Post without pictures

Hi Peeps!
Just realized that I haven't blogged in almost 2 years. I guess you can say I've been busy and sort of just.....forgot!
Bad, bad me!!
I can tell you that this summer was so eventful. I went to Vegas for the SDE conference which was fantastic! I saw some amazing presenters such as Deedee Wills, Kim Adsit, Julie Lee and Elizabeth Hall. All awesome and fantastic. Met a lot of awesome people from Vegas and California and enjoyed the togetherness of learning with my amazing daughter Megan. Came back and no sooner had to go to the ER for an emergency appendectomy which was a bit of an inconvenience, but I guess things work out the way they should because I found some new unexpected medical info from that which hopefully saved my life! Whew!
Then my hubby decided to surprise me with a 25th wedding anniversary trip to Paris which was Amazing!! When I tell you AMAZING, I mean splendorific and fantabulous! Loved it, loved Paris, Love my husband soooooo much and loved the feeling of being free in Paris.  We came back Wednesday and poor Paris was bombed on that Friday!! 😥😪😥😪😥😪 Just so sad.  The people of Paris were unbelievable. So helpful, funny, sweet and great.  I had heard that Parisians didn't like us, but they were so great to us.   I would go back if I could find lots of money!!

Ok, sorry I got sidetracked, back to blogging...It's not like I haven't been busy with other people's blogs. I have been looking at other blogs just not writing my own.   Pretty much obsessing on some like BooksBowsandbigideas.com from the great Megan Shea (awesome daughter of mine) and The Kindergarten Smorgasbord by Greg Smedley and Mrs.Wills Kindergarten.   Three of my faves right there.
So, I'm going to make a real effort here. I'm out on a medical leave, but I go back to work on Monday.  I am going to try and really put some effort into posting some pictures and some good blogs of what's happening in my class.  I'm really looking forward to seeing my little kiddos that I haven't seen in 4 weeks!
Stay tuned.........
PS-I saw Greg Smedley's persiscope challenge about posting awesomeness and I'm rising to the challenge of posting about Happy Classrooms.  See you soon!
-Fran

Back to Reality

Back to life, back to reality... Remember that song? Well that describes me right now.  We just got back from a two week European Adventure!  Best vacation ever! Loved it and loved spending time with my husband and kids.  Can't get enough of all of them!   <3.  We come back and there is an email from my school asking for the supply list that needs to be sent out pronto! So I went in to drop it off and saw my room.  I went in, saw the room, and went back out. Not quite ready for that yet!  Doesn't mean I'm not excited or anxious thinking about my year and what I'm going to do, just means I'm just not ready yet......
I will mozey on in next week and this year I will take before and after pictures.  Won't be quite as dramatic as last year (moved from one building to another, unpacked over 150 boxes and squished myself into a much smaller room), but hopefully you will see an improvement!  Looking at lots of great blogs and cute ideas.  Getting psyched!!!!

Vegas...I wish I was there!

Hi!
Everyone is going to the TPT Conference in Vegas. My daughter is going with my husband. They are so excited, planning lots of fun stuff!    Me...., I am not going this year, waaaaa! but I AM going next year.  Not missing the fun and excitement again! I do have too much going on this year, teaching summer camp and then going on a cruise for vacation, but really, really, really want to go next year!! I want to go to the I Teach K conference as well.  It should be so awesome!
I am so psyched for my husband and daughter to have a fun weekend together though. My daughter will be attending the conference tomorrow. She's got her workshops all planned out. Later they will go to dinner and then to a show.  Nice father/daughter bonding time. :)
I can't wait to hear all about it and live vicariously through them! It should be great!
Looking forward to reading all the great blogs from my favorite bloggers as well. I'm hoping my daughter gets a chance to meet them. I want to see lots of pictures! Have fun everyone!!

Our Last Centers of the Year; Buggy Centers

I am finally getting around to posting my last group of centers.  We did our Bug Centers which the kids LOVE! They couldn't wait to come in to school every day to do the next rotation.

I follow Megan Shea's Center schedule using 4 different centers (her centers usually consist of 5 centers and a Monday thru Friday schedule, but being as we did this right after Memorial Day and had only 4 days to do it, I shortened it to 4 centers and beefed them up a bit.

Center 1~  Buggy For CVC Words which had 2 different CVC activities . (We also did a great writing project with this center. It was something like~what would you do if you woke up and you were a caterpillar.  Sorry, no pics of that but we got some great writing out of the kids.  They were writing sentences like; I woke up and I was fat and furry.  I had so many legs so i decided to crawl up my sister's leg......  I loved it!!

Center 2~ Bug Project: They were able to choose one or both of these, most kids wanted to do both.  The choices were to create a ladybug or bumblebee.  Using the tracers to complete the project on their own.  They are using the sample as a guide.

Center 3~ Buggy for Math; Stamp, write and draw.  Sort of self explanatory with the picture, but they loved this one too!  There are differentiated numbers in Megan's Centers so you can use whichever one you need for where your kids are at in math.

Center 4~ Bug Book and Bug Rubbing;  The kids finish the sentences in the book and add their illustrations.  Once they are done, they read it to me.  They love adding their own words and are quite creative with this.  Once they are done, they do bug rubbings of their choice and write a sentence underneath.

The kids love these centers and I love them as well.  They have fun doing them, while learning about bugs the whole week.  Each day during the bug centers, I read a different bug book that I have in my library and they learn different facts from the books.  By the end of the week, I see different writing than I did at the beginning of the week.  It is so awesome.  I also do a sharing after each day for the kids to see what happened in the centers they were not at that day.  This gets the anticipation up for the next day and they literally walk in the door in the morning and ask when we are starting centers!  

Here is the link to Megan's buggy centers.  Megan Shea, who just so happens to be my daughter; is unbelievably talented and it wouldn't hurt to check out her store on TPT. I use all of her stuff in my room and have gotten tons of compliments from the parents about it!!

Megan Shea's Buggy Centers  Megan Shea's Weekly Buggy Centers 

Either one of those links will get you to Megan's store.  I use a combination of her centers in my class.  You can decide which ones you like, both are excellent!

Have fun with bugs!  Hope your kids like them as much as mine did! :)

Bugs! Bugs! Bugs!

I don't know about you guys, but here in New York we have had lots of stink bugs flying around! Unfortunately for me, they are flying around my class or can be found on the screen and basically can be found anywhere around the class.. One of my cherubs even found one on the book basket on her table.  Yuk! Can't stand bugs! My first inclination is to go squish it, but I've heard that if you squeeze them, the smell attracts other stink bugs.  Is this a myth? I don't know, but I'm not interested in having the whole population of stink bugs finding me, so I don't squash them.  What I do do, is get a tissue and flush it. When my students asked me what I was doing, I told them I was letting the bug go for a swim. I said they love to swim, so of course now, what do all of my kids want to do? They all want to catch  the stink bugs and flush them so they can be the one to help them swim......oh the joys of Kindergarten!  Gotta love these cherubs!

So excited to get started!

Hi Everyone!
I am so excited to get started with my new blog! Thanks to Alicia at Dreamlike Magic for getting me set up! She is amazing!  :)

So...everyone is doing the countdown at school. Me, I'm sort of counting down, but I'm extremely sad b/c I LOVE my class. They are awesome kiddos! Just the sweetest and best bunch of kids I've had the pleasure to work with.  I'm scared I'm going to be an emotional mess on the last day and start sobbing my eyes out!  Seriously! 
There have been years that I have felt the exact opposite, but this year, these kids rock! 
They have the cutest, funniest personalities! I've actually belly laughed a few times with them.  :). I love these cherubs!
Trying to stretch out the days as best as I can b/c I also have a boatload of work to do before 6/26.   So... Stay tuned..... I'm sure I'll have some cute stories to share with you this week.   Have a great day!