Great Drawing Marker and Other Stuff

Erin Go Bragh! Happy St. Patrick's Day... the day you can be Irish even if you're not.

1. I share Five for Friday but I start on a bit of a sad note today. My family IS Irish and we used to get together for a good meal and a little jig or two on St. Pat's Day when we all lived closer, but now we are rather spread out. Celebrations are few and far between these days. Also, three years ago on this day my dad passed away... he was born on Valentine's Day and died on St. Patrick's Day. I can't believe it's been three years already. I still miss him very much.

So you see why St. Patrick's Day has become a bit sad for me.

2.  Have you ever combined dry erase markers with water color paints? I find that the kiddos create some pretty cool stuff when I suggest they draw before they paint. I tend to see fewer paint soaked abstract masterpieces, and the placement of paint on paper becomes a little more purposeful. 

The problem is that regular markers bleed when wet- which can be fun sometimes, too, but not for a drawing project. Pencils are too light. And permanent markers need more supervision, and they bleed on the paper all by themselves anyway. What to do?? 

I suggest you use thin tipped dry erase markers. I have used Expo, Lakeshore, and the brand sold at the Dollar Store, The Board Dudes, and all of them work just fine. I buy whichever ones I can find at the cheapest price. They leave a nice dark line that doesn't bleed, no matter how much paint the kids use. 

And of course I use my hacked paint drying rack which is really an under shelf wire basket. I blogged about it before. Click on the photo to know more details. 

3.  Funny how the additions of just a few things can make activities all new. Here are some new items I added to the mix of stuff.

Dollar Store combs for the play dough

Good old fashioned compasses for circle fun

Shower door squeegee for raking up duplos, which makes clean-up much more fun. Clean dustpans work, too.

4.  Speaking of duplos, don't forget them. Lots of kindergartners come to school completely enamored with lego and I, too, personally love lego. However, there are some down sides– oftentimes the kids only want to make the "thing" that the fancy pieces are for. It takes a long time to find the exact pieces, and a long time to make a relatively small thing. Kids usually run out of time to complete the building, let alone play with it.

That's why I always have duplos on the ready in the construction corner. They are easier to use on the floor with fewer tiny pieces. And because they are bigger, they are not only easier to build with, but you get the "thing" a lot faster, so there is usually time to actually play with the creation. Don't let the kids' initial reaction to "those baby toys" stop you from making them available. I actually don't put out the small standard sized lego bricks until the last third of the year, and the duplos get tons of use all year long. Lego makes a great multi-racial sets of people in the duplo scale, too.

5.  And I end with 

I don't know if any of you heard about the BIG wind storm that hit the southeast corner of Michigan last week. Over twelve hours of gusty hurricane strength wind. I think there were something like 800,000 customers who lost power. DTE said it was the biggest power outage in their history. Jonathan and I were lucky, and we only had a little flicker... enough to make me check on what was in the freezer... where I found these! 

Forgotten Christmas cupcakes! Yes! Just as good as ever. Enough to share at school. How is a person to lose any weight if Christmas cupcakes are still around in March, I ask you!!!

Anyway, we lost power at school for two days, giving us a four day weekend. I felt horrible for the families without power, but I can't deny the unexpected time "off" gave me time to do much needed OTHER stuff for SCHOOL. eye roll....

Then this week, we had a snowstorm! The snow came down continuously all day long. After the very spring-like, even summer-like weather where we hit 70 one day, it was rather disconcerting to see winter upon us again. As I told the kids to bundle up for the walk to cars and busses I heard one little guy say, 

"Do you think Santa will come tonight??"

Well.... we HAD pretty much experienced all the seasons again since Christmas break. Maybe it was time for Santa to swing on thru once more!! I mean, I've heard of Christmas in July, why not Christmas in March?

Have a great spring break if you are on one. A much needed and deserved respite. We still have two. more. weeks. to go. Click on back to Kasey at Doodle Bugs to see what else is going on with teachers.

Thanks for stopping by... and don't forget to PIN ideas you want to remember!

Put a Little Jig in Your St. Pat's Day

Classroom activities for St. Patrick's Day are easy to find, but don't forget to put something genuinely Irish into your day, too. Being Irish, I love many things Irish, but top of the list is Irish dancing. Here's a selection of short videos that I use myself. My students love them every year and I bet yours will, too. I give the length of each video so you can plan your day accordingly.

I'm linking up with Show and Tell Tuesday from Forever in 5th Grade so more of you can find this.

This one took place as a Flashmob in Dublin. It's 4 minutes and 19 seconds long and great fun. You can have good discussion with your kids as to how this might have come about.

This is an opening number from a Riverdance performance. It is four minutes and 43 seconds long. In case you don't know, Riverdance pretty much put Irish dancing on the map, and people the world over discovered Irish dancing through them. I show several different types of Irish dancing in the next couple of videos.

This is a closing number from Riverdance. It is 11 minutes and 58 seconds long.

And lastly, here are some kids who are learning to dance. I don't know the kids or where they are dancing but this particular video brings back memories of my own daughter learning to Irish dance. I always show my kids this video so they can see that kids can learn to dance, too.

So there you have some examples of Irish dancing to pick and choose from. I, myself, will be showing them all as I could watch all day long! My kids love them each St. Patrick's Day. Hope you and yours enjoy them, too. Erin go Bragh! Ireland forever!

Thanks to Stephanie for the linky. Click on back and find more good stuff!

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.