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!

Free Snowflake Cutting Template for Little Kids!

Happy Winter! I'm sharing an old activity with a new twist today! There's even a freebie to grab!

I grew up in Michigan and we Michiganders spent a lot of time with snow. One of our favorite past times was cutting paper snowflakes Seemed every teacher in every grade found ways to use those snowflakes. Even as a freshman in college I remember spending too much time procrastinating on homework cutting snowflakes, then covering them with glue and glitter to hang around our dorm room.

Well, now I teach little five year old Michiganders how to make snowflakes... problem is, those little fingers don't have the coordination to cut very intricate designs. They work away at it, but alas, their efforts usually result in sorry oblongs of paper with a few holes in them.

SO, I asked the DH to make some snowflake cutting templates for me. And boy, THEY WORK!

These are the snowflakes the five year olds can cut with the template.

It takes just a little bit of prep using the templates, paper clips, and white, standard basket-style coffee filters.

1. Fold the coffee filter in half

2. Fold the half into thirds. One third folded up...

3. Then the other third folded up.
Now the coffee filter is folded in sixths.

4. Tuck the folded filter into the folded template.

5. And clip it closed with a paper clip.

6. Cut off the shaded parts.

Shaded bits cut off.

Carefully unfold it. Voila!


    
Even five year olds can do it!

Beautiful!

You can have these snowflake cutting templates as a little freebie from me to you. There are four copies of three different snowflake shapes– the shading is in different darknesses to fit the printing and copying method you use. I like the dot shading myself because it copies well on the school copier.

I do ask that you do one thing, though... PIN IT!  Thanks!

Click to download free template

Well, that's all for today's post. I'm linking up with Forever in Fifth Grade's Show and Tell Tuesday. I posted before Tuesday in case teachers had a few open minutes for blog reading on Martin Luther King day. If I have enough time myself, I'm even going to post again as I have another little trick up my sleeve to share. Go check out the other goodies on the linky. And thanks, Stefanie!

See you soon!

Best Random Five for Fraterday

Sometimes the best stuff is random, and today, random it is. Thanks Kacey for Five for Friday!

1.  I start with one I'm really excited about doing- I'm going to call it the Bouncing Dice Game.

I call it the Bouncing Dice Game!

I just found this new math game on Pinterest. All it takes is one of these trays from the dollar store and some foam dice. There are several variations for kids from preschool to third grade. The kidpeople are gonna love it. Kathy even has a video on all the ways to play. Brilliant! Click to see.


2.  I combined literacy, art, and technology– specifically QR codes and Chatterpix– to make a neat display in our hallway at school. Parents and visitors can scan the code and see my student's artwork talk to them with the voice of each of the kidpeople. I posted about how I used ChatterPix and this guided drawing project on this previous post HERE. I put the display up just in time for our Kindergarten Round-up to get maximum viewing. Our fifth grade students went down with iPads to scan and listen, too. They will be using Chatterpix for some of their own future projects- it's not often kindergarten gets to teach fifth graders in the use of technology! Gotta love ChatterPix.

An interactive display using QR Codes

3.  We made clay snowmen, the kind of clay that is made of earth that dries hard without firing. (Google Crayola– one tub of it did twenty little snowmen.) We rolled them in glitter before they dried, though it's hard to see in the photos. The arms are real twigs- gathered before the snow covered the ground. We added tiny buttons and pony beads. Colored toothpicks made the noses. The scarves are fat yarn- easier to work with than ribbon. And the best feature is the headgear, I think. The kids could choose from earmuffs– chenille stems and pompoms– or caps– the fingers cut off of dollar store gloves! I had to use the hot glue gun to get them to stay. This is our display in a place of honor in our library. The kids were tickled with them!

Whee! I love the arms coming out of the head.

Lean to the left. Lean to the right.

Adorable and full of personality, each one.

My DH Jonathan, helped me set up the display on crinkled pink roll paper with tissue shreds on top, as they wouldn't have been as easy to see against white paper. (Okay, okay, I know snow can be blue sometimes, but we didn't have any blue... and pink was better than yellow.) He caught the spirit of these snowmen perfectly when he said, "Kindergarten art is always so sincere."


4.  Michigan at it's finest. Yesterday was just at freezing, brilliant sun, and no wind- rarely is it as wonderful as this. I grabbed several items as we headed out the door to extend the fun and learning outside. We were outside for almost an hour and terrifically happy the entire time. We hadn't done a good long recess in a looong while. I wear my phone and used it to snap lots of pics. It was SO sunny I was like a mole using the camera, unable to see much of anything. I managed to get some good faceless shots I can share, though.

Bilibos make good sleds

And good buckets

Which can be combined with real buckets

If you don't know about Bilibos click here to read about them.

It's difficult to see here, but bingo markers were a huge hit

When it's hard to climb in snowsuits you find other ways
to hang upside down

5.  And on a personal note, we took on one of those way-bigger-than-we-thought projects in the last month. (Jonathan chuckles at that line. It was a way-bigger-than-I-thought project. He knew exactly what he was getting into when he bowed to my request of an inside construction project in the winter.) We are a complete book fanatical family. We have books in every room of our house, and we were still in need of more storage space. I reorganized the bookshelves in my study this summer leaving in only teaching books to cover the full wall of bookshelves in there, but that meant that I needed to take out my storytelling books. They've been in boxes since then in my workroom. And I had multiple stacks of books all along the foot of our bed– books we've read but don't want to get rid of. (Remember, I have a little free library that is a regular source for my give-away books.)

We also were in need of quick and handy spots to hang coats. We have a coat closet, full of coats, but being the lazy and rushing family we are, we rarely actually get out a coat hanger and hang up our everyday coats. They stack up on a chair in the family room which looks messy and takes up seating. So we decided to maximize the space in our front hall with built in bookcases and added coat hooks.

Before

During

Let your imagination fill in with ladders, lumber, paint cans, dry wall supplies, air compressors, tools and toolboxes, dozens of electrical cords, and dust, dust, dust.... right in the house. Ugh.

Almost ready

It still needed major dusting and cleaning at this stage. You can actually see piles under the shelves.

Ta-Da

Well, almost ta-da... we are still waiting for the coat hooks we ordered to come in. There will be three sets of two on each of the vertical supports where coats can hang. I don't know if I've ever seen bookcases combined with coat storage, and you won't be able to see the books as well in the winter, but that is what we need so we are going to give it a try. We also built in a long horizontal support on which we can mount a ladder rail. I've always wanted one of those library ladders... we'll see. 

We had various little issues to solve- We wanted to keep the wardrobe, but still have a built-in look. We needed an outlet up high so we could install the lighting on the top shelf that shines up the pitched ceiling. And we have hot water heat– our house is now over 120 years old– which in this new addition of the house means baseboard heat, and we couldn't block that. In the previous picture you'll see that the bottom shelf is up rather high to allow for the heat to come out. The trunk under the window is only temporary until we build in a bench seat with storage. I simply could not stand the idea of even one more day of indoor sawdust, so the window seat is going to have to wait until the spring weather allows outside construction. 

I'll post better pictures that show the coat hook idea later. We are very happy with it and love the look in the hall.  We are also happy that it is finally operational and the construction is gone... though the dust remains and is a major item on this weekend's to-do list, right after report cards. We have loads more books, but we too pooped this week to sort and move any more. What do you think? I might get the credit for the idea that prompted all this, but Jonathan did the design and construction almost single handidly. I was sick with a humongous cold for weeks of this project and did hardly more than raise a paintbrush a couple of times. Thank the Lord above for this sweet, accommodating and "handy" man. Love. 

Click on back to find more! See you next time!