Pop Hearts and Gold!

Can't believe how fast February is moving.Yesterday we celebrated Valentine's day and I wanted to share a link to great games as a resource for next year, it organizes the games by grade and has a part 1 and part 2! We played Pin the Lips on Mrs. Valentine and all the little peaches had fun! The week prior to Valentine's day I taught an art lesson on pop art using Burton Morris as our artist study. After watching a video about how he got his idea for the Coca-Cola company and exploring his website's art gallery we got to work on our own pop art. The results were fun to see because they got the concept of using neon colors (the pop), solid backgrounds and the movement by using little strips of white paper. This was inspired by We Heart Art:

For Valentine's day I took the non candy route for their valentines. Thanks to What the Teacher Wants! awesome free printable and ideas my peaches enjoyed their little toys!

Gave this to my two first grade boys

Gave this to all the girls

Gave this to the older boys (lots of giggles with this gift)

The excitement of the winter Olympic games has made its way into the classroom and I was inspired by a pin that depicted the summer Olypics for our art lesson this week. I prepped the project by having silhouettes of each sport printed and ready to go. Then I wrote down eight winter Olympic sports and folded them up so the peaches could each pick one. After picking their sport, they worked on their background with drawing chalk. Then they cut out the silhouette of their sport on black card stock. The end results were amazing:

Freestyle Skiing

Ice Hockey

Snowboarding

Speed Skating

Figure Skating

Freestyle Skiing

Alpine Skiing

I love teaching the peaches art and they always go above and beyond my expectations. My littlest peaches,kinders and firstites, are working on a dental and presidential units that I'll share with you next week!

Winter Break and Bulletin Boards

As a teacher I'm still not used to such a long month before pay day rolls around again. So, during my time off I work at a camp in the next town over. While other teachers were sleeping in and getting things ready for the new year, I was watching another bunch of kiddos and dealing with midday meltdowns. I worked at this camp over the summer; some of the kiddos recognized me and others had no clue who I was or how I already knew their name. The camp splits up by grade and I was with the middle grades in the morning (2nd-5th) and the younger grades (K-1st) in the afternoon. Since the camp was near Christmas and New Years I found lots of fun crafts and cooking projects on Pinterest to do with them. My favorite craft was making party hats and having apple cider floats, so yummy! Working at this camp gives me the a more realistic view of teaching. At my school, I only have to deal with eleven different personalities, learning abilities and styles but they all know my expectations plus I've been working with them for five years so I know exactly how to create a successful project. At the camp, I could have up to 15 different personalities who are willing to push my buttons and test the limits. This also means adhering to different learning styles and abilities. Something fun to me, like doing write the room Christmas edition, may not be fun to those whose motor skills aren't as high; it may be challenging. All in all I love working at this camp because I have fun,  create new memories and the experience prepares me for my more realistic future. Two weeks and two sleep-in weekends later I was finally able to get into my classroom and get work done. Besides lesson planning I was able to work on four bulletin boards in the classroom:

 Our Welcome Back for the students

 Perfect for all those questions about breakfast and lunch!

 After purchasing a mini unit on Teachers Pay Teachers I plan to use a craft to complete this board.

My absolute FAVORITE board I did. Can't wait to see all the little penguins up there after art on Thursday.

***Update: The cute penguins are from Just Wild About Teaching’s Playful Penguins craftivity and printables and can be found here: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Playful-Penguins-craftivity-and-printables--991033

One of the kiddos even added a candy cane to make them more festive!

Also in art today we made 2014 party hats and goals for 2014

The Applicious Teacher for her freebie New Year’s Resolution Tab Book that you can find here: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/New-Years-Resolution-Tab-Book-1037478

The new years hat is courtesy  of A Cupcake for the Teacher’s Happy New Year! Freebie and can be found here: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/happy-new-year-free-craftivity-1035207

 I loved reading what goals all the students had for themselves

All of these brilliant teachers gave my classroom a splash of 2014 fun!Go pick up their freebies and penguin unit, perfect for Winter!

As you can see, the life of the teacher continues even on our "breaks." My plans for this week include starting a unit study on shadows and Martin Luther King, Jr. 

Laissez le bon temps rouler! Let the good times roll!