Five for Friday....Cowboy Style

It has been a crazy fun-filled week!  I wanted to share some of our fun by linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching and Five for Friday. 

The last week of January is always Cowboy Poetry Festival time (you can check it out here).

Hollywood cowboys mix with the real ones.  There is music, poems, stories, art, and some of the most beautifully crafted cowboy gear, along with workshops for those who want to hone their skills.  I am rocking my cowboy self with a shirt made for my grandmother and a belt my husband bought me 35 years and 4 kids ago. 

1.
Wednesday we had some wonderful moms come in and help us have a Buckaroo Breakfast with our second grade reading buddies.  They were lining up for seconds (I like to think it is because I make a killer pancake, but really, kids this age would eat a pile even if they were hard and dry).

We went back to our buddies in the afternoon and they helped us write poems.  They turned out so awesome!!  Here is one of my favorites:

I am a cowgirl.

Hear the wind blowing.

See the horses run.

Feel the bumpy road.

Smell the burning hair.

Touch the horse.

2.
Thursday I gave each student a copy of my little book What's Under Your Hat?  I confess to being pretty proud of how it turned out!!  I don't have the black and white graphics yet...so everyone got a color copy to take home. (you can find it in my store, here)

3.
Friday...What can I say?  Switch Around Day!  In my room we made these cute cute cute horses.

Next door they were painting sunsets.

Then they moved on and listened to and drew the story of Pecos Bill (sorry no pictures, but this was a favorite.  They loved learning how to draw a cowboy.  They just tucked their pictures away before I could snag one to take a picture).
After the story of Pecos Bill they needed some cactus....these were next.

Last...boots.  Every cowboy needs a good pair of boots.  How fun are these?

Getting ready for the glitter and sequence.

4.
We ended the day visiting each classroom reciting the poem we have been practicing:

5.
Come on in my room anytime and have some fun, learn something new, make another friend.

Happy Trails to you...until we meet again!

Let snowball throwing begin!

Don't miss the BIGGEST Snowball Fight of the Year!!

22 of your favorite bloggers have teamed up to bring you a...

Our forts are built...
the snowballs are packed & stacked...
and we're about to BLAST you with FREEBIES!!

So lace up your boots, pull on your mittens,
and get ready to load up on 'SNOW' much good stuff!!

Hop on over to to the Happy Teacher Heaven facebook page to pick up my freebie!

Look for this tab on every facebook page to find the next FREEBIE.

Note: You will not be able to access the freebies from an iPad.  

Click the image below to download a copy of the clickable map to find your way to all the 'snow forts'!

The Snowball Fight begins at 10 am CST on Saturday, January 18th.  

But don't delay because the snowballs melt at 10 pm CST on Monday, January 20th!!

We hope you have fun on the hop and find lots of fun freebies that you and your kiddos will love!

Make sure to follow our blogs too so you'll never miss a FREEBIE!  

Thanks for joining our Snowball Fight!!

Time....it passes sslowly

...or not at all for our littles.  Time seems so easy for us "old people".  It is concrete, set in stone, we get it because we have lived it.  Sometimes it is easy to forget our little kinders haven't lived as long as we have and they don't get it.  For them time gets all mixed up.  They can repeat some of the right words, day, week, year, January, Monday....but they still don't understand it (that's why they mix it up so much).  I blogged about that over at PreK and K sharing.  Click here to read my post.

Then I saw this hat on Cupcake for the Teacher's blog.  So to help my kinders understand a little more, we made these hats today.  We started with the months of the year (today was the first day we sang them all).  We looked at the letters, and stretched the sounds, then found the months we needed.   We glued them to a sentence strip as we went along.  If you need the months you can find them here.  Be sure to glue them end to end, so you don't run out of room.

Next we cut out our triangle, glued a star to the top, and came back for the die cut numbers.  I told my students to glue the 2 and the 4 on first, then the 0 and 1.  I told them that the 2 and the 4 had to hang off the hat or it wouldn't all fit.  When those were glued, then you could add the last two numbers.

Finally I stapled the word strip into a circle and stapled the hat onto the strip.  Voila!  A Happy New Year hat.  Aren't they just too cute?  You would think I was having a party in my room.

Thank goodness for teachers who are willing to share.  When I saw Teri's hat I knew I had to make it. Go check out her Happy New Year hat.  Check out her blog too....she always has the cutest ideas.

Tomorrow we start our personal timeline project.  I will blog about that as the project progresses.  For now the first day back has worn me out.  It is time for bed.

Currently....it's a fresh start

I love the first Day of the month because it's Currently time!!  Time to link up with Farley at Oh Boy Fourth Grade and see what every one is doing.

Most everything is self explanatory.  I love Christmas, my decorations, the quiet and peaceful feeling when I am sitting at night or early morning and the only light is from the tree and whatever candles I happen to light.  On Christmas Eve, we break out every oil lamp I can find and read and sing the Christmas story from the bible.  On Christmas Eve I also light a bayberry candle (an ode to my mother and our New England traditions). 

New Year's Day has always been about the parades for me.  Growing up it was the Mummer's Parade in Philadelphia and since I moved west the Rose Parade has become important.  Our small town high school band has been three times.  Twice I have gone as a chaperone.  I loved it!  So now we check it out every January 1st.

I have a long list of projects I wanted to accomplish over Christmas break.  Most of them are related to my New Year Goal of living more simply.  I need to hurry though....time is slipping by and I do not have much checked off my list.

What are you currently up to?