelf in our classroom. Instead, on Friday we found him like this:

Yep, he took the left over rice we had from these:

(check out my guest blog over at PreK + K Sharing to see how I colored the rice and how we made our trees!)

and for some odd reason, buried himself in it. The kiddos were quite puzzled about it and even worried if he would be able to breathe! Luckily we realized that elves are magical and he would be able to breathe without issues if he wanted to. :P My firsties are utterly enchanted by our elf and he is the first thing they look for in the morning. Next week we are going to start getting into some writing about/with our Elf and Santa!

Speaking of writing, this week we started 4-Square Writing. Our 4th and 5th grade teachers asked us to start teaching it since if the students are already familiar with it by the time they get to 4th & 5th then they can concentrate on refining their writing rather than having to teach them the organization process. I decided to jump on board with it right away!

We started out by doing some picture sorts and did a couple of 4-Square writing prompts as a whole group. Once I felt they had the basic idea down, I let them lose on their own.

Some did amazingly well:

 She was the only one to talk about the different tastes of the food she chose. She had great organization, stayed on topic for the whole paragraph and did great with punctuation/capitalization.

Others struggled a bit but were ultimately pretty successful:

 He used "chr" instead of "tr" for the beginning sound in "triangle" :) But considering he did this 100% on his own, had proper capitalization AND remembered his punctuation in 2 out of 4 sentences, I was pretty impressed (not to mention I love the way he spelled "kind of")!

And some needed extensive help:

This little guy struggled to get 2 sentences done, even with a tutor sitting next to him and a picture dictionary. It says: Apples are sweet. I like ice cream on birthday

I have to point out that the first sample was from a Transitional First kiddo - that means she had an extra year between K and 1st. What a huge difference that year makes!  The second sample is from a child who had a super fabulous K teacher - I love her to death and she does an awesome job! The 3rd sample is from a child who did not have a successful K year due to ineffective teaching (teacher on cell phone all day, not having lesson plans, using worksheets for everything etc). I am planning on sharing these next week at our meeting. Maybe, seeing the difference laid out so clearly, we will stop considering K a "throw away grade" and start putting our best teachers in it rather than considering it a place where an ineffective teacher can "do the least harm". Sorry, got on my soapbox for a moment there, I'll try to refrain from preaching to the choir!
Alright, time for this giveaway! I am super excited to announce that the nice people at Kohl's have given me a $50 gift card to give away! I blogged about them this Fall, when we visited the Witchita Falls store for some books, plush and hoodies for my boys! My boys absolutely love their hoodies and so far the weather has been so mild they haven't even needed coats since the hoodies are so warm!

Anyways, I contacted Kohl's about doing a giveaway since I really feel they have a lot to offer - both for teachers in the way of their toys, $5 books and plush, and just as a generally great place to shop for home/family too! You should check out their new toy page, where you can search by age or category! I am going to have this giveaway run from today through Saturday December 15th, and I will announce the winner on Sunday December 16th. Check out the rafflecopter to enter!

a Rafflecopter giveaway