50 Follower Giveaway Winner

Congratulations to Jill who is the winner of my 50 Follower Giveaway!  Thank you to everyone who entered and checked out my blog.  I look forward to sharing more with you in the future!

Five For Friday {June 28}

I'm linking up with Kasey from Doodle Bugs Teaching for her weekly Five for Friday Linky Party.

1.  I actually worked on something for school this week!  I spent a couple hours putting together some of the books I printed from Reading A-Z before I left school for the summer.  I thought putting them together now would make me more likely to want to use them.  It felt good to put a dent in that project!

2.  A friend visited from Florida and we went to the Columbus Zoo.  I had never been there, and while it was REALLY hot and muggy (for Ohio in June anyway), we had a great time.



3.  I tried a few new recipes again.  I unfortunately didn't snap any pictures.  I tried: coconut crusted pork chops with pineapple salsa, lemony brownies and S'mores cookies.  They S'mores cookies didn't look too great but they tasted good (picture melted marshmallow all over the place).  All got two thumbs up!  Thanks again Pinterest!


4.  I did some pleasure reading this week. I started and finished "I've Got Your Number" by Sophie Kinsella (of the Shopaholic series).  Light, funny reading is my kind of reading most of the time.

5.  I am having my first giveaway!  Last week I hit 50 followers, so with the help of Amanda from Mrs. Pauley's Kindergarten and Nicki from Mrs. Thigpen's Kindergarten, I put together a little giveaway.  You can check it out (and enter) here,

I hope you had a great week!  Looking forward to family visiting next week for the 4th of July.  I can't believe it is July already on Monday!

50 Follower Giveaway

Last week I hit 50 Followers on my little blog!  Thank-you for your support and kind comments! Amanda Pauley from Mrs. Pauley's Kindergarten and Nicki Thigpen from Mrs. Thigpen's Kindergarten have generously agreed to donate their creations to the giveaway.

Amanda has contributed her Back to School Emergent Readers  and Chevron Alphabet.  Nicki is giving the winner an item of their choice from her TpT Store.  The winner will also have the opportunity to choose 2 items from my TpT store.

You can enter the giveaway below.  The giveaway continues through Saturday.  Good luck!


a Rafflecopter giveaway

Bloglovin'

I took some time this morning to switch my blog following from Google Reader to Bloglovin. I really liked having Google Reader and using iGoogle, but that too (iGoogle) is going away soon.  It was so easy to see everything on one page.  So, I took advantage of the need to change and carried my blog following over to my personal email account instead of my school account.  Here is the link to follow me through Bloglovin if you so desire!

How do you follow your favorite blogs?

Five For Friday Linky Party {June 21}

I'm linking up with Kasey from Doodle Bugs Teaching for her weekly "Five For Friday Linky Party".

I spent most of this week visiting a friend who lives about 5 hours away.  She has 2 girls ages 4 years and 21 months; needless to say, we were busy!

1.  We took the girls strawberry picking.  The oldest was all about filling her bucket...the youngest was all about filling her belly.

On our way into the strawberry patch.  She did not come out as clean as she went in!

2.  We had to do something with all those strawberries, so we made 16 jars of strawberry jam and 2 strawberry pies. 

These are a little dark as they are already loaded into the freezer.  Have you used these plastic ball canning jars?  Love them!  They are especially handy when I give jam to parents (great thank you gift); I don't worry about sending these home with students.

Here is a simple strawberry pie recipe for you:

You need:

-1 1/4 cups water

-1 small box of strawberry jello

-1 small box of COOK and SERVE vanilla pudding

-Sliced strawberries (enough to fill the lid of a graham cracker crust container)

-1 graham cracker crust

-Boil 1 and 1/4 cups water

-Add jello and pudding

-Stir until dissolved

-Add sliced strawberries to mixture

-Pour into graham cracker crust

-Refrigerate 4 hours or until jello is set

-Serve with cool whip if desired.

3.  Our second adventure was to the butterfly exhibit.  Butterflies flew all around you as you walked around in the exhibit.  Very cool!  My students would have loved it...too bad it is 5 hours away.

She is very proud of the butterfly that landed on her paper.

4.  We took a trip to IKEA.  I enjoy just walking around IKEA, no purchases necessary.  I picked up a plain gray lampshade to replace one that got crushed in a box.

5.  I'm working on some name tags for my classroom.  I have been leaning towards bright colors with some polka dots in the mix.  Here is what I have come up with so far.  Not sure I'm totally set on them, but it is progress.

What have you accomplished this week?

Check back soon...I'm working on putting together my first giveaway!

Thirty-One

I am not usually a "party" person.  My college roommate recently became a Thirty-One consultant and suggested I have an online party in celebration of my 31st birthday (which is next month).  I agreed to an online party, and there was a good deal going on this month, so she suggested that I have the party before the end of June.  

I would love to have a giveaway in conjunction with the party.  More details to come...I have not had a giveaway on my little blog so not sure what I'm going to do yet. 

What is your favorite Thirty-One product?  I'm a bit overwhelmed by all the options. Any "must haves?"

Five For Friday Linky Party {June 14}: Exploring New Recipes

I'm linking up with Kasey from Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five For Friday.  I haven't done any 5 exciting things over the last couple weeks, so this week I'm happy to share 5 new recipes I've tried!

I have enjoyed my first couple weeks of summer!  Not much school work has been done, but I have been exploring some recent Pinterest recipes.  I love to cook and bake, and our cool temperatures combined with some free time has made this happen.  Here are some of the things I've tried out.

1. Peanut Butter Banana Bread  I enjoy banana bread and love peanut butter, so this sounded like a good combination.  Bread was very moist, and I think I'd made it again.

2. Orzo Salad  We had this for dinner earlier this week.  I used plain old black olives (sliced) and added some broccoli too.  It was a great summer side that we had with sloppy joes!

3. Nutella No Bake Cookies  If you like rich, these are for you!  They are a bit much for me.  I made them with my cousin in mind who likes "No Bakes" and Nutella.


Sorry...no photos of these last 2.

4. "Cheater Risotto"  I call this "cheater risotto" because it is not as labor-intensive as traditional risotto but I love the taste, especially with the roasted vegetables.  I have made this a few times; it is a keeper!

5. Lemon Coconut Bars  My mom loves lemon and coconut, so I thought I'd try these out.  They were easy to make and very good!

I hope you find something you might enjoy here.  Maybe this week I will get into some school stuff!

Making the Transition

I attended a county meeting today regarding the transition of preschoolers to kindergarten.  The main focus of the meeting was to revise the transition sheet that preschool teachers fill out (voluntarily) about their students that then come to us, the kindergarten teachers, to give us a little background on our new students.

I LOVE these sheets!  It is nice to have a little bit of background on students as they enter in the fall.  The transition sheet not only tells us whether students receive any special services, have food allergies and their overall attendance, but it also share academic, social and motor skills information.  In recent years, many preschools that feed into our district have begun attaching photos of the students to these forms, which I find very helpful in the sea of 100+ kindergarteners in our hallway alone (this doesn't count the ones that got lost from the second floor!) on the first day of school.

Some of the transition activities we do throughout the year are: invite local preschools to our building to see a play (put on by a play company); staff members visit local preschools to share transition and registration information with staff (and parents as requested); preschoolers visit our kindergarten classrooms in the May; students receive a summer packet at registration to practice kindergarten skills; prior to the start of school, we meet with each parent to discuss procedures and expectations.

I'm working on my welcome letter and a little "welcome to kindergarten" pack for my incoming class.  Do you have any suggestions? Is this something you do?  What do you include?