Christmas Tree Farm Field Trip

These pictures must have gotten lost in the Christmas Crazy.  I took Adam and Owen to a field trip with CHEP at a Christmas Tree Farm.  The coolest part of this field trip was when he was trimming the tree with a Machete!  You can imagine this totally got Adam's attention.  We learned about allergy free Christmas trees and how expensive real trees are, truly.  We also met a new family that just joined CHEP the Herrin Family.  They have two boys around Kevin and Adam's age and a little girl Owen's age.  

Spit Wad Trivia

We started a super cool science unit which I found on TPT and the unit is here.  The unit is on Energy, Motion and Force.  We got together with our friends, the Wallaces, and practiced our Vocabulary words.  I can't take credit for this ingenious game.  It was Kathy's all the way.  There are questions for each square on the board and you get a point for each question you answer correctly.  You can only answer the question you hit with your spit wad and if someone else already answered the one you hit then you don't get a question and it moves on to the other team. The boys had so much fun with this game and had to be taught how to make spit wads.  The kids learned their Vocab and had a blast doing it.

Character Matters

This year the boys had a super awesome opportunity to participate in a play.  They got to have play practice and it was a musical which Kevin loved and Adam loathed.  They both had to audition for their parts.  Adam took the part of  "Pig 2" which had a solo song and two lines.  He did an amazing job!  He was so cute that teenage girls were asking for his autograph after the show and telling him he was their favorite!

Kevin took the part of Jack (as in Jack and the Beanstalk)  He had several lines and a longer solo song.  He also did an amazing job and was flawless in his performance. 

My favorite thing Kevin said after the show when we got home:  

Kevin:  "Mom, I need to be in another show.  Make sure it is a musical"

Mom:  "Why a musical"

Kevin: "If you sing you get to be at the mic more"

Yeah that's my boy!

I got very little video of this.  I am hoping I will be able to buy a copy of the whole performance from the PTO but haven't heard any details yet.  But I did get this short clip between chasing the little guys around during dress rehearsal.  (he actually did it perfectly during the actual performance)

Valentine's Day Party

We decided not to go to the CHEP V-Day Party because the time did not work for naps around here.  But we did throw our own party and did get a pretty good crowd of 18 kiddos!

We decorated bags for Valentines, and cupcakes.  Then we had an Olympic Challenge with straws, paper plates, and tape balls and a long jump...(javelin, discus, shotput and long jump)

I got lots of help from the other moms as well.  Kathy made the medals, Kristen brought the paper goods, and Michelle provided milk for 18 kiddos!

Here is the winner's circle!

The Herrin Family, Wallace Family, Biddle Family, and Johnson Family and a friend of Kristen Herrin came with her 4 kiddos as well.  We had a great turn out!

Back In The Groove

I feel like we have finally fully recovered from the Holidays and my injury on the school front. We have caught our stride, we are rolling with the flow...I could keep going, but I won't! I have been keeping up with lesson plans and I am looking forward to finishing strong.






Kevin hates worksheets...but needs some practice. I have been racking my brain (and the internet) to come up with ideas to help him have fun practicing his math without worksheets. I found a cool thing on TPT. You solve the problems then scan the QR code to see if you got the correct answer. I am hoping this makes it a little more fun.






I have been picking out problems for him to do on the white board.






Lastly, I went through some apps for the iPad to find some cool math stuff. I found one called splash math (2nd grade). It has every 2nd grade math standard in it and both boys had fun playing it today.





I found (for free) a template to make word searches. Today I had Adam make Kevin one out of Kevin's spelling words and Kevin made Adam one out of Adam's spelling words. They had fun making them and then doing them!


















Of course, we are still having lots of Olympic fun! My favorite Journal entry this week...

Olympic Fever!

We are getting Olympic Fever around here. I went to TPT and found some super cute posters and worksheets. I bought two sets which gave me tons of ideas to play with and cost me $6. It also came with medal tallying sheets and ideas for your own Olympic Games at home. I have more journaling prompts than I know what to do with and the boys are getting super excited. This week we are focusing on where the Olympics are being held...lots of geography! Did I mention I LOVE the Olympics!












The Winter Olympics begin this Thursday. Opening Ceremonies are this Friday beginning at 7:30 p.m. They will be showing the games on NBC during the weekdays during the day between 3-5 p.m. Now you know what we will be doing at that time of day!
GO USA!!

Reading is Fun

This week has been a strange week. I'm mobile but not quick! I have been having so much fun seeing the boys really get into reading! I ordered some "vintage" Moby Illustrated classics mini books from eBay. I owned a set of these as a kid and was more than a little dismayed that they had gained Vintage status...

Kevin is so excited to read this book! He loves the movie, Journey to Mysterious Island and the book is mentioned in it so it already has a cool factor! He read 3 chapters within 30 minutes of pulling it out of the mailbox!


Adam has taken to multitasking in his reading endeavors! I can't stop giggling when I watch this video...

Such fun boys! If I accomplish one thing in my tenure as their teacher I hope it is an honest love of reading and of books!