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I've been out of the loop for awhile.  I have to explain myself!  Here is what I've been up to:

1.  School got out last Friday and I worked my tail off making sure that my classroom was closed out, that my report cards were completed, and that my cumulative files were filled out.  Boy, was that tiring!
Here is my room all cleaned and ready for the Boys and Girls Club to use for summer school!

2.  Then on Saturday, my baby girl's preschool had their annual graduation. We were unprepared for the craziness! Here she is with all of her congratulatory leis she got from friends. 

3.  Then my cousin came to visit from San Diego. We snorkeled, paddle boarded, and kayaked at Club Lanai, went to the Lanai Animal Rescue Center, had dinner at the Four Seasons Lodge at Koele, heard Paula Fuga (an amazing Hawaiian singer), had a bonfire potluck at the local farm, and swam in the Keiki pond at the tide pools. It was an amazing, but busy 4 days! 





3. Then one of my best friends here on the island is moving back to California, so we had a beach party with a bunch of people and then a smaller champagne brunch with only the new teachers. There were 6 of us hired this year and we call ourselves "The Newbies". We are going to miss Andrea!

We even had a piñata, but filled it full of little goodies for Andrea to remember us by!

4. After all the festivities, I have been beat! It's been hot here, so I let the kids run through the sprinkler as I laid on the couch and watched the entire 1st and 2nd seasons of Scandal. Hey, no judgements. I needed this!

5. And now for your freebie! My school does not have a social studies curriculum, even though the State of Hawaii has some pretty specific social studies standards.  I was racking my brain trying to figure out how to teach this one:

SS2.4.1 Describe the different ways people gain authority and the limits of such authority.

I looked on Teachers Pay Teachers and just couldn't find anything.  Then I talked with my good friend Corinna from Surfin' Through Second and she had the idea to talk about jobs.  Bingo!  I can do that!  I ended up defining the word Authority for the class and talking about it.  Then I read a book about different jobs (A-Z Community Jobs, or something like that).  After each job we talked about the kind of authority that person holds.  For example, as a teacher I have the authority to choose which kinds of lessons my classroom does, but I do not have the authority to decide which kinds of lessons the other teachers do.  After the convo and the book, the kids wrote about which job they want when they grow up and wrote about the kind of authority that job held.  Their responses were pretty funny!  Apparently, there will be a handful of zookeepers on Lanai in the future :)

Click on the picture below to download the written response, in case you have a standard like this, too.

Now that you see how busy I have been over these past couple of weeks, will you please forgive me for neglecting this little blog?  Pretty please!!  How has your May been going?

I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Five For Friday linky party.


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Here's a little peak into what my class did for Mother's Day!

First, we started off with Arlene's Mother's Day Traditions Around the World unit.  LOVED it!

The kids read a nonfiction article about how different countries around the world celebrate Mother's Day.  They located the countries on a map and took notes about what they read.  Then they answered comprehension questions and filled out a Venn diagram to compare a country of their choice with the United States.  Arlene included a paragraph organizer and also a final draft paper for students to write about the country's celebrations they like the best.  The kids thought this was interesting and I loved how scaffolded the lesson was the entire way.  It was perfect for my class!

There are tons more activities included in this pack, but we also did a matching activity with the countries and facts about their Mother's Day traditions and a fun activity where students learned about famous mothers.

We then made a set of coupons from Arlene's pack and made origami envelopes to put them in.  You can find directions for the envelopes here.

A couple of weeks ago we made pinch pots out of ceramic clay, thanks to a generous Donorschoose project.  They got bisque fired and we glazed them last week.  I begged politely asked the art teacher to glaze fire them before Friday.  He was so sweet and did!  I was so thankful, because I needed them for our last Mother's Day goody - soap!

I ordered soap from Joanns.com a month ago and it didn't come in time!  Never.ordering.from.them.again!  Thankfully, I had a presentation in Maui last week, so I could go to Ben Franklin crafts and pick up a block of clear glycerin soap and some soap coloring.

I also used some essential oils I already had.  I got them so I could make homemade bug spray from this pin.  Bugs be crazy 'round here!  I had to dilute the oils with water because I read never to add essential oil directly to soap.  


I got to work and chopped the soap block into chunks.  I then filled a 2 cup Pyrex bowl with them.  I put it in the microwave for 1 minute and it came out completely melted.


I mixed in the coloring and added the diluted scent.  I first made some green that I could cut up into chunks and drop into blue soap.  I poured the green soap into a meatloaf pan, let it melt, then cut it up.  I also poured some green in the very top of my mold to add some dimension to my soap.


I then made blue soap, poured it into molds I already had from making crayons, and dropped in some of the green chunks.  You definitely do not need to add the different colored chunks.  I was just playing around with it.


I put them in the freezer and let them harden.  This is what it looked like when I popped it out of the mold!  Peppermint scented flip flops!  Love!


This was the set I made at home.  When I did it at school, I broke the kids into 3 groups, based on their color choice: pink, blue, or green.  I scented the pink soap with pink grapefruit, the green with peppermint, and the blue with lavender.  I let the kids pick which mold they wanted: heart, flower, seashell, or flipflop.  I then used my neighbor's microwave to heat the soap and put them in the staff fridge to harden.  While I was working with the small groups, the rest of the class was working on their Mother's Day Around the World paragraph from Arlene's pack with an assistant teacher.   

How did you celebrate Mother's Day?



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The Teacher Appreciation Sale on TpT was so exciting this year!

First, I was so happy to upload my newest unit right before the sale started!  My class needed some geometry review this quarter, so I made some whole group lessons and small group games.  There are also a ton of vocabulary options, since geometry tends to be such a vocab heavy subject.

Here are some of my students playing the games during Math Center time:



Back to the sale.  Here is what I got!
Aligns with ALL Common Core standards in grades 1st-3rd!  Wow!

I'm reading aloud Charlotte's Web right now!

I'm always on the look out for fun science units.  This one fits the bill and will be great for my quarter 1 science standards next year!

Had to stock up on some awesome clipart by my girl Ashley!

And more clipart from one of my friends and previous colleagues, Teacher Laura!

Did you snag any good finds on sale this week?

I'm linking up over at Blog Hoppin!


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Teachers are awesome.  Happy Teacher Appreciation week!

To celebrate, I am putting my entire store on sale for 20% on May 7th and 8th.  When you use the code TAD13, you will get an additional 10% off, making it 28% off my entire store!


You can check out some of my new products while you are there:
2D and 3D Shapes for 2nd and 3rd grade Geometry standards.  This giant pack has vocab posters and cards, game boards, center activities, whole group activities, and a mini book.  

Do You Understand? Formative Assessment scale with posters, rubrics, and parent letters.

Mighty Magnets unit with vocab and experiments.

I can't forget what this sale is all about - Teacher Appreciation Week!  Last year I made a fun little sign to tie to a bag of M&Ms:

 This year, I made an easy little card for your kids to color.  I cut slits on the inside of mine and attached a couple iTunes cards for my daughter's preschool teacher and my son's 1st grade teacher.  I hope they love it!

Have a great week!

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Here is a peek into my classroom this week for Five for Friday!

1.  Here is my language arts anchor wall.  We are learning about the writing process and also root words from the Reading Olympians.

2.  Here is my class in their homemade plumeria leis right before our May Day performance!
Read all about May day {here}.  My school is not that hard core ;)

3.  My class is studying ecology and conservation, so we are, of course, doing Teacher to the Core's Easy Ecology unit!

Here I am, demonstrating how to write the world's boringest essay.  

4. Here is my calendar wall.  I used Hadar's schedule cards, my Calendar Starter set, and a couple of pocket charts from the 1980's.

5.  I will leave you with my kiddos and one of the 5th grade teachers dancing in the moonlight of Lanai.  This happens all the time, don't worry!


How was your week?



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