Let’s Go RACK’ing!

I have been SO inspired by all the Random Acts of Kindness ideas I’ve been seeing {& pinning!} on Pinterest. The boys and I had our very own RAOK day a few weeks ago and we delivered homemade cookies & muffins to the fire station, friends, and neighbors and did a whole lot of other kind things that day, too. Hands down, one of my favorite days ever. I was especially inspired when I found the idea to start a Christmas advent calendar counting down the 25 days of Christmas by performing a different random act of kindness each day.

I know Christmas is still over a month away, but the holiday season is quickly approaching. According to the majority of major shops and stores, holiday season has been here for a few months ;) When I saw THIS and THIS idea for Random Acts of Christmas Kindness, I knew this had to be a new Christmas tradition for our little family of four. Even though my boys are still really young, I want them to see how much better it is to give than to receive. I don’t expect them to fully understand the concept, but it never hurts to plant the seed :)…and what a FUN way to grow in kindness & compassion as a family!!

I’ve been compiling ideas from different sites {you can find the links to different ideas on my “Serving Others” Pinterest board} and thinking about the different things I want our family to do and I came up with our kindness advent for this season…EEEK! I’m SO excited!! I plan on spending Thanksgiving break preparing our advent calendar and organizing all of our activities. I’d LOVE for you to join us and start a kindness advent of your own!! Just incase you want to plan ahead, I thought I’d share our RACKs with you.

Day 1: Leave happy notes & candy canes on cars in parking lots. You can download our card by clicking on the pic below.

Day 2: Surprise Mrs. Wendy {our sitter} and her girls with hot chocolate and cupcakes

Day 3: Make a donation to the food pantry

Day 4: Pay for donuts and coffee at church

Day 5: Surprise Mrs. Liffey (our other sitter) with a Sonic drink and cupcakes for her family and little Christmas treats for all the kids that stay with my boys.

Day 6: Visit our neighborhood grocery store and help shoppers load grocery bags into their cars; leave little Christmas treats in the carts for the next shopper.

Day 7: Tape coins & candy canes to vending/soda machines at various stores in the area.

Day 8: Deliver poinsettias, treats, and cards to the local assisted living center.

Day 9: Deliver Christmas treats to the local post office & postal workers.

Day 10: Go to a grocery store and hand a (grocery store) gift card to someone standing in line.

Day 11: Visit the hospital and deliver balloons to the patients and snacks to the nurses station; leave stuffed animals/silly bandz/coloring books & crayons/holiday books on the children’s floor

Day 12: Deliver hot chocolate to the Salvation Army bell ringers {and if it’s too warm for hot chocolate, we’ll deliver Sonic limeades :)}

Day 13: Deliver homemade cookies & cards to the local fire station/police station

Day 14: Deliver Christmas treats to neighbors

Day 15: Visit the public library and pay for someone’s overdue fines and deliver Christmas treats to the librarians

Day 16: Leave holiday books in the mall play area

Day 17: Go into Starbuck’s and hand out gift cards to people standing in line (I buy coffee for the car behind me every Friday…that’s the only day I treat myself…but I thought this would be so much more fun!!!)

Day 18: Adopt a family in need

Day 19: Anonymously pay for someone’s dinner

Day 20: Leave a gift for the mailman in the mailbox

Day 21: Make and deliver “blessing bags” to the homeless

Day 22: Clean out ALL of our toys (we’ll be getting plenty from our families & Santa!) and clothes and donate them to a local homeless shelter

Day 23: Leave a “Christmas tip” for a server at a restaurant

Day 24: Deliver little Christmas treats to people working late on Christmas Eve (drugstores, gas stations, hospitals)

Day 25: Deliver Christmas treats to the people working at the airport {we’ll already be there, so we’d like to say ‘thank you’ to those spending their holiday helping others get to their families}

Of course, there are a GAJILLION other ideas that would be awesome, too!! I’d love to hear if you have any other great ones!!

I plan on stocking up on gift cards starting now. I’ll probably do $5 Starbuck’s gift cards and $25 or $50 grocery store gift cards, depending on if we give out one or two. I’ll be doing a lot of baking and handing out lots of treats, but I have some really EASY recipes (like this one) that make a TON! Plus, I found a TON of fun {inexpensive and practical} ideas on Pinterest. You can check out my idea boards HERE and HERE. I’ll be making most of my things in bulk and preparing a lot at once so that afterschool delivery is easier. I’ll also be handing out these little RACK cards with every delivery of kindness. {Disclaimer: this is NOT my idea or my wording!! TSJ photography made these cute little cards when they went RACK’ing, but I couldn’t find a download so I made a template for us to use.} You can download a copy by clicking the pic below.

Just incase you’re wondering about Day 23, here’s a little backstory... When I was student teaching in college, my car broke down one day. I had NO money and was freaking out about the cost of fixing it. I waited tables at the time and when I went to work that night (after a sweet friend let me borrow her car!), I was put on the patio. The weather was TERRIBLE. FREEZING cold and NO chance of me making any money that night. I was SO upset. Shockingly, this sweet family of 4 came and sat on the patio right underneath the heaters. They were my only table that night. I was chatting it up with them like I normally did with all my tables and they knew my entire life story within the first 5 minutes they were seated :) I figured I’d get a pretty good tip…at least $7…but I wasn’t expecting what I got. When they handed me the cash to pay, they told me to keep the change. The change was $100. I started crying. God knew EXACTLY what I needed and he provided it to me under the craziest of circumstances! HE never fails!!! I said thank you about a million times and even tried to give their money back! I was sure they weren’t serious!!! I told them they were my angels because I had NO money to fix my car and I was sure I wouldn’t make any that night. They said that each year they give a “Christmas tip” to a server and I just happen to be the lucky recipient. I’ll NEVER forget that as long as I live. I’m SO anxious to pay it forward!!!!! I absolutely CAN’T.WAIT!!!!

I plan on starting each day with a prayer for God to lead us to the people that need our kindness the most. I’m SO excited to start this tradition!! I’d love to know if you’re planning on doing something like this with your family this year!!!!

Let’s go RACK’ing!!!!!

Let's Give Thanks!

I'm CLEARLY technically challenged. After about 3-4 days of unsuccessfully trying to upload my latest unit to TpT, it's FINALLY added. Praise the Lord. My word. It was TOTALLY user error and I won't bother to mention what I was doing wrong because it was pretty lame....and *maybe* a little embarassing :) HA!

I know we only have a few days left before the break, but if you're interested, here's the latest...

Clipart courtesy of Scrappin Doodles and Jessica Weible Illustrations

This 120 page unit is filled with 10 activities {and recording sheets} for math tubs...plus 10 word problems...and 10 literacy center/station activities {and recording sheets}. You can check it out HERE.

Here's a little freebie for all you Thanksgiving lovin' people who need a little something extra :) Just click on the pic for the download.

I'll give this WHOLE unit away to the first 3 people who comment :) Just PLEASE remember to leave your email!!!!

Happy Friday, y'all!!!!

The Littlest Pilgrim, Symmetrical Turkeys, and Scarecrows…OH MY!

You guys *might* remember these little guys from last year…

We made a whole new set of symmetrical turkeys today and the kids were SO intense! We talked a TON about the concept of symmetry and then I sent the kids off to make their own symmetrical patterns {for turkey feathers}. LOVE how different each one turned out!

I forgot to mention that we did our fun little pumpkin adjective/simile activity last week. It went along perfectly with Abby’s recent pumpkin activities!

{The purple words describe the OUTSIDE of the pumpkin and the green words describe the INSIDE.}

There’s nothin’ cuter than scarecrows this time of year and we made the CUTEST scarecrows to hang in the halls. This cute little craftivity was the brain child of my team leader. LOVE. First, we read this book…

We talked about character/setting/problem/solution and then I had the kids write about each story element on a large piece of construction paper. When they were finished writing, they turned their paper over and turned it into “The Little Scarecrow Boy”!!!! Too stinkin’ cute!

One of our literacy/reading objectives this week is to describe characters in a story. First, we read this book…

And then we filled a little character chart with words describing the main character, Mini.

It was a little challenging to get the kids to think about words to describe her…they immediately wanted to talk about how she looked {brown hair, peach skin, girl, she wore a bonnet, etc.} After talking to them about WHO she was and now HOW she looked, they were able to come up with some really great descriptions!!! Once we filled out our little character chart, I had the kids make a little pilgrim peekover and write three complete sentences describing Mini {the main character}. They turned out so cute!! The kids did a GREAT job on this little writing project!

Now we’re busy getting ready for our 1st grade Thanksgiving feast next week!! If you need some fun Thanksgiving activities, check out what we did last year…HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE. You *might* find something you can use!

And if you’re in need of some Thanksgiving themed math tub & literacy center activities, I’ve got a unit ready to go! However, my dang computer is throwing all kinds of hissy fits right now and I CAN’T UPLOAD it to TpT!!!! Darnit! It contains 10 math tub activities, word problems, and 10 literacy center activities & writing prompts. I’m *hoping* to have it up by tomorrow if I can get things to start working!!!

A Classroom Update {iPhone Style}

I’ve been TERRIBLE about remembering to take my camera up to school. Terrible. I think I’m sleepwalking in the mornings before I get to the gym because I rarely remember to bring what I need. If it’s not packed in the car and ready to go the night before, then I will…inevitably…leave it at home. Lunches included :/ The one thing I never forget…because we’re super attached at the hip…is my trusty little iphone. So here’s a little classroom update iphone style.

Halloween was SO much fun! My cute student teacher read this story to the kids…

Talk about old school ;) Ha! Seriously though…it’s a cute little story about a mysterious person who goes around the town and smashes pumpkins on Halloween. We had the kids draw their own pumpkins and while they were at specials, the “pumpkin smasher” ripped them up and left a little surprise on their desk. She even left some caution tape on our door :)

Of course, the kids weren’t convinced that it was the pumpkin smasher, so my student teacher and I had to do some pretty serious acting to get them to buy our little story. 99.5% of my class eventually bought it…hook, line, and sinker. Kinda cute. Before they believed, we had them piece their pumpkins back together on a big sheet of construction paper and then write about who they think “smashed” their pumpkins while they were gone. Bless their hearts. Their writing was SO funny!!

We also did a little riddle writing this week. We’re getting into describing characters, so I decided to introduce this concept by having the kids write riddles to describe themselves. Their prompt was, “Trick or treat, smell my feet. Guess who’s hiding under the sheet.” They had to write a few sentences describing themselves using only clues. Then they had to draw a picture of themselves and “hide” it under the sheets :) They did SO well with this!!!

Now, these DARLING projects aren’t mine, but gosh darn…they are PRECIOUS!!!! My sweet friend who teaches next door had a mom who wanted to come in and make these with her kids. Ohmiword…SO adorable! And simple, too!!

As if Halloween wasn’t enough this week, today we celebrated our 50th day! It was a non-stop day completely full of chaos & learning and we had a BLAST! Our morning was filled with 50th day math games & activities.

We searched the web for pictures of games, cartoons, tv shows, clothing, hairstyles, cars, malt shops, and LOTS more from the 50’s. We did a little Kids in the 50’s/Kids Now venn diagram and then we made this little poodle skirt/rolled jeans writing craftivity.

We celebrated our 50th day with a round of root beer floats and did a little how-to writing craftivity to follow it all up.

Our little “How to Make a Root Beer Float” organizer.

The kids made their own float shaped how-to’s and took home all their work in a little 50th day fun pocket.

All of these activities came from my little 50th day unit. You can check it out HERE if you’re interested.

It was a BIG day! I’m DYING that we’ve got 2 weeks left until Thanksgiving break. Where’s the year going?!?! I mean, I’m definitely not complaining, but ohmiword. FLYING.BY.

I’m so looking forward to waking up to my favorite little red cup in the morning.

Oh how I LOVE this time of year!!!

Wandering Wednesday…on a Thursday :)

Alright, so last week I was immersed in “World Series Wednesday”. Mr. Spouse threw a little Texas Rangers watching party, so I was otherwise occupied. Last night, I decided to fall asleep…fully clothed {shoes & all}…on the couch at 9:00. Did I mention the laptop was in my lap and my fingers were on the keys when I passed out?! WORN right the heck out! So, I’m here tonight to bring you a little Wandering Wednesday action on a Thursday night.

First up, I had a lot of sweet friends recently email me to ask about our little Pumpkin Journal we used for our Pumpkin Day last year, so I posted it to TpT. You can grab it for $2.50 if you’re interested. Here’s a little sneak peek…

Now let’s get to tourin’ before I fall asleep again, shall we?!

First stop, Allison over at Climbing the Monkey Bars.

Allison is a Kindergarten teacher from upstate New York and recently started blogging back in August. Even though Allison is *semi* new to the blogging scene, she’s got some precious ideas and fun activities to share!

One of my favorites is this darling Rhyming Dust Bunnies activity. This craftivity goes along with a darling little book and I seriously LOVE this!!

I also love this printable little packet she has {for free!} all about bats & owls.

And I’m pretty sure I’ll be decorating my classroom with these sponge painted leaves her class created! Adorable!

Stop by Allison’s little neck of the woods, say hello, and don’t forget to follow!!!

Next up, Johanna from Fanatically First Grade.

Johanna is a first grade teacher who is sharing some really fantastic things on her blog! You gotta check it out and see for yourself!!

I LOVE these {free} Common Core math vocabulary cards…perfect for posting on your math word wall or bulletin board!

This fun little “Ana Log” clock game is awesome!! Just downloaded my own {free} copy, thankyouverymuch.

I’m also lovin’ this fun little pattern game board!! ANOTHER free download!

Head on over, say hi to Johanna, and don’t forget to follow!!

Last stop, sweet Ffion over at The First Grade Jungle!

Love this girl! Ffion is a first grade teacher FULL of fabulous ideas! I swear every time I see one I get this “DUH!!!” moment goin’ on! I’m all, “why didn’t I think of that?!” HA! The last few ideas she’s posted make me smile! Like this one…

Y’all…it’s a flippin’ Doubles Fact Ipod! LOVE! {TOTALLY “borrowing” this idea!}

This is such a super cute anchor chart! Love it!!

And I LOVE the way she does her fix-it-ups! Awesome idea!

If you haven’t stopped by yet, you should. Stop in, say hello to sweet Ffion, and don’t forget to follow!!

Hope y’all enjoyed the tour! Now it’s time for some Ranger baseball! Sorry all you Cardinal fans…I’m thinkin’ our little Rangers *might* have to bring home the WIN tonight!!!! GO RANGERS!!!!!!!!!!!

Cloudy and the 50th Day

So, my plans to post last week were thwarted when I was thrust into becoming a CSI detective. Let me just tell y’all that I would make an EXCELLENT investigator should anyone ever need a private eye. For real. I successfully caught someone impersonating someone else & TOTALLY trying to scam one of my friends on Facebook! I SO felt like I was living in a Lifetime movie last week!! I had NO time for anything other than sleuthing. Now that that whole saga is over…*I think for now anyway*…I’m ready to play catch-up.

We learned all about clouds and the kids had a BLAST!!! Actually, I think I might’ve had a *little* more fun than them :) I don’t know why, but I LOVE teaching about clouds and the weather! SO fun!!

I was inspired by my sweet friend, Abby, to make these fun little cloud guys. These were such a great visual to get my kids to understand what kind of clouds are high/low in the sky.

We also made little cloud anchor charts that my kids used throughout the week for writing.

We described clouds…

And we even made little cloud flip books…inspired by the fabulous Anna Brantley over at Crazy for First Grade …and practiced labeled them, too.

For word work, we practiced writing our popcorn & spelling words in the clouds :) This was definitely a class FAVORITE!! I thought of my grandpa ALL day…the classroom smelled JUST like him ;)

The activity that had the class talkin’ for DAYS after it was over was this great little craftivity we did after we read the book, “It Looked Like Spilt Milk”. The kids did a little writing… “Sometimes clouds can look like...” and then we followed it up with a little “get-your-hands-dirty” kinda craft. We just mixed equal parts glue and shaving cream together and painted it in the shape that we wrote about. When the mixture dries, the cloud stays puffy and it gives a little when you touch it. It was the COOLEST thing!!!!

This was the cloud my sweet student teacher made…

And this is one from one of my sweeties…

We made our “Very Busy First Graders” spiders and hung them from the ceilings. Last year we put them on the door, but I’ve yet to touch the door since the school year started :)

We also learned about bats!!! I didn’t take pictures of most of our work, but here’s our little “bat cave”. I made a big giant bat full of bat facts we collected as we read several different non-fiction bat books. I had the kids make little paper bag bats and then write two facts on the pink strip {we did this for writing one day}.

We’ve definitely kept ourselves busy these last few weeks! Now we’re getting SUPER excited about the 50th day next week!!! Woo hoo!!!! I’m pretty sure I lived in the fifties in my former life {ha!!} because I SOOOO love anything and everything poodle skirts and cuffed jeans. We’re excited about celebrating our halfway to the 100th day! I’m getting all my fun stuff ready for next week when we enjoy the 50th day festivities!!! Here’s just a little sneak peek…

If you’re interested in incorporating some of these craftivities into your 50th day plans, you can check out my newest little mini unit on TpT… “Cruisin’ Through the 50 First Days of School”. I included the templates and directions and several other fun little activities…

It’s usually $5, but you can grab it for $4 until Thursday! EVERYTHING in my little shop is 20% off ‘til Thursday. I’m giving away this little mini unit to the first person who leaves me a comment and correctly guesses my favorite 1950’s artist and/or song. WOW…that covers A LOT of ground ;)

Alright now…time to watch my boys WIN!!!!! GO RANGERS!!!!!!