Five for Fraturday

Hello there.

It’s a wonder I’m here today because yesterday was  THE WINDIEST DAY IN ALL THE LAND.

And, as I’ve stated before, the California wind does something to children that I cannot explain in any coherent way, and I. BARELY. SURVIVED. THE. DAY.

And then last night, the power went out.

Which I think I’ll blog about tomorrow.

Because that’s a story in and of itself.

In the meantime . . .

On Sunday, Miss Murphie turned FOUR!

FOUR!

In dog years, she’s twenty-eight years old.

TWENTY-EIGHT YEARS OLD!

She might as well move out and get her own place.

NOT.

I’d be tho thad.

Remember when she looked like this:

I honestly have no clue why this is such poor picture quality.

Is this how iPhones used to take pictures?  It’s like we were living in the dark ages!!  😉

Look at her, though.

Just look at her.

THAT EAR.

We did nothing to celebrate, other than to take her out to play in the rain because SHE IS SPOILED ROTTEN.

I am obsessed with our reindeer.

And I mean it.  I ran over to Laurie’s classroom (my teammate) to show her because I couldn’t help it.  And then when Laurie’s class finished hers, she showed me.  Because we are both obsessed.

This was another one of those I need something quick and cute to put up on the bulletin board and this year, I’ve just decided that I pretty much need to do Jennifer’s Directed Drawings once a month.

One, because my kids love it, and two — THEY ARE QUICK, EASY, FUN, AND ADORABLE.  The kids’ personalities seriously just shine through.

This time, I told my kids we were going to draw a reindeer (sometimes, I let it be a surprise) and they oohed and awwed, but mostly they awwed.

As in, “awwwwwwww!!!!”

And PS:  yes, there is still grass on my winter bulletin board because, as you can see, it just started snowing.

And putting up snow is not quick and easy so there you go.

 

We LOVE geometry!!

🙂

We were busy composing shapes this week and my kids absolutely loved it.

Of course, my administrator came in when I had just passed out the pattern blocks which means my kids were exploring and playing and creating and not actually composing anything, BUT I DON’T CARE.

I DON’T CARE, I SAID.

PATTERN BLOCKS ARE MATH.

And we are now Composing Shapes Experts and that’s all I know.

 

Yep.

Even though it’s now officially December, we needed to finish up our Native American unit.

I’ve blogged about this activity, but just to recap, we learn about how corn, beans, and squash were important to many Native American tribes and that they were often referred to as The Three Sisters.

Then we use pumpkin seeds, corn kernels, and all types of beans to create a picture.

In the interest of full disclosure, my kids used to design their own pictures.

But that was hard.

And long.

And, sometimes, it looked like my kids tossed all the beans and what-not up into the air and then left for the day.

Just plain – walked out – while I attempted to pick it all up and our custodian tried to vacuum it all up and I said I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry over and over again.

Then I switched to this pre-made design (yes, I know not all of Native Americans lived in teepees and we learn that, too) and that seemed to work a little better.  It was on a half sheet of paper.

But this year, because we were short on time, I shrunk the design to a quarter page size.

This time next year . . . maybe we’ll just eat some popcorn and call it a day.

🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

It’s snowing a little harder on this side of our room.

So I might be into reindeer right now.

And we’re not even studying them.

I had good intentions to do a reindeer study, but I couldn’t make it happen.

But I was scrolling through Instagram one day and these adorable reindeer popped up and I said to myself Self, I need my kids to make these.

It’s a freebie from Primarily Speaking.  Aimee used red glitter, but I didn’t have red glitter.

I had silver.

So we used silver to make our noses shiny.  Some kids opted out of shiny noses which was totally fine.

Now I have glitter EVERYWHERE.

You know how some people love glitter?

I do not.

Because it always ends up on my cheek or in my eyebrow or on the side of my nose.

And I don’t need a shiny nose.

Nope.

We’ll leave that to the reindeer.

🙂