Halloween Picture Book Linky Party !

Halloween Books…Halloween Books…Love Love Love Halloween Books!

Dragon's Halloween, this is probably my most favorite of all time.  I just love Dragon to pieces and the kids get a kick out of every little thing Draggy (my students' pet name for him) does.  They laugh and want me to read it every day, sometimes 2x a day!!

Froggy's Halloween, who doesn't LOVE Froggy?   We just love to read all about his "Flop Flop Flops" and "Whaaaaat's."  And, I don't know about you, but my kiddos anticipate Froggy's every move and they love when chocolate covered flies are involved.  In fact, I think I'll give them some chocolate covered flies raisins when I read this next week. :)  That will get 'em going for sure!

AND finally,

There was an Old Lady who Swallowed a Bat.  There's just something about these books that get you in the spirit.  When I introduced this book to my kiddos last year, they went spastic waiting for the ending…which didn't disappoint.  Like the other books similar to this one, they love to sing and help me read.  I'm going to bring this one out in a week or two but in the meantime, we'll keep singing the original "old lady" song.


Don't forget to pop over to Chrissy at First Grade Found Me and link up with your favorite Halloween books…make sure to also visit as many of the other linkies as possible. There are oodles and oodles of great resources to be found.

Kindergarten Common Core

Wow… this is a MONSTER of good stuff !!!  Have you had a chance to see it spotlighted around in our wonderful blogland yet?  I've seen a several posts and let me tell you…this is a fantastic resource for Kindergarten teachers like myself.  It contains over 600 whopping pages enriched with Activities, Worksheets, and adorable Posters to help you teach both the Kindergarten English Language Arts Common Core AND the Kindergarten Mathematics Common Core Standards.  Head on over to Kindergarten Common Core and take a look for yourself, you won't be disappointed.

Linky Sminky…

Omgoodnessgracious !!!!!  Did I really figure this linky thingy out?  Shut the front door!

Okay, so here's the skinny on what happened...

First, I headed over to Oh' Boy Fourth Grade and read through Farley's Post.  Next, I scrolled down to find the template of her September Currently and right clicked (yup, even though I have a mac, I still use a plain ol' regular mouse…can't take the PC of this lady) on the template.  Then, I decided to drop it into my keynote (mac's power point) and insert text boxes for each category.  After that, I picked a font that suited my mood and typed away.  Finally, I saved a version, exported it as an image file to my desktop and dropped it into my blog. Voila !!

Now, I'm sure there has to be an easier method but I feel pretty proud for figuring this out on my own.  There's something to be said when you do something for yourself.

Restart...

Well, well, well…so this is my blog?!!?  Yes, it's been WEEKS since I posted my first post…Holy moly how did that happen?  Let me see…I could say I stayed away because:  1) it was the beginning of the new school year, 2) I felt like I couldn't match up to any of you great bloggers, 3) I was just too bloomin' tired and wanted to catch up on my sleep, 4) I caught up on being a mom (the best reason of all), or finally 5) I just was scared.  Yup, I'll go with #5 SCARED !!!! …you know that thing known as FEAR?!  Then something happened when I woke up on this beautiful day in SoCal, I realized "What the heck do I have to be SCARED about?"  Really…why should I feel like a deer frozen, staring into oncoming headlights?  I shouldn't!  There is nothing to be worried about...Nothing!  I forgot for a moment that I am a teacher in a BlogLand full of educators and this is where I am free to learn and be encouraged by my colleagues…So, here I am…back for my restart.

So here I go... It's Labor day and I am finding myself wanting to drive to work and organize my class for the new week (since I didn't bother to before I left for the long weekend).  I'm sure, like some of you, when Friday afternoon rolled around, you had more on your mind then prepping for the upcoming week.  I, myself, was more interested in getting home so I could head to my daughter's first home football game, rather than stay to plan and organize.  But reality set in…and it is time to get a move on…so off I go, off to my class, off to my wonderful world of Kinder.

….Now, if I would only remember to take pics so I can show you what my class looks like this year.  I'll be back with those and tips soon.