So, I know I've been MIA for a long time. A long, LONG time actually. I'm having trouble staying motivated with this whole blogging thing. Not because I don't want to, but because I'm forgetful. I forget a lot of things. I never know where my keys are, I put my Promethean pen down for two minutes and it's somehow lost for the next 30 minutes or until one of my students yells "Mrs. Hanson, I found your pen!," and I leave my coffee on the counter when I walk out the door. Now, this may sound a little nuts seeing my awesome blogging record, but I've started yet another blog. One for my everyday, random life. I'll share the link to that once I post something (HA!). 

Anyway, today is election day!!! That means we had in-service all day. while the students got to stay at home, or visit the polls with mom and dad. The good news is we had a mock election yesterday, so they were well educated on what an election is. We used these cards for our ballet (cute, huh? I can't take credit, though.)

And these were our results...Sorry it's so blurry, my board/projector is messed up and they haven't fixed it, yet!

I'm keeping this post nice and short, but I promise I am going to try to post more. I have a rough class this year, so am spending more time researching solutions for behavior issues :/. 

Happy election day! Go vote if you haven't (if your polls aren't closed, that is.)

Countdown continues

This week has been slow. as. molasses!!! Thank goodness today is my Friday. I don't know about you, but I have a class full of chatterboxes, and these past couple of week their voices seem to be multiplying! Love 'em, but I'm taking a mental health  personal day tomorrow, anyway. ;) 

On Tuesday the lovely ladies that I work with threw me a bridal shower. This was definitely the highlight of my week. What girl doesn't like getting showered (haha) with gifts and eating chocolate cake?!

How cute is this cake?!

YES! We'll be drinking coffee in style. :)

Coasters that a lady at work painted for us! Love the creativity that went into making them!

All right...getting sidetracked. (You'll soon come to realize how random a lot of my posts are.)

I've been meaning to change our bulletin board in the hallway for quite some time (it still had Easter Eggs on it! ) Anyway, I saw a bulletin board similar to this one a long time ago, and decided to add some of my own touches to it! I don't have a close up of it, but on the flip flop it says "My favorite thing about Kindergarten was..." I also used pipe cleaners for the tops of the flip flops. I think they turned out cute! 

P.S I'm a tad of a perfectionist and a tad OCD (okay a HUGE perfectionist - I blame it on the fact I'm both a teacher AND a Virgo) I have one more student's flip flop to put up, so of course the two of the far right will have to be moved down and another will be placed above it to match the right side. Looking at it now I will also be moving the top one on the far right over a little too. Please tell me I'm not the only teacher like this!

Hope everyone has a Great Weekend! Chris has a race in Knoxville (Rev3 triathlon), so we will be traveling to Big Orange country (yuck!) 

One Lovely Blog Award!

Thanks to Becki, at Little Miss Hood's Adventures in Kindergarten, I have just been given my first One Lovely Blog award!!! 

This is such an honor, and now I'd like to share it with 15 other lovely bloggers! 

Mrs. Larremore at Chalk Talk
Kathleen at Growing Kinders
Kim & Megan at Kinder Gals
Fran at Kindergarten Crayons
Mrs. Minor at Mrs. Miner's Kindergarten Monkey Business
Mrs. Carroll at The First Grade Parade
Deanna at Mrs.Jumps Class
Belle at Mrs. Wills Kindergarten
Alessia at Mrs. Albanese's Kindergarten Class
Ms. Kerri at Ms.Kerri and her Krazy Kindergarten
Lindsey at The Teacher Wife
Mrs. Nichols at The Polka Dot Patch
Michelle at Inspired by Kindergarten
Mandi at MOORE Fun in Kindergarten
Mrs. Bell at A Place Called Kindergarten

Here are the rules for receiving this award: 

1) Follow the person who gave you the award
 2) Link back to the person who gave you the award

3) Pass the award on to 15 new bloggers

Enjoy! :)

From the Mouths of Kindergarteners...

I'm a strong believer that every Kindergarten teacher should keep a list of all the "off the wall" things their kids say. Am I right, or am I right? 

Today, we were talking about things that make us happy. 

Me: [insert child's name], what makes you happy?
Student: When my dad gives me noodles.

...Random, but whatever makes you happy!  

(This is also my student who told me that he went to LeBron (sp?) James' house and played basketball with him. I asked him how he got there and he said, "On a plane...and I jumped out of it." Hmm, not too sure about that one!)

I also love how well my students seem to know ME.

Me: What do you think makes Ms. Heyboer happy?
various answers:

- running/racing people
- reading
- teaching
- when you don't have to repeat yourself to us(AMEN!)
- when we don't blurt out
- talking with other teachers
- when we don't bring bugs into the classroom (thank you!)
- coffee (they see me with it daily!)
- laughing

All very, very true. :)

That's all for today- just a little funny for your Wednesday.

What are some funnies that you have had with your students?


P.S. Does anyone else get as excited as I do when they receive school supplies?!? :D

Organization!

I am not the most skilled person at organizing...however, I love, love, LOVE to gawk at the organizational skills of other teachers in hopes that I will someday be like that! This is my 3rd year, and I am proud to say each year I have gotten more and more organized :). Just this year I finally organized my two filing cabinets! It's helped to keep so much clutter off of my desk. (Even though it seems to continue to pile up!) Today, I got one of these contraptions to keep my papers organized. My EA was amazing and put it together for me!

Do you have any organizational tips that you use in the classroom?



Zoo animals

This week we went to the ZOO!!! I personally had a blast, because I was free to roam with my co-workers due to the fact that I have AMAZING parents who volunteered to chaperone! :) Otherwise, it may not have been so relaxing. Before we went to the zoo, we talked and read books about zoo animals. This is one book that we read:

 Then we made zoo animals out of construction paper. My kids had a blast doing this! These are the ones I made, which they chose from:

                        This is a picture of our class' art work. They turned out SO cute!  

Here's a close up of two:

And of course, we had to turn ourselves into animals using these cute masks I found in the $1 section at Target! ;)

HAPPY FRIDAY!!!



Sticker stories, fish, and Target.

I have a drawer in my desk that is FULL of nothing but stickers!!! Something that I started doing this year with my kinders is Sticker Stories. I give the students a sheet of stickers, and let them pick up to four stickers to use in their writing.This really helps reinforce character, setting, and main idea. Here is a bulletin board from a few months ago:

Here is an example of one story. She wrote, "The ladybugs are sliding. The butterflies are building a sandcastle. The ladybug are riding a bicycle. The bee is swinging." I love how far my students have come with their writing! :)









We are constantly writing and illustrating in Kindergarten to prepare ourselves for first grade, so here is another writing assignment we did the other day (Some fish are...):

Some fish are mean. Some fish are nice. Some fish are dotted. Some fish are little.

Finally, I found these cute flower sorting divider things at the dollar section at target ,and couldn't pass them up! I just don't know what I want to do them. I have four, so enough for each table...AND I have 5 or 6 students at each table, so there are enough "petal" sections for each student! Ideas??



Newbie!

Well, I finally caved. I've decided to join the wonderful world of blogging! :) I don't consider myself a  "blogger," yet. However, I hope to turn myself into one soon enough ;). A co-worker of mine has inspired me to follow some really creative blogs this year (as well as her own, which you can check out here.) I visit it DAILY. It's that good. So, while my blog is going to need a LOT of work - it's not so pretty right now, and I may not post for days or weeks at a time...I hope that this is something I can stick with. It's already motivated me for next year, and this year isn't even over! Anyway, I don't want this post to go to waste, so here's a few things I've been working on for next week... 

I've been trying to get my math centers together for our last week in subtraction. This is one center I've put together:

This is "Subtracting with Little Critters!" Last week, in Reading, we discussed different kinds of insects, so this ties in with that. The aquarium/terrarium (not sure what the technical name for it is...) came from our Living Things Science kit, and the little bugs/critters were found at The Dollar Tree - that place and the $1 section at Target are like HEAVEN for teachers!!!  You can grab the Little Critter's sheet here ! :) <--- My first time linking a file, so I hope it works!





This is another math center I have planned. Nothing fancy, but I do have another sheet to go along with it, which you can find here. All the students have to do is use the dinosaurs to figure out the answer, and then find the card with the correct difference.

Here's another. Pretty simple. All they have to do is match the bee to the correct flower.

My kids love using this number line! It works much better than having them use their finger to "jump."

Not sure about other teachers, but we only have...28 days of school left?! :)

P.S. While this blog is solely going to be about teaching, I am giving lots of thought to creating another blog for my continued running/races and other random tidbits. Thoughts? Advice? Happy Blogging!