Fun Friday Fabulousness

So the shenanigans in my room have come to a screeching halt.  I still have those few who are going to cause a stink regardless, but the general goofing off is so over.  They are not wanting to miss out on Fun Friday.  So I absolutely have to hold up my end of the deal and make it FUN!  Right now I'm thinking about doing a little Seussy snack.  I never get to do anything like that during class time because I only have each grade for an hour and a half each day and it is packed from start to finish with things that simply HAVE to be done.  Anyway, I found these adorable ideas out here in the interweb.

One idea was to make little Cat in the Hat hats with Ritz crackers, red gummy LifeSavers, and icing.  Has anyone done this?  And do they sell packages of just red gummy LifeSavers?  I'm not so sure about picking through a few entire bags for just the red ones!  I love my kids, but that may be too much...

These little Jello and Swedish Fish treats are entirely too cute!

From Two Plus Jilly

These made me smile too:

From Motherhood on a Dime

These Truffula Trees are crazy cute!  I would probably do one of those big pretzel rods to maximize the snackage. 

From Babble

And then there's the Biebs.  He's going to finish up our Fun Friday celebration.  My girls are going to go WILD.  I seriously had a couple of them ask for Justin Bieber for Christmas.  Not a Justin Bieber doll or t-shirt or CD.  Justin Bieber.  Himself.  This is as good as it's gonna get for them...


Do you have any favorite Dr. Seuss snack ideas to share with me?  Find anything fun somewhere else?  Please share!  And vote on which one you think I should do!  I'm determined to make Fun Friday the funnest fun ever. 

...one giant leap for great sales!

I'm sooooo excited about tomorrow's TpT sale!  I have my cart ready and I'm sure I'll find even more treasures between now and the end of the day tomorrow!

I wanted to let you know that everything in my little ol' store will be 20% off tomorrow, in addition to the 10% off code {L2P9Y}! 

Here are a few of my newest products--but everything will be on sale! 

There are three different books with three different skills! {Click on each to view the product.}

Flat Shapes

Number Words

Time to the Hour

There are also three different books/skills for this cute little book too! {Click on each to view the product.}

Flat Shapes

Number Words

Time to the Hour

These fun little books are great for practicing number sense!  There is one for numbers to ten and another one for teen numbers!

Check out this great link up of TONS of sales for tomorrow!  Shopping is the PERFECT way to spend my extra day this year...  Wonder if JCrew is going to provide me with a coupon code I can't resist...

A Giveaway!

Well, I'm thinking it's time for a giveaway over here.  Don't you agree?  Check out this crazy cute art I found:

How cute?  The Dr. Seuss quotes are so appropriate for this week!  Kasi from Lexiphilia is graciously giving away any 8x10 piece in her store!

Here's how to enter:
-Follow my blog.
-Add Lexiphilia to your favorites on Etsy.
-Look at her store, come back here, and tell me what you would choose.

**UPDATE: She has fixed the Suess mistake, but forgot to update her thumbnails!  Just wanted you guys to know that the actual product will not require you to whip out your red pen!**

Make sure you leave one comment for each of the entries above.  I will use random.org to choose a winner on Sunday, March 4th at noon.  Good luck!

Catching up...and a freebie!!

Oh wow.  It's been like a week since I've been on the ol' blog.  I have no clue where the time goes.  Seems like I just left school on Friday afternoon and here I am getting ready to head back there in about 12 hours.  Where did my weekend go?!  And then as soon as Monday gets started it will turn into Friday and I'll end up wondering what happened to all of the days in between.  Busy is good, I guess.  It means summer will be here even faster!  We have 50 days left this year and they all just flying by!  It's crazy!

Last week my team started doing something new--we make our kiddos call home once they've received their third behavior mark.  WHY didn't anyone tell me how incredibly empowering it would be to make those calls in the middle of the day {and for some kids, before 8:10 in the morning...}?  Seriously.  It's the best thing I've ever done.  They DO NOT want to call mama at work, so some of my worst offenders have been good as gold the past few days.  We'll see how long that lasts...

Another thing we're starting is a fun Friday reward for kids who have excellent behavior all week.  How many of you do this every week?  What are some of the activities you do?  We were thinking about showing a short video, playing some games, making a craft, or making some sort of edible craft.  I'm just hoping that making these phone calls during the day and having an awesome reward on Fridays will help the crazy behaviors that have been going on!  Gotta get through these next 50 days without pulling out all of my hair!

Before I go check out all of the awesome Dr. Seuss activities you guys have planned for the week, I thought I would share a little patterning activity with you.  I'm having my kiddos make a little lift the flap book about patterns with these:

Click here to download.  Hope you can use them!  Alright...off to blogstalk and finish up my Lifetime Killer Marathon.  Oh, how I love my Lifetime Sundays.  

Winners! And am I always the last one to catch on?!

First up, the winners of my Lorax, Lorax books!  Look for an email from me, ladies!

Ali from What Happens in Kindergarten...Lasts a Lifetime!

Heather from Mrs. Shelton's Kindergarten

Lacey from Wild About Teaching

And here's the chex mix recipe for you chex mix lovers.  Click here for yummy goodness.  You won't be disappointed.  And if you are, I'm sorry.  You have bad taste in snack foods.

Now.  I really need to know why I'm just now finding this Downton Abbey show.  Please tell me some of you are still totally out of the loop.  I watched it last night for the first time and I'm pretty sure it's going to become part of my regular Sunday night line up.  AND...I'm also just now joining the Smash fans out there.  I caught a rerun over the weekend and OMG.  HOOKED!

I also need to know if I'm the last person on the planet to find out about 6pm.com.  It's part of Zappos.  Holy good deals, Batman.  I just ordered a $235 Christian Audigier purse for $70!  I feel like I stole it.

OK...that's all I can manage for tonight.  I need to go pay my respects to the presidents since I wasn't able to do it earlier because I had to work today.  And by pay my respects to the presidents I mean go shop the sales everyone throws in their honor.  One day I will be president and I will require the Loft, JCrew, and Sperry to throw AMAZING sales all the time, not just on my special day.  Vote for me? 

Mixed Nuts {optional}

{Alternate Title: "A question that sometimes drives me hazy: Am I or are the others crazy?" Albert Einstein}

First of all, y'all are great.  I knew you would agree with me and tell me exactly what I wanted to hear.  Looks like I'll be in search of a fabulous cleaning lady.  But Merry Maids and Craigslist scare me to death.  So it may take me a while.  But from now on I'm definitely going to involve you guys in all of my important life decisions. 

So... the other day I decided I really wanted some chex mix.  My mother has completely ruined me with her chex mix and I can't just buy a bag at the store.  It's not the same.  It HAS to be home made.  But I don't have time for that.  So I found a recipe for the microwave.  And it's phenom.  Like, almost as good as my mom's.  {She will argue with me about that, but seriously.  It's pretty darn close.}  Anyway, as I was putting away the ingredients, I realized how much better the recipe of life would be if "mixed nuts" {ie: CRAZY people} were optional.  Seriously.  Crazies entertain me sometimes but sometimes I just can't handle it.  Like the people who decide to hit up the express check out lane when they clearly have more than 20 items in their cart.  Really?!  What makes them think they're so special that they don't have to follow the rules?  Can they not read?  Can they not count?  Do I need to do a mini-lesson???  What gives?!  Omitting that variety of nut would make my grocery shopping significantly less painful.

But sometimes there's a variety that greatly improves your quality of life.  On Friday we were professionally developed.  Fun times, right?  Well, in the middle of a very important discussion about testing, one teacher breaks out a rice cake and starts spraying it with some I Can't Believe It's Not Butter.  For serious.  We hear, "spritz, spritz, spritz" and we all turn, stare, and laugh uncontrollably.  Apparently some people keep some ICBINB spray in their purse.  Maybe I should give that a try?  I have some fruit snacks in mine, but that's nothing compared to spray butter.  What's the craziest thing you've ever pulled out of your purse or seen someone pull out of theirs?

And my sweet children have gone a little nutty themselves the past few weeks.  We've already had a discussion on the Bill Cosby "brain damage" theory, but they seem to develop more and more symptoms every day.  It's crazy!  This past week I saw one little darling put her paper on the floor between her legs while sitting in her chair and bend over to complete her work like that.  Seriously?  When have I ever said, "OK, class, let's put our papers on the floor and contort our bodies in our chairs so that we can do our work on the floor instead of on the table that is conveniently placed in front of us at the perfect height for work completion."  Oh yeah, that's right...NEVER!  Then we had an assembly at 8:30 one morning.  It was a great assembly, really.  It kept the kids engaged and entertained, but... Right in the middle, they had the kids get up and dance to the Cupid Shuffle.  My teammie and I looked at each other and she said, "There's no coming back from the Cupid Shuffle."  Truer words have never been spoken. 

Do you want to know what's REALLY crazy?  The fact that I have to work tomorrow.  I'm majorly bummed.  Now, we did have one snow day, so this is a make up day.  But we just had ONE snow day.  We have these built in days and we added an extra ten minutes to our day and all these little things for make up days but we still have to make up this ONE snow day.  UGH!  Don't they know that since we've just had ONE snow day, we are all ready for a little break?!  Seriously.  Please tell me that you have to go to work tomorrow too.  {You don't count, Sarah.  I know you have to work.}

If you are working tomorrow--and even if you're not, you may want to check out some of the new things I added to my TpT store.  I'm still in the process of getting a couple of other things added, but I did add these two cute books just in time for all of the Dr. Seuss fun over the next few weeks! 

I'm going to give these away to three people who comment.  Make sure you leave your email address!  I'll use random.org to choose my three winners tomorrow at 6pm central time.  So...share a little crazy with me or just say hi or something.  But DON'T rub it in that you get to stay home in your pajamas tomorrow while I'm at work.  Things might get ugly...

The one that has very little to do with teaching.

Let me tell you the best part about this here blog.  My sweet mom read that my eyeshadow brush took a dive into the toilet and that I've been going sans eye make-up for like ever.... So guess what she shows up with today?  A new make up brush and a cupcake.  A Gigi's cupcake.  Ohmiword.  Do you have a Gigi's?!  Simply the best.  Now, I didn't want to let her in because Holy Hot Mess, Batman!  I haven't cleaned in a while and have eleventy million Sonic cups on my kitchen counter.  But a girl's gotta have her make up brushes and cupcakes.  So I told her to close her eyes and not pay attention to the fact that she was stepping on laundry...  I'm not kidding when I say I have laundry on my couch, the spare bed, and all over my bathroom and bedroom floor.  It's ridonk.

Speaking of cleaning...how many of you have someone who cleans for you?  More specifically, how many of you single ladies in a 2 bedroom, 1 bath apartment have someone clean for you?!  Just typing that makes me feel ridiculous.  But I can't keep up.  I hit the ground running at 6am and don't stop until I get home {sometimes 16 hours later!}.  I teach, I tutor, I'm training to do ABA therapy, I have work to do for the online children's lit course I teach, and I'm not ashamed to admit that I have a family that I still babysit for two evenings a week {love them and they just keep having more kids!}.  And by the time I get home, the last thing I want to do is clean anything.  I just don't know if I'm being silly by wanting someone to do it for me.  Especially since I don't have kids or anything.  I guess I just don't think I have a legit reason.  What do you guys think?  Will you validate me?!  I know you will. 

In other news...go check out the Be My Valentine Gift Exchange linky party!  Everyone made and bought such cute stuff!  If you participated in the exchange and haven't received your gift yet, shoot us an email at teacherbloggerexchange at gmail dot com.  We will get back with you as soon as we can.  I know there are several of you who emailed us and we are checking on things...we're also trying to give it a day or two in case the mail was slow!  So if you have emailed us and haven't heard back, know that we're working on it!  Head on over to the new blog to check out the linky party and make sure you follow it so you can be updated when we do our next one in April!


 

Alright...I'm off to do some of the cleaning and laundry I've been putting off all week.  Zero fun for me on this Wednesday night.  {Pllleeeaaaassssseeee tell me I can get a cleaning lady.}  But!  Tomorrow is the last day I have to teach this week, so it's like tonight is Thursday night and tomorrow is Friday.  So that's nice.  The PD day on Friday might not be so nice, but who knows?  Maybe it will be productive and beneficial and completely change my life and my outlook on teaching.  Maybe.