Elliott our Classroom Elf

One of my best friends works for The Elf on the Shelf in Atlanta and let me know of a promotion that they were doing in November... they were giving away a ton of free Elves for teachers! Like thousands! So I immediately sign up to get on the list and our class Elf arrived in plenty of time for Christmas.

I knew that with my crew I'd be limited in the amount of places that I could put him and not have him be touched (for anyone without children or who aren't teachers... the Elf loses his "magic" when he is touched). So I didn't put him out until about the week before we got out because I knew someone would touch him if I put him down low... which did happen today when he was within arms reach but I had run out of places! Good thing we don't have school tomorrow and Elliott had to go back to the North Pole tonight anyways! The kids loved looking for him in the morning but I can't say it helped with their behavior other than the first day or two... the kids were SO loud and WILD these last 2 weeks!!

The first day he was in Marty the Moose's house (Marty is our class stuffed animal that different kids will take home each weekend and document their visit). I figured he was pretty safe in there b/c the kids know not to touch him during the day.

The next day he had written all over our board (I did have one little girl tell me that I was the one who did it.... I honestly don't know how more kids don't figure it out... but I guess that's the magic of Christmas and I was on the young side when I figured out the whole Santa thing!) 

After that he moved around some of the pockets in our advent calendar. 

The next day he was hanging out in our class holiday tree... nobody touched him that day (but our new friend hadn't started with us yet) 

The Elf decided that he needed to get a better look of the carpet area during instruction because the kids were talking constantly during stories!! This spot was my aide Melissa's idea and he was perched up on the flagpole. I didn't cut his hands apart which made is what made him able to hang and "grab" onto things. 

He was then hanging from the hook that our behavior chart is on... trying to inspire them to stay on green... 

Lastly today he took down a string of lights from our bulletin board and was sitting on them. 

It was fun getting to watch the kids look for him each morning and the first day was so funny b/c one of the kids freaked out because he thought his Elf from his house had beat him to school and was now in our classroom. I had to tell him that it was not his Elf from home and that it was our own :) 

Now it's time to relax and take a much needed break from school!!! I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday!!! 

Winter Pre-K Fun

Despite my threats to take the fun stuff away due to the excessive amount of hyper behavior in the classroom...we've been doing lots of winter activities : )

We've been doing lots of entries in our journals and lots of art projects....

I'm hoping that blogging some of the things we are doing in the classroom will help me remember them for my own kids one day! :) Here are a few of the crafts we've been working on....

We used plastic forks to get the textured look on the trees 

We used mini paper plates and cut out the middle to make these wreaths. (They scrunch up the tissue paper in little balls, lightly dip into a cup of glue and place it around the plate)  

Paper plate snowmen faces... I had them stretch out the cotton balls to help work on the fine motor pinching.  I did make the hats myself though.... the scissor skills for cutting out shapes aren't quite there yet 

These tissue trees are like the wreaths, I just used thick paper. Some kids get really into it and try and make the colors look like ornaments/lights and really pack them on there.... and some don't... :) 

Name Snowmen....I got this idea on Pinterest. For the kids who can't yet write their name we did it in dots and had them trace it. 

We also sponge painted some holiday items (I used the left over outline from some die cuts)... the next day we added glitter and some foam stickers. 

We have a new more winter activities lined up including pajama day next week... even though I know these special projects and days are super fun for the kids, it has been so hectic. They are SO excited for the holidays and even louder than usual! I will be glad to get back into the regular routine and push the academics again in January! 

Thanksgiving 2012... Virgin Islands Style

This year Jim and I decided that we wanted to take a trip on our own for Thanksgiving. The past few years we haven't been with family but with our good friends Chris and Caressa for the holidays which has been a lot of fun but this was the year to just get away. Growing up, American Thanksgiving wasn't a huge holiday at my house since all of our family is Canadian and Canada has their own Thanksgiving in October... so the possibility of going without turkey and stuffing for a year was ok with me. :)

We knew we wanted to go somewhere tropical so we looked up where we could go using Jim's hotel points and settled on the Westin in St. John. We had our first uneventful trip down which was so great (if you know us, you know our terrible travel luck)... no delays or cancelled flights and after the ferry ride we settled in around 8:00 on Sunday night. :)

We loved the resort... the food wasn't too overly priced, I loved the lunches, the pool was HUGE,  taxis were easy to get, and the beach was private. I was also impressed with the amount of family activities they had... huge water trampolines, floats you could check out for free (my favorite thing), a movie & popcorn night at the pool, etc. I guess I was just surprised that a lot of families with kids would go to the Westin Resort but I guess there's no reason not to :)

We also had some great meals. We loved Sun Dog Cafe in Mongoose Junction and I would definitely recommend it! It is all outdoors with shoppers walking by but we got a cozy table for two in an little alcove.  We also ate at The Fish Trap which was great too.


It was such a relaxing vacation... we only left the Resort twice and I slept about 11 hours every night which was amazing. We are usually go go go on vacations doing lots of sightseeing but it was so nice to just sit around by the pool and on the beach and read and relax. We need to take more vacations like that!

Here are a few pictures from the trip!

The view while enjoying breakfast

On my float!! 

Trampolines

Eating at Sun Dog Cafe 

On the ferry back to St. Thomas 

Christmas Deco Mesh Wreath

So thanks to Pinterest I have a ridiculously long list of recipes I want to try, activities for my classroom I want to do with the kids, and crafts I want to make. Since we had a day off today for Veteran's Day I decided that a trip to Hobby Lobby was in order because I wanted to finally try and make a Deco Mesh wreath. I already had a 4th of July Wreath and a Halloween wreath so when I entered Hobby Lobby I had every intention of getting some items together to make a Thanksgiving wreath. Unfortunately their fall supplies were condensed into 2.5 small aisles and Christmas/Winter decorations had taken over ENTIRELY! So I picked up a few pumpkins and a roll of gold deco mesh to hang on to until I gather enough supplies to make an entire wreath. I decided to just get some supplies for a Christmas wreath instead (and a few supplies for a UNC/FSU wreath that I will make once I get a few more embellishments for it).

So in the picture below you will see all of the supplies I got. I ended up using everything except the 4 pack of large ornaments and the box of gold snowflakes. I also used my glue gun but that was it.

Step 1 was to take all the tags off and open up all the supplies. I used a red 21 inch roll of red deco mesh and a 5 in roll of bright green deco mesh. Normally I would tend to stick to more traditional holiday decorations as far as more of a hunter green and plaid ribbon instead of the bright stuff but I decided I wanted to do something a little different and more modern.  

The next thing I did was tie the pipe cleaners onto the wire wreath form. Then I unrolled the mesh and decided to go ahead and do the 2 colors at the same time. I gathered the ends together and twisted it down with the pipe cleaners, left about 6 inches and then twisted another gathered bunch and kept going all the way around the inside then the outside, puffing the loops up as I went. 

This is what it looked like once I had gone around both the inner and outer edges. 

Then I hung it up to make sure there weren't any huge gaps. 

The next things i did was add the ribbon. I started on an outside loop and rotated inside then outside though I'm not sure you can totally tell. That one weird loop on the left that somehow seems to be going the wrong direction kind of annoys me but I'll get over it :)  Then I started using my glue gun to glue in the embellishments. 

I kept hanging it up periodically to make sure I was adding things somewhat evenly and that I wasn't adding too much. I decided to leave off the ornaments I had bought because I thought it would look a little overcrowded and this is what I ended up with. Try to ignore the fact that it's not centered on our back door :) 

For a first try I'm happy with it and I plan on hanging it on our front door for the winter. I just have to hope that the little frogs that hang out all over our house/neighborhood don't get all over it!! The joys of living in Florida! 

Fall Fun in the Classroom

So most of you probably already know that I am a Pre-K teacher and I teach an inclusion class of kids from ages 3-newly turned 5 year olds. Some of you may not be familiar with the term "inclusion class"... what this means is that I have a mix of typically developing children who are in the VPK program (a free 3 hours) but whose parents all pay to have them stay the rest of the day and ESE students (Exceptional Student Education) who have a varying degree of exceptionalities/disabilities. My breakdown has been 10 typical and 8 ESE the last 3 years and the most common exceptionalities have been autism and speech/language impaired but almost all of them come in with a generic "label" of Developmentally Delayed and it's our job (I find some teachers push for it more than others) to get the testing and get the appropriate label before they enter Kindergarten. When you have such a diverse group every day is a big challenge to feel like you are meeting everyone's needs but luckily I have 2 awesome aides who help me so much every day and I feel like we do a very good job ;)  Anyways that was a long winded intro to the following pictures but I wanted to share some of the things that we did in my classroom in October that the kids loved :)  I have pinterest to help me keep up with activities that I want to do with my own kids one day but I'm hoping to keep a record on the blog of some of the pinterest activities I've done that are successful and some of my own activities!

The kids enjoyed making these spider webs. I punched holes around a paper plate and cut yarn in various lengths (longer pieces for the kids who I knew had the attention span and ability to sit there and work on it for awhile).  Some of the kids would ask for direction in which hole to put it in b/c they wanted it to be just like the example one I made and others just went to town stringing it wherever on their own. I had to get a few tangles out but all in all it went well (I did it in small groups with me rather than all at once). When they were finished they picked 2 spider rings to attach to it.  You can see the whole bulletin board below. 

We also made candy corn. I had a parent volunteer cut out the black templates but the kids tore all of the colored pieces themselves and then glued them on accordingly. My aide Melissa worked on these with the kids and the tearing was good for fine motor and the colors were good for sorting.  

We also made these ghosts... I'd say about 80% of the kids have not mastered the skill of using scissors yet so everything but the streamers was pre-cut by an adult. The kids used the glue bottles, the tape dispensers, and the scissors to cut the streamers. It was easiest to have them cut only the streamers b/c we could quickly give them a refresher on how to hold the scissors and cut with a little forward progression. 

We did several other fun things in October including our Fall Party which included this giant glow in the dark bubble. There is a fan that keeps it inflated and 2 black lights inside. An adult read each small group a story inside the bubble where they wore glow necklaces and bracelets and got to hold flashlights. It's a big hit every year. Our former SLP made the bubble years ago and I was lucky enough to inherit it! 

I hope everyone had a wonderful October!! 

Oh Canada!

Ok so we went out to Seattle to see Amy and Ryan for 4th of July and we were able to sneak in a trip to Vancouver, British Columbia while we were there. It was only a few hours away and I think the car ride was one of my favorite parts... even being stuck at the border for an hour was bearable thanks to some humor from Amy's ghost hunter app and the "Bed Intruder" song played on repeat. :)

Even though I am Canadian, I had never been to Vancouver or any place in Canada west of Toronto. I only lived in Canada until I was about 2 and a half but I did go back almost every summer as a kid to visit my family in both Quebec and Ontario and for some winter breaks. There's some feeling that I get inside when I'm in Canada that I can't quite explain . It sounds really cheesy but it does feel like I'm home and I get this warm fuzzy feeling inside. I think about happy times growing up as a child and I love to just soak everything in.

Vancouver was awesome. It was so clean and absolutely beautiful. I loved being able to be downtown... over looking water... and seeing mountains in the background. Everyone was so friendly and nice to us and it just reminded me how much I love being Canadian.

We stayed and the Westin on the Harbor and this was the view from our hotel room...

We had a lovely lunch at a place called Dockside Brewery where we overlooked the city and the water. 

After that we walked around the Granville Island area and visited some breweries. My favorite beer was the Raspbeery Beer at Granville Island Brewery... I wish they sold it in the US! 

One morning after eating some doughnuts at Tim Horton's... the Canadian version of Dunkin Doughnuts (but they do have those in Canada too) we decided to go up Grouse Mountain per my Dad's suggestion. We took the Gondola to the top (though they do have this challenge called "The Climb" where you can hike/race to the top and they time you) and got to enjoy some gorgeous views of the city and see/touch snow! My favorite! 

Here I am with Jim and Amy and my Pre-K class moose named Marty (He goes on adventures with me and with the kids over the weekends and holidays during the year and they take pictures and send it back in to talk about). 

Amy & Ryan 

Some gorgeous wood carvings. 

Me and Jim

The lumberjack show. There were also 2 real bears that lived in a pen that was a few acres large which was cool to see as well. 

Enjoying some raspberry Granville Island beer and some Poutine... topped with pulled pork!? So poutine is something that I grew up with on the ski slopes in Quebec. It is traditionally french fries with fresh cheese curds and gravy.... but this one had the pulled pork on top which I hadn't seen before. Relaxing on the top of the mountain was one of my favorite memories from this trip. It was hard to imagine it as a bustling ski slope in the winter! 

One of my other favorite things from this trip was the Harbor Dinner Cruise that we went on. We had our own 4 person table on the boat and we enjoyed about a 2 hour ride. We enjoyed lots of wine, food, and live music. Amy even got the guitar player to sing a Happy Birthday song for Jim. Too funny. 

Oh Canada..... I love you. I wish I could go back more often and I'm so glad that I got to be with Jim, Amy, and Ryan for this trip back! It was so much fun. We are really lucky to have such awesome travel friends who are always up for an adventure! Maybe our next Canadian adventure can be to Quebec City or Montreal?! :)  I'm in! 

Our Trip Out West

So I was looking at my lack of blog posts and trying to figure out what to blog about... school aka work.... is back in full swing. I have a decently manageable class this year though with 8 special needs kids in the mix of 10 additional typical VPK kids I always feel like I'm never doing enough! My hope is that it will continue to go smoothly enough. I keep telling myself that nothing could be worse than the first half of last year and knock on wood that will keep being true! Anyways I think I may try and blog about school stuff more this year so I can remember some of the fun projects that we are doing so I can do them with my own kids one day.

Anyways... I digress... the title of this post is Our Trip Out West so let me get to that. While in Vegas with Amy and Ryan this past January I threw out the idea of taking a trip out to visit them in Seattle with a side trip for all of us to Vancouver. Luckily Amy was on board... as we both usually are when it comes to trip planning and we decided we'd go out to visit the week of July 4th. To say this was an awesome and relaxing trip is an understatement! We had the perfect mix of sightseeing and hanging out.

We went to the Mariners game against the Orioles on July 4th which was a fun way to celebrate Jim's birthday. I was really impressed with their stadium! We sat in the club level seats and had access to lots of yummy food and drink options.

That night we went out for dinner and I learned how to play a version of shuffleboard... but on an air hockey type table... I don't know if there's another name for it. It took Jim and I quite awhile to get the hang of it but it was fun :)  We took lots of fun pictures with their cool wooden beer/liquor sign. 

We also had some awesome seafood chowder (it was the first time I had ever had chowder and now I've been spoiled) and we spent one more walking around downtown. 

We took some pictures in Kerry Park before making the drive up to the border to go to Vancouver (More about Canada in my next post).  We really couldn't have asked for better weather throughout the trip. I can't imagine living somewhere where you can eat all your meals outside in July because it is so nice! I'm super jealous of their summers!

When we got back from Vancouver we had about a day and a half left in Seattle and we definitely made the most of it. We went and checked out the Chihuly Glass Exhibit and it was breathtaking. I love colored glass designs. It reminded be of being in Italy and the South of France where they had a lot of glass jewelry and I got to watch someone go through the glass blowing process. 

 

I loved the canoe because it just reminded me of Canada or being on a lake in upstate NY. I'd love to blow up on of the pictures I took of one of the glass filled canoes and put it up in our house one day. 

The exhibit is right next to the Space Needle as you can tell from this picture. :) 

They also had a lot of pieces outside in the gardens which was cool. 

On our last day we visited some wineries and did some wine tasting which was fun. I think Seattle is an awesome area and I love the fact that it is so close to British Columbia. If it wasn't so far from the East Coast & my parents I think I'd be able to move out there in a second! Thank you to Amy and Ryan for a great Seattle visit! More about our weekend in Vancouver to come!