More Than Five Funny, Useful Things

You know me. No posts in over five weeks, then three posts in five days... and you're in for a treat today, because in addition to being Doodle Bugs Teaching Five for Friday it is also Funny Kid Friday. I've been chuckling for a week every time I think of this story.

As I write this, we are having an ice day. The sleet is pouring down at just barely 32 degrees, making for one heck of a dangerous mess outside. The dog wouldn't even go down the porch steps until I scraped them! The ONLY good thing that can happen on an ice day is for school to be cancelled... and it was! Now you know why I am posting three times in five days. I even had time for a nice breakfast... well, actually the same breakfast I would have had if I were on my way to school.



I suppose that photo is not especially appetizing... a food blogger I'll never be... I think they take photos of their food before they eat it. snort. It should tell you something, that we are down to the last bit in just a couple days. This new recipe from a friend shot to the top of our favorites list. It is an oatmeal bake. It takes about ten minutes to put together, and 25ish minutes to bake. I put in bananas, dried blueberries, and walnuts, basically because that is what we had. I think I'll try it with raisins, or even canned peaches next time, but it will work with most any fruit. The fruit gets lovely and smushy in the warm oatmeal.

Click on the picture to download the recipe. I added vanilla to the recipe and dropped the brown sugar from half a cup to a third. Hope you like it as much as we do!
Here we go then with Five for Friday... the recipe was a yummy bonus  


1.  Check out the bumper sticker I saw in a parking lot. It made me chuckle, though some days I want to scream this to the world...



like "used to" counts. ha.

2.  Everybody young and old knows THIS book

But not everybody knows that Amazon made an animated VIDEO of the book. A WONDERFUL video!  It stays pretty true to Ezra Jack Keats style and storyline, but fills in the details with some wonderful snowy city scenes and new diverse characters. Here are some of them, both new...

And old. That little snowman is so Snowy Dayish, isn't it?

The story involves Peter and his neighborhood getting ready for the holidays, but even so, I'm going to show it to my kiddos now in January. It's just delightful and worth checking out. I am so glad I found it. You can see a preview of The Snowy Day and Amazon's other holiday special, If You Give a Mouse a Christmas Cookie, by clicking on the gif below... isn't he just as you pictured Peter to be?




3.  Speaking of snowy days, there are sooooo many snow and ice activities to do with kids. Even if you live in Florida, there are plenty. I collect them all on my Pinterest Board dedicated to all things SNOW. Find the latest crafts, science activities, books and videos by clicking below.

Here's one of the ideas I mentioned a couple weeks ago, but with pics. You take old plastic containers, fill them with water, drop in stuff, freeze, then let the kids get the stuff out. It would be really cute to drop a handful of penguins in there. Unfortunately, I readied this activity while at home over break and there were no penguins in sight.. plastic, or otherwise. There were lots of miscellaneous do-dads however. I stash most of these things in my pockets as I find them out of place in the classroom, intending to put them away, but they often make their way home until laundry day, and beyond. If I want a random do-dad, I look on the top of the dryer.

Here are the found items in water placed out on our deck to freeze.



We did a lesson on states of matter with water. If water becomes ice at 32 degrees, then a glass of water must be warmer than 32 degrees. And when warm water drips on cold ice, what happens? Well, the ice melts and releases the item... at least releases it enough for you to pry it out with your little kid fingers.

Here is the iceberg activity after the littles were at if for a while with the eyedroppers. They got a lot of things out.

4.  I posted about these two ideas earlier this week. I thought they were so worthwhile I gave them each their own post. If you don't know about pokey pin pages, or you stay away from them because you don't want to give the kids push pins, have I got the tool for you! Click to read about the pokey pens, some sources for pokey pin sheets, and some new paper you might not know about.

And this one is a FREEBIE. Kids love to cut snowflakes, but the little guys just can't... or can they? Check out this free downloadable template that my DH made for me and let your kinders cut to their heart's delight. Click to see post.

5.        

A former student stopped by my room the other morning just as the bell rang. His cousin is in my class this year. 

Student:  Hi, Mrs. Wright. Could you give this hat to Grant? He left it at my house.

Me:  Sure thing. I'll give it to him now.

As student turns to walk away...

Me: Hey, bud, you sure are getting tall!

Student: Thanks, Mrs. Wright, so are you!

If only I were growing in the vertical direction...

There you have it. Now see what everybody else is up to this Five for Friday on Doodle Bugs Teaching. Thanks, Kacey, for the linky.

Thanks for stopping by. See you next time!

Safer Tool for Pokey Pinning Pages!

Lookee, lookee, lookee, I've got something to Show and Tell! See what I stumbled upon! A new, safer, pokey pin tool! More like a pokey pin pen, though it doesn't start out as such. In the hands of teachers and students they become a great pinning page tool, one that is much safer than the push pins which are usually used.

First of all, you need to know what pokey pin activities are. Sometimes they are called poke-a-page or pinning pages, as well as pokey pins. They are printables of pictures, words, or numbers, drawn with a dotted line. Kids usually use a push pin to poke a hole in each dot, creating a pretty cool image of micro dots of light when the paper is placed on a window– sort of like a constellation in the night sky. It is a satisfying sensory experience to poke those holes, and it provides great practice for fine muscle control, too.

Here is a pinning page from From the Pond. There is a link below.

The problem for me was that I worried about my kiddos using push pins. I have EXCELLENT classroom behaviors 100% of the time... well, 90%... well... most of the time. But even the most responsible kids in the most well run classroom can get a bit mad annoyed with each other from time to time, and all it would take would be one little impulsive swipe with a push pin in hand and Yowee! A lot of damage could be done to people and things. So only on very rare and highly supervised occasions have we done pokey pin sheets... until NOW!

They look like pens but they have tips like this–

See those little balls on the tips? They are much blunter than push pins tips, yet they go right through the paper. And they have nice handles, too– it's like holding a regular pen. You can even put a pencil grip on it for your kiddos who need it.

They are actually manicurists' tools. I think they use them to marbleize polish on nails and place little gems. Don't even ask me how I stumbled upon them. I'm not a glamour nail kinda girl– I get a pedi two or three times a year, but my shopping does take me on mysterious, meandering paths sometimes.

We use them at the table with a carpet square underneath like this.

Or on our tummies on the floor carpet like this.

Our school OT says the tummy style provides particularly good fine muscle practice. And it provides a nice movement break as well. The kids really like doing pokey pins this way.

Usually the directions for doing pinning pages say to use two pieces of paper– one with the image copied on it, and then a black piece of construction paper, paper clipped under the first. The holes of light do show up better on the window when the paper is dark. I can't stand wasting two pieces of paper, however, so sometimes I just copy the pinning picture on a regular piece of white or colored paper.

Do you know about colored paper place mats? They are colored on one side and white on the other. They have all sorts of uses for teachers... like when you do folded paper projects. They are bigger than 8.5 x 11, but when you trim them down to standard copy paper size they will go through the copier. I can copy the pinning image on the white side, and then when it is done the kids can turn it over to have black. Also, the copier ink even shows up on the dark side, so you can run it that way as well. I've used both black and dark blue with great success. With their scalloped edges I have also used them to mat kids artwork. They come in 100 page packages for about five dollars at stores like Gorden Food Service. They are useful to have around just so you can experiment with a new type of paper.

Paper placemats that are colored on one side and white on the other are
another useful type of paper to have around the classroom.

It was a very gray, cloudy day when I had the camera out, so I took this picture on our light table. You can sort of get the idea what pinning pages are all about. The "go" didn't come out too well in the picture, but they look better on a window.




And here is some more REALLY good news– these tools are quite inexpensive. Over time they have fluctuated in price on Amazon from $2 to $5 for the set. I stopped by our local beauty supply store to see if they carried similar tools, and they carry what seems to be the very same item. They cost about ten dollars though, considerably more than on Amazon. If you are in a big hurry then maybe shopping local would be a good idea, but otherwise, click on the Amazon affiliate paid link below to see them.

Pokey pin downloadables are available on TPT, of course. I especially like Mel's from From the Pond and Krissy's from Mrs. Miner's Monkey Business. You can find them by clicking below.

I hope you find these new tools useful and you and your students have lots of fun and learning with pinning pages. I would really appreciate it if you'd Pin this idea for me! I think other teachers would be especially happy to find pokey pin pens.

Now be sure to check out all the other fun Show and Tells on Forever in Fifth Grade's Linky Party. Thanks Stephanie!

Thanks for stopping by!  See you next time!

Five for Happy Friday

Today finds me contemplating happiness, both in the classroom and at home.  Thanks, Kacey, for Five for Friday so I can link up to share.

1.  Did you catch the New York Times article about some new testing? The latest thing that "the powers that be" want tested in the classroom are social skills, including grit and joy.... can you hear me moan, wail, and gnash my teeth right through your computer screen, because that is what this news makes me do! And I'm not the only one. The person who coined the term "grit" in current educational settings, and wrote the book of the same name, Angela Duckworth, was on the board overseeing the project and she RESIGNED over the testing issue! She said, "I do not think we should be doing this; it is a bad idea."  One more way to put pressure on kids and blame them, and teachers, if they are found not to have "social awareness" and "growth mindset.." whatever that means... and however they think they are going to test for it!

Okay, so you're thinking, this post was supposed to be "happy" and that first paragraph was anything but! To counterbalance the horrible testing news, I'll share another article, also from the NYT. In this one, Emma Seppala, author of The Happiness Track, talks about the importance of happiness in life, and how to help kids be happy. The article suggests concrete ways to help kids in the classroom. (What a world we live in that so much press is spent on stressed out elementary students.) I've been contemplating the list for the last several days, and on some ideas make notes:

Live in the moment  Help kids focus on what's at hand and not the ever present to-do list.

Model Resilience   Help kids overcome challenges and find respite from pressures.

Manage your energy  Are we as teachers sometimes so full of happy, frenetic energy that we forget to recognize and strive for joy in calm moments, too? In looking at my own classroom I can find calmer happy moments with some read alouds, or in choosing and sharing my own small moment stories in writing workshop. A fellow teacher builds yoga into her classroom routine which she says brings calm happiness.

Do nothing  Kids cannot always be on task (and yet that is our expectation... hmmm.) So build in time for kids to be "off task" and following their own thoughts and impulses. Recess? Free choice? I happened on yet another great article on this topic here.

Be kind to yourself   Kids think of mistakes as good things when we teach and model that. When my kiddos make public mistakes, I sometimes say, "Yippie and wow, what a good way to learn. Thanks for helping us learn with you." A positive spin helps kids realize we all make mistakes and we can all learn from them.

Be kind to others   Thankfully, kids are naturally kind... though on bad days we can forget that. We need to value and protect their trait of compassion.

Here are links to both articles so you can read them yourself... pin now, read later.

Testing for Joy and Grit?... 

Letting Happiness Flourish in the Classroom 

Now I share some things that make me happy, and maybe you, too...
2.  Happy with our house– Last week I posted on the new built-in bookshelves in our entry hall. We needed more book storage and an easy place to throw our coats when we came in the door. Well, the hooks came in and we put them up. Some before, during, and after pics are  here.

I wasn't sure if bookshelves lent themselves to coat storage, but it really works. These are bulky coats, so as warmer weather comes the bulk will diminish and be gone. (Don't mind the little fur ball in the corner– she's always up for a photo op.) It is very nice to have the "coat chair" in the family room back to just a comfy seating option... well, that will be the case when I break the habit of walking right past the new hooks to throw my coat on the chair... ugh.

3.  Happy with some good food– This winter I fell in love with Overnight Crockpot Pumpkin Oatmeal and even with the weather warming I still enjoy it. I've tried peach, applesauce, and several other varieties, but pumpkin is the winner, especially with that good-for-you-orange-vegetable bonus. If you google you'll find lots of versions, several of which I've tried. Tweaking it here and there for personal taste, this is the recipe we've finally landed on.

The oatmeal really is under all that stuff– snort.

Several things to note that I've changed from the typical recipe–
• I use half the amount of pumpkin pie spice that many recipes call for and then add in that much more cinnamon. We love cinnamon more than cloves and nutmeg.
• The vanilla is a must– if I forget to put it in the night before I add it in the morning and it's okay.
• I don't put any brown sugar into the pot, but let each family member sweeten it to their own taste when served. I found if I added it in, some members still added their "usual amount" and it became too much sugar to be healthy. This way I think they use a little less.
• We always add walnuts, raisins and more cinnamon– nice additions to the pumpkin flavor.
• Some recipes call for water, some milk. I do half and half. We still add more at eating time for consistency's sake, and to cool it off.
• I only use the "Keep warm" setting when cooking overnight. I use a big crockpot that has three settings- keep warm, low, and high, and I found if I used the recommended "low" setting it was cooked too much, leaving the oatmeal too thick and the crockpot a heck of a mess to clean with oatmeal cemented to the sides.

Overnight Crockpot Pumpkin Oatmeal

Before going to bed put the following in the crockpot:

2 cups milk
2 1/2 cups water
1 1/3 cup steel cut Irish oatmeal
1 tsp Pumpkin Pie Spice
1 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp vanilla
3/4 can pumpkin puree

Turn the crockpot to "Keep warm" and go to bed. Wake in the morning to the aroma of pumpkin pie :)

4.  Happy with new classroom activities– Lookee, lookee what I found! Monkeys and bananas!

Monkey eggs!

Banana dominos!

I'll put the bananas in the monkeys for an addition game... or something. The bananas were already in my Amazon cart when I saw the monkeys at Kroger in the Easter section... can't resist checking out the new plastic egg styles they invent each year– so handy in the classroom. The monkeys came in a package of three.

Jonathan came around the grocery store aisle and saw me rifling through the eggs, "I thought you were going to get the canned pumpkin?"

What could I say? Monkeys go with bananas and bananas go with monkeys. It's destiny.

Into the cart. *eye roll*

You can see the bananas here.

5.  Happy with upcoming leprechaun mischief– I am half Irish so St. Patrick's day is a day not to be missed. I always have a little leprechaun magic up my sleeve for the kidpeople, too. We do lots of activities, but here is a new one I thought up for this year.

St. Pat's day this year falls on a day when we have our library special right in the middle of the afternoon. Perfect. Just before we go I'm going to set out our party fare: cute shamrock napkins, Rolos, and Oreos (We're also having leprechaun pudding but I'm going to get the fixins ready for that while they are at special.) I want to be sure the kids see the regular old Oreos on their napkins. They'll be excited because treats are treats no matter if they are regular old Oreos. I'll tell them we'll have our party when we get back, and march them out the door. Mean old Mrs. Wright, making them wait... but there is method to my madness.

While they are gone, I'm going to switch out the plain Oreos for Mint Oreos which just happen to be green. When the kiddos come back, och aye, the leprechauns used their magic again to turn the Oreos green... what are we gonna do with those tricksy wee folk?? Easy but effective, I think.

From this...

...to this!  Magic.

6.  Happy trying something new– happy bonus number six... I might very well be on the road as you read this. I'm headed to French Lick, Indiana (don't you just love the name of that town...) for a blogger retreat this weekend. This is my first time going to any blogger event and I'm sorta nervous. It's one thing to know people in virtual reality and another to spend a real weekend with them. I'm not usually shy– stop laughing those of you who actually know me. They ARE teachers, after all. The resort looks gorgeous. I need a little change of scene. This will be fun...  I'll let you know all about it.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope you have a happy weekend!

Click to find more Friday posts. 

Five Fav Things to Share

Well, hello there on this Friday when I have Five Favs to share. Thanks to Doodle Bugs for the weekly linky.

1. I am just finishing a week of break, and what did I do? I went into school for some spring cleaning. Here is the before pic... well, actually, the during pic.

And yes, that fuzzy creature in the midst of the mess is Popeye. See her? She loves to come to school to "help." No matter where I moved a bin, there she was. I didn't even know she was there until I went to take the picture. sigh. At least I wasn't lonely.

There are four sections to this stretch of shelf where I keep math and science materials. These items are mostly those that go with a particular unit, so I only need to get something out every two or three weeks. I keep these shelves covered with a cloth curtain which I love because it cuts down on visual clutter and provides a backdrop for student art display. Here is a pic from a few months ago. The blog post about how I attached the display strip can be found by clicking on the photo.

Problem is, when I lift the curtain to get things out or put them away, I can see only one little section. Over time, I forget what goes where and because I never have enough minutes in the day I shove don't take the care I should in putting things where they belong... stop judging. You know you'd do that, too. Anyhow, pretty soon pet supplies are with a set of magnifiers, measuring tools are with a box of magnifiers, human body parts are with a few random magnifiers, and planting supplies are with a bin of, you guessed it, more magnifiers. And when I need magnifiers, none are to be found. ugh.

So I took everything off the shelves. Then I sorted and regrouped and rebagged and rebinned and matched one kind of item with the space that they needed, keeping in mind which items need easier access than others. And now it looks like this. Ta-da.

In my mind's eye these shelves were going to be full of matching bins all labeled with cute color coded stickers. What really happened was that so much of this stuff was of odd shapes and sizes it would have been really difficult to find matching bins to hold it all. To say nothing of the expense of all the lovely matching bins if I could have found them. And sometimes it will just be handier to pull an item off the shelf without taking out a bin to rummage through. The curtain is there to hide mix-matched stuff anyway, right? I won't win any classroom decor awards for these shelves, but they will do the trick.

The best detail of all might be that I made a little map for myself. It shows the four sections of shelves and what things are on each. I'll keep it nearby for easy reference. NOW things will stay neat and tidy forever for a while.

2. I hope you didn't miss my Monday Made It!

These are DIY math manipulatives that I posted earlier this week. They are great for lots of kindergarten math, and they also have a very satisfying feel when you slide the beads with just the right amount of pressure. They can also be used as a fidget for kids who need to keep their fingers busy to keep their mind engaged. They are easy and inexpensive to make and you can read all about them by clicking on the photo. Oh, and there is a freebie to go with it :)

3. I spent a good bit of break working on various school projects. One of the projects was searching for new center activities. Not just new kinds of resources on TPT (though I found some of those, too), but new activities that can be done repeatedly and which we haven't done before. And. I. found. one. I am most excited about this– the Message Center.

This idea comes from Kristin at A Teeny Tiny Teacher. She has kids rig up clothesline between two chairs, then gives each one paper and a clothespin. The kids write messages to each other, clip them to the rope, then pull the rope across. Talk about incentive to WRITE!

My guys are gonna LOVE this. I can hardly wait! Kristin gives all the details on how she does the activity on her post, actually several posts. You can find all when you click on her button below. THANKS, Kristin. It's just the kind of thing I was looking for.

4. I gotta share... new FitFlops for me, again. Whoot, whoot! I don't usually post about clothes, but these shoes are less about fashion and more about comfort. I have bum knees that give me periodic issues... but not if I wear FitFlops. I wore FitFlop boots all winter, but as it started to warm up I needed a transitional pair of FitFlops before I could slip into their sandales. I chose the Shuv clogs.

No, Silly, they don't come two colors to a pair, and I don't wear them this way... though I suppose I could... I teach kindergarten, after all, and it's not like I haven't seen mixed up shoes before. While shopping for the black patent pair, which I found on sale, I also found the red patent ones, on an even better sale, so both went into the cart. I've been wearing them for about a month now and it is LOVE! I can wear them with socks, or without.

They have the same feel and support as any of my other FitFlops. Click on the pic of the boots to read about them in an earlier post.

I highly recommend checking them out. They have TONS of cute styles for summer. I'm contemplating the sneakers next... hmmm.

5. Pop quiz! What are these?

They are the most adorable little shovel spoons I've ever seen! They come from Orange Leaf– and I'm not talking about autumn foliage. Orange Leaf is a frozen yogurt spot. Really good frozen yogurt! Really low cal, low fat, good for you, good frozen yogurt. The entire place is done in ORANGE. Like, you could never think you were in any place other than an Orange Leaf when you're inside. It is orange to the nth degree– ours even has an orange Christmas tree inside... where did they find an orange Christmas tree?? I just discovered them, but they have been around for a little while.

And the BONUS for teachers are their little spoons. SO CUTE. I have no idea WHAT fantastic project I'm going to think up yet, but I'm definitely taking them to school. They'd be great fun in the sandbox for working small, or for digging something out of a sensory bin at a center, or for making finger puppets, or... or... I'll let you know when I figure it out. For right now, building my collection is the reason I'm going into Orange Leaf on a regular basis... okay, the spoons are another reason. If there is one near you, I suggest you check out the fro yo AND the spoons!

AND I'm not the only one who loves the spoons... I tell you, this place was made for teachers. They have a whole special page on their site about the SPOONS! You can submit pics and projects and stuff. Great fun. Click on the photo below to go there!

Whew. That seemed like a lotta stuff today. Hope you found some useful tidbits. Head on over now for more Five for Friday. Thanks, Kacey!

Hope to see you around next time!