Five for Fraturday!

Good Morning, Bits and Bobbers! Kerri here…

Once again I am linking up with Kacey for her Five for Friday link party. Of course, I couldn't get my rear in gear to get this done last night, so I am late to the party AGAIN. Oh well, at least I made it!!

This week we made Snowflake Art and wrote a snowflake poem together. It was super fun! We also got .00001 inches of rainy drizzle (the closest we will ever gets to actual snow and it's not even remotely close at all!) on Thursday, which made my kids turn into Looney Tunes since they haven't seen a drop of rain since December 20th, NO LIE.  

They came back from lunch screaming and running around like wild banshees, not to mention they tracked about a pound of dirt and grass into the classroom from their feet. Seriously? We desperately need some rain so my kidlets can actually get used to it!!

The sweet people at Teacher Created Resources were kind enough to send me some classroom decor in their new line that is Chevron themed! OHEMGEEE!! Chevron! I am sooooo in love with Chevron!!

I had so much fun using these classroom decorations in my classroom. Check it out…

These Chevron Welcome letters are perfectly perfect on my Tacky the Penguin bulletin board!

I re-labelled all of the bins in my classroom library so they are finally all matchy matchy, thanks to the cute chevron labels that came with the Welcome bulletin board set!!

These name tags fit perfectly onto my drawers that house all of my units and centers for each month! I love the black and turquoise together!! 

I am still deciding where to put up this border….Hmmmm..

If you are interested in winning at $150 gift card to Teacher Created Resources, click the link to enter their Chevron Classroom Pinterest Giveaway! $150 can buy ALOT of CHEVRON for your classroom!!

It was Kindness week at my school this week! In addition to completing all of the activities in this Kindness pack that I created…

Our entire school got to do some pretty awesome acts of Kindness throughout the week. Check them out…
We all made Kindness quilts and hung them up on the fence so the kids could read them all...

Our students wrote letters for kids in the hospital during recess and lunch…

Our students also raised $250 dollars by selling lemonade for the Mckenna Claire Foundation, which supports Pediatric Brain Cancer research…

The kids made over 350 rainbow loom bracelets to give to children in need during their recess. They even brought their own loom kits to school to do it!

All of our students also worked hard to complete their Great Kindness Challenge checklists, by performing random acts of Kindness around the school…

My class wrote kindness stories about our favorite TOSA in the whole world, Mr. T, and presented them to him as a book. They were so proud!!

Overall,  it was a wonderful week and I think the kids really tried to embrace Kindness! 

We are working very hard in class on writing a proper paragraph. The kids call it their hamburger story. I introduce them to this chart…

This thing is so old and ratty! But it is a great visual...

Then, I use markers to turn my modeled writing into a "hamburger story" (Don't judge my printing/writing. This was done spur of the moment and it is NOT pretty!!)…

Then, they used this model to write their January writing samples, and they were all successful in remembering to write an opening sentence, 3 juicy details, and a closing sentence! YAY!! 

We will now work on expanding our details and making them even more juicy.

So, Lindsay and I are REALLY and TRULY presenting at the Southern California Kindergarten Conference in less than a month! WHAT THE WHAT????

We decided that since this is OFFICIALLY happening, we needed our very own FANCY SCHMANCY business cards…

Aren't they gorgeous???

We are also having a GINORMOUS Blogger's Bash on Friday February 28th, which anyone can attend, even if you aren't signed up for the conference…

We're all making baskets to give away, and everyone who signs up to come with get a goodie bag filled with fun stuff, including a CD with a bunch of our products on it!! We hope a bunch of you will sign up to come! Click on the picture above to get all the details and sign up!!

Have a happy Saturday, Friends!!
XOXO Kerri B

Kindness and other Winter randomness! (Plus a Kindness freebie!!)

Happy Sunday Peeps! Kerri here...
Actually, Happy GLORIOUS Sunday, since we have no school tomorrow! HOLLA!! 

I am about to get my Downton on (was last week's episode not TOTALLY SHOCKING and HORRIBLE?? I hated it.), and after that I just might get my SHERLOCK on too! Anyone else watch Sherlock? I just discovered it and OHEMGEE...I am in LOVE!

I keep forgetting to bring my camera to school, and then when I finally bring it, I forget to bring it back home! DURNIT! Please forgive the following photo dump...I have over a week of Wintery goodness (said with much *sarcasm*, since it has been over 80 degrees the entire week! Ugh...) to share with you, plus a new mini-unit on Kindness, AND a FREEBIE too!

We started the month of January with our snowman art and poetry writing...snow much fun!

We also wrote snowman stories...I love that this snowman lives in Mammoth, however I am NOT loving the printing here. Gotta work on that!

Isn't that baby snowman and ice cream cone so precious??

 We also worked on writing Wintery Super Sentences. More on that later! Stay tuned...

Of course, we had to have our Word of the Week literacy center on the word mittens...

And then, of course, we made Tacky the Penguin...my absolute FAVORITE of all time~

I am especially loving my Tacky the Penguin bulletin board right now...

So much Wintery fun, and not a drop of snow OR rain or EVEN chilliness to be had. Did I mention that it was 86 degrees this week? Here's proof...

So gross...

Moving right along...Our school is having a month long focus on Kindness for the month of January. Our theme is "Got Kindness? Pass It On!" and we are doing activities all month long to promote Kindness! It is pretty SWEET! 
Here is a look at the marquee outside my room...

We also made our front doors have a kindness theme this month. Doesn't my student teacher have some CRAZY MAD ARTISTIC skills? She cut those letters free hand. I kid you not. She is like a walking CAMEO machine!

In class, we have been working on reading books related to kindness and then filling out thinking maps about Kindness. We are turning all of these pages into a book and we will write stories about Kindness at the end of the month. So sweet!!

School wide, we also each made a Kindness Quilt after reading the book called, "The Kindness Quilt". I just love how ours turned out. We will be displaying all of them in the MPR the last week of January, which is our big Kindness Week!

We will also be taking the Great Kindness Challenge the last week of January, and our students will each be filling out a Kindness checklist, as they perform random acts of kindness.

If you are excited about teaching your kidlets how to be more kind, and spread Kindness to others in your school and community, I have created this little writing pack with all sorts of Kindness activities in it! Introducing...

Here's a little preview...

And here's what you get...

And here's a little Kindness FREEBIE for you to get your kidlets excited about Kindness! Click on picture to download from my TPT shop!!

Okay, friends! Bordelon out!! I gotta get on the Yoga mat and then it's Downton Time, baby!!
XOXO Kerri B