Five for Friday

     This week flew by...and it's probably because we have a BUSY weekend planned! Our oldest turns 5 next week and we're celebrating with family tomorrow. (Sidenote: I'm having a hard time dealing with her being so old already...there have been tears today!) It was a great week in Kindergarten though. Sometimes I think Common Core and following (yucky) district curriculum can really bog a teacher down...so this week we worked extra hard to do stuff that was meaningful AND fun.

     Excuse my boots in the next two pictures...oops! I love these spiders. And my kiddos did SO well doing our "accordion" folds for the first time. I had a few students who were folding experts and finished 8 legs quicker than I could say "easy peasy lemon squeezy." It was so sweet to watch these few kiddos walk around and willingly TEACH their classmates one-on-one...without me asking or prompting. Bless my soul. These arachnids were a great project to help us prepare for the cute Frankensteins we're making next week!

     Again with the boots. My apologies. I'm currently laying in bed about to fall asleep so picture cropping isn't a priority, ha! I love these little cupcake liner owls though. The kids did such a great job on following directions...and those eyes? We did the ole "turn a square into a circle" trick...on a Friday...for the first time. We were brave and it was a success! Our bravery was the perfect, albeit accidental, extension to the story we read The Brave Little Owl.

     A giant spider graph made for an exciting morning in Kindergarten. The kiddos loved creating this "big" graph and answering the question "Are you afraid of spiders?" Then we used our math talk words "more" and "fewer" to describe our data. Proud teacher moment! They came up with some amazing conclusions about our data!

     We continued our Unit 2 in Guiding Kinders Math (by Deanna Jump and DeeDee Wills). The above picture is of our number trains with pumpkins. I'll be honest, I thought this activity was going to be a lot easier (and a lot shorter). We had just completed a similar activity the day before with leaf pictures so today's pumpkin activity only built upon what we had just done! Eek. I must have done a subpar job of explaining directions because this activity was difficult lol. Anyone ever had a lesson like that? Maybe it's just me. After 25 minutes of my kiddos attempting to complete these pumpkins trains (with no end in sight), I actually had a little sweetheart say, "Mrs. Murray, I'm sorry we're so behind!" HAHA! I assured her it was not a problem, but we did want to try and move on to something else that day. ;-)

     Today I received the SWEETEST package from an Etsy sale I participated in earlier this week. If you haven't checked out The Adopt Shoppe on Instagram...you must go now. Kate is the creative genius behind this little account. And by little, I mean big. Can you believe the detail in this packaging?! Kate has the most giving heart and her little creations bring such joy to others! This is my second TAS necklace. I purchased my first necklace in an adoption fundraiser this summer. Anywho, these necklaces are little billboards for your heart and make great gifts too! Check Kate's IG account out! I'm warning you though...these items are HOT commodities and are in high demand. You can't just order them or ask for custom designs. Also, if you check out her Etsy store, you'll notice it's empty. She only holds little sales here and there. I encourage you to read more about the way she works things. It's pretty fun (and potentially stressful!) Haha!

Have a great weekend, friends! You deserve it!