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Saturday, May 17, 2014

Five for Friday...on Saturday!

Hey everyone!  I'm a day late on this week's Five for Friday, but since I missed it last week too, I decided it was better to be late than never!  Plus, we've had an exciting week...or actually an exciting Friday so I have to share what we had going on!  I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five For Friday...so let's get started!






So a couple weeks ago the teacher blogger and instagram world went crazy over the PaperMate Flair pens and their extremely low price at Staples...well I stopped at a Staples on the way home from dinner that night and didn't have any luck, but didn't get too upset about it because I'm obsessed with Staedtler pens.  I've had a set of 10 for about a year and half and just love them...but last week when I "had" to wander around Target waiting for my eye drops to be filled at the pharmacy (darn eye infection!) I stumbled across these beauties.  So earlier this week I took the plunge and used a gift card from teacher appreciation week to get myself a big pack of 20!!  So many colors to choose from!



Last year a couple of my team mates and I decided to do buckets for our kids end of year gifts.  We put a Scholastic book, some summer activity games, and some other fun things like bubbles, jump ropes, kool aid, etc.  Last year after spending a few hours getting those blasted stickers off of the buckets, I wrote their names using black/white paint pens.  This year, I wanted to use my new Cricut Explore to put their names on their buckets with vinyl.  I just love how they turned out!


If you are a follower of mine, you caught my post earlier in the week as part of the Keep Calm and Survive blog hop where I blogged about my QR Code countdown.  We are going to start scanning QR codes Thursday afternoon...I'm excited to start!  Anywho...as I began getting things ready to copy for the last couple weeks, I decided to whip up some language arts and math centers with a beach theme to use the week after Memorial Day.  Our last Day is June 6..but that week is a joke, so we are doing all of our fun educational activities the week before!  Click the picture to check them out in my store!





I LOVE GoNoodle!  I wish it calmed my kids down as much as it does for other teachers but I love it nonetheless!  The kids have a several favorites and we got up and moving to those many, many times this week!


Okay, so now for our exciting Friday!  Warning: there will be several pictures to follow!
Let me begin by saying that last year my school sought out and adopted Letterland, a child-friendly phonics program that began in England over 30 years ago.  This program is WONDERFUL and I cannot give it enough praise.  It is used in countries all over the world and is slowly making its way across the United States, but is mostly concentrated here in NC.
So, every year Tweetsie Railroad in the NC mountains hosts Letterland Days and turns their park into Letterland.  Since a local, and large, public school system has also adopted Letterland, they worked with Letterland to host a Letterland Day at Pullen Park in Raleigh NC today.  Because of all of these events, the creator of Letterland, Lyn Wendon, made her way across the pond to visit Tweetsie, Pullen Park, and came to our school yesterday!  We were over the moon excited and have been planning for her arrival for weeks!  Not only did our Letterland Rep bring Ms. Wendon, but also her son and some of the other "higher up" Letterland reps for a 2 hour visit.  After an assembly in the gym with our K-2 students which included our Kindergarten students singing, 1st and 2nd graders asking questions, and watching a video of 1st Grade's Letterland day back in October, our administrators gave the team a tour of our classrooms and what we were doing with Letterland.  So, I had the creator of Letterland IN MY CLASSROOM watching me teach her program!!  My principal, superintendent and other school staff members told me that Ms. Wendon and her "team" loved my classroom, my teaching, and what I was doing with their program in my room.  I was so humbled and excited that I about cried.  It was a very exciting morning and about lunch time, it hit me that I was exhausted from all that excitement!  Now for a few pictures from our morning!

Ms. Wendon in the the rocking chair before our assembly began.  She loved looking at all the Kindergarteners dressed up as their favorite Letterland characters. 

Intently watching the video of 1st Grade's Letterland Day last fall!

All of our Kindergarteners singing some of their favorite Letterland songs, dressed up as their favorite characters.  So cute and sang so very well!

Ms. Wendon during our reception beginning to open the "Lyn of Letterland" engraved spoon that we gave her to go along with the tea pot that our art teacher made with student thumbprints. (Sorry for the blurry pics!)

She loved that it was etched "Lyn of Letterland"


There is so much more that I have probably forgotten.  It was such a wonderful experience that I know our students will never forget and I hope that Ms. Wendon will not forget either!

Have a great weekend y'all!

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