It's FRIDAY!!  Woo Hoo!!  It's been a super long week, and I'm so thankful that I get to rest this weekend with my boys.  We have a birthday party, but that is the only solid plans we have.  It feels very nice, because we all need to rest sometimes.

I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for another Five For Friday.  You can click on the linky button above to link up or go read about other bloggers' weeks.  Here are five random things about my week.

 

Our class has been super busy with our research project.  A few weeks ago, the students searched through nonfiction resources, and chose a bird that they were most interested in to research.  Some of them picked some super interesting birds, and I've been amazed at all that they have learned.  They recorded some questions or "wonderings" on sticky notes, and then after researching they wrote the answers under the sticky notes.  It was a great way to collect and organize their research.  We still have a bit of research left, but I'll share the finished projects when they are done.  I'm also excited to say that I'm working on a bird research unit plan, and hope to have it done in a few weeks.

 

This week was STAAR testing week for our third through fifth graders.  On Wednesday, I had all 39 of my kiddos for the morning while my partner helped with testing.  I found this awesome bird craftivity on TpT from Learning Junction Depot and had to share.  It kept my kids engaged and quiet during the testing.  Click on the picture above to go check it out!

My kids wrote a cinquain poem about their bird.  They turned out really good too!

 

It is definitely spring in Texas, and I'm really enjoying the weather.  Here are some flowers that some of my sweet kiddos picked for me. 

 

Tonight was my sweet boys' Spring Show.  This year the theme was Beach Party, so they had to wear swim wear.  They are growing so fast!  This picture makes them look so grown up...sniff sniff!

I donated some of my TpT products to the Silent Auction, so I spent a part of my week getting them printed and ready.  This set of Addition I Have, Who Has will be perfect practice for one lucky classroom.  I was so happy to donate to my boys' school.  You can click on the picture above to see it in my store.

 

My family had such a blessed Easter.  The boys both got Dinosaur piggy banks from the Easter Bunny, and they found coins in the Easter Eggs that they hunted.  Mason loved putting his coins in his piggy bank.

Well, my week was pretty busy and now I'm off to go rest!  I hope you have a restful weekend as well!

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Stephanie

This week has been glorious Spring Break!  It's been so glorious that I can't believe it's Friday...whomp whomp!

I've decided to link up with Doodle Bugs Teaching to share my five highlights of my Spring Break week.

 

Click on the button above to join the linky party. 

1.  The biggest part of my week was that I took my youngest to get his first haircut and boy was it hard!  I cried all the way home!  See he is my last baby and I was holding onto the fact that I wanted to keep all his cute baby curls.  I know they will grow back but it's still hard.  My husband has been asking since October to get his hair cut and I kept saying I will on Spring Break.  I never knew Spring Break would get here that fast :(.  My baby really likes his hair shorter though.

 

2.  The boys and I found a super cool kids play place not to far from our house.  Mason went to a party there on Saturday and while we were there I noticed that they have open play hours during the week.  The boys and I went on Tuesday and I was surprised at how it wasn't crowded.  It was a big hit!

 

3.  Both of my boys are huge fans of all things with wheels, so we also went to ride the train that is near the zoo.  We were super lucky because right when we pulled up in the parking lot, the train was also pulling up in the station.  We didn't have to wait at all!  Also, let me mention that I'm not a fan of selfies but since I've been losing weight they aren't so bad.  I still have awhile to go but I'm getting there.  So far I've lost 17 total and I started on January 20th.

4.  Today has been a catch up day for school stuff.  I printed out the stuff for my new spring sentence editing station.  Now, I just need to cut them and laminate them.  You can click on the picture to see them in my store.

I also made a sentence editing starter pack as a freebie.  You can grab it by clicking on the picture below.

5.  This week I also planned on finishing my Texas unit that I've been working on since last year.  Let's just say that this unit doesn't want to be finished.  I've stopped and started so much.  I need to finish this!

Instead of finishing this unit this week, I finished the freebie under number 4 and updated 3 of my sentence packs.  I also started working on some writing foldables for my kiddos.  Next week we start our poetry unit and the kids will be writing poems that create sensory images.  I'm going to start off the week with this foldable where the kids can write a list for these 4 senses.  I think they will like it!  Anything to get them writing....right? :)

Well those are five of my highlights from my Spring Break.  Thanks for reading and I hope you grabbed my freebie that is listed under number 4.  I'm in the process of getting my blog redesigned, so hopefully my next post will be about that :).

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Stephanie

Happy Friday y'all!  I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for the weekly Five for Friday linky.  Click on the linky button below to head over to her website and link up your post.

1.  On Sunday, we celebrated Maddox turning 8 months old.  I can't believe he is already 8 months old.  He is crawling, pulling up, eating lots of fruits and vegetables, and saying "hi" and "mama".  Oh and chasing after his big brother.  He is such a sweet baby and always smiling.  I am loving spending the summer with him :).
 

  
2.  Mason and I have been enjoying reading this summer.  One of his favorite characters is Bob the Builder, so we read this Bob's Birthday book.  It's one from my classroom library that I brought home when I was packing up my classroom.  After reading the book Mason kept singing, "Happy Birthday to ME!!!"  Then during bath time he asked, "Mama where is my cake?"  I felt AWFUL!  His birthday isn't until November!  Yikes, how do you tell a 2 year old it isn't their birthday.  So the next day we went to the store and he picked out some green cupcake mix and we made cupcakes.  He was super excited.  Anything to make great childhood memories :).

3.  Here is my coupon helper at the grocery store.  Don't you just love being able to shop during the week and not have long lines.  I DO!!

P.S.  That green garbage truck goes with us EVERYWHERE.  He even sleeps with it!

 4.  We have a small fish aquarium at home and my husband bought a snail right before school got out.  Today we woke up to find this....a HUGE egg sack.  After doing some research online we learned that our snail must have gotten pregnant while at the pet shop.  It will take 3 to 4 weeks to hatch and she can have hundreds of baby snails.  Anyone want to adopt a baby snail?!?!

5.  Today is my 5th wedding anniversary!  My husband and I have been super blessed, look at our beautiful family!  The blue pinwheel represents our first son Tyler that passed away right before birth.  The Lord has truly blessed us with 3 amazing sons.  I can't wait to see what the next 5 years has in store for us.  I love you honey!

 

 

To celebrate my 5 year wedding anniversary, I'm having a 5% off sale on all of my products in my TpT store.  I'm working on an ABC QR Code Hunt that I hope to finish today, so I can add it to the sale.

Also, don't forget to enter my giveaway that ends Sunday night.

Thanks for stopping by and helping me celebrate 5 years of marriage :).

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Stephanie

I had so much fun joining the Ten Pin Linky party this morning, that I decided that I wanted to link up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for her very famous Five for Friday.  I've been reading almost everyone's week and I'm super excited to finally be able to link up.

 

1.  On Monday, my husband and I finished moving the last of my school stuff to my new classroom.  I had been in that room for 4 years and had some great times and some pretty low times.  It was hard to turn in my key knowing that I wouldn't be back in the same room next year.  I am looking forward to next year, a new grade level, and finally being in the main building.  I've been at 2 schools and 3 different grade levels and I've ALWAYS been in an outside building.  Isn't that funny!  Now I'll finally not have to worry about leaving my keys in my room and being locked out.  Plus my new room is bigger!!  Here are some pictures of my empty room.

2.  I took a really neat class this week called iCreate on a Mobile Device.  It was a class that my district held but the instructor was an educator who works for Apple.  I know dream job!!  I learned about this new app that I can't wait to use with my Second Graders.  It's called Haiku Deck.  The kids can create slide presentations on just about any topic.  I was also thinking they could use them to publish their writing and since I'm teaching in the Dual Language program the kids could make slides of vocabulary words in either language as a tutorial for others.  It would have the picture and then the word in both English and Spanish.

The app lets you add your own pictures or you can search for pictures in the app.  Really great and simple for our primary kiddos.

3.  This little guy learned how to stand up in his crib.  Yikes!!

 

He's been pulling up for a few weeks now but this week was the first time he did it in his crib.  So we had to lower his crib (sad face)...they grow up too fast!

4.  This year my next door teaching neighbor retired (super duper sad face).  She is the one that encouraged me over and over to join TpT until I finally did.  I owe her a lot!  Anyways, I got to see her this week because she is borrowing our bumbo for her niece that is visiting.  She gave us a gift card to Chick-fil-a as a thank you, so we took our boys today.  Mason was really excited, he kept saying nuggets almost all the way there.  Poor Maddox all he got were some cheerios.  Here are my two little boys.

5.  I spent a lot of time creating and working on my blog this week.  It's been a ton of fun meeting new teaching friends and learning new things.  I added a pinterest hover over button and a new "add my button" button!

Thanks for reading my very first Five for Friday!  Check out my last blog post for a classroom management freebie.

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Stephanie