Home from Peru!

I was blessed to go to Peru with my church and work at an orphanage this month.  The orphanage community was amazing!  It serves over 800 children from the Lima, Peru, area.  The kids are so well cared for there and are given so many opportunities to learn and know God.  I didn't want to leave.  Here are a few pictures from my time there:

 Being greeted by 800 precious kiddos

 They lined up and hugged all 81 of us from our church.  It took a little over an hour to meet all 800 of them.

 Ventanilla, Peru, is the city the orphanage sits in.

 Miguel is the man who started the orphanage 25 years ago because he wanted to find find a solution to help homeless kids in Peru.

 Soccer field

 Sewing shop

 Peruvian puppies

 This is one of the many very clean bedrooms in one of the "casas".  Everything is so well maintained and cared for.

 I worked with Casa Ceasar Vallejo.  This casa has 66 little boys who range in age from 6 to 8.  There were six of us assigned to this casa and two translators.

 Path to the girls' casas

 What's a cat's favorite country?  Perrrrrru!

 Another pup

 Ventanilla, Peru

 My casa boys doing a jigsaw puzzle

 Our casa

 Our boys!

 My cuties

 Building robots

 Each morning was filled with praise and worship, crafts, and VBS.  In the afternoons we had a whole community activity.  This day was scavenger hunt day and I was a helper at the Pictionary station.

 The kiddos had to draw something they treasured...  They wrote my name in a heart!

 Me, Lauren, and Diego

 Casa Ceasar Vallejo and the eight of us

 Painting a picture of what we think heaven looks like

 Afternoon World Cup game

I can't wait to go back!

iWant to Listen to Stories!

I cannot believe school will start up next month.  I have been a busy bee in my small, two-week window of summer (between summer school and going to Peru).  One thing I knew I just had to make was this product for Listening to Stories for our Daily 5 time.

I plan to use the iPod touches that I will receive through my innovation grant that I received in May.  Kinders LOVE QR codes and I know they'll love this fun, new way to listen to stories independently.

I plan to make these for each month, so let me know if there are particular stories you would like for October.

Grab it in my store for only $2!

Hands-on Alphabet Fun!

Happy Monday!  That's an awesome thing to hear in the summer!  I have been a busy bee this past week, since I didn't have summer school, and I finished up my Hands-on Alphabet Fun units.

The first unit is filled with interactive fun for letters A-M.

 The second unit is filled with interactive fun for letters N-Z

Letter Pp is a FREE unit so you can preview what each of the units are like.  Click below to check it out for free!

Each unit has a cut outs to make a class bubble map, materials to go on a letter hunt, pictures to hunt for, a recording sheet to color when the pictures are found, a hands on tracing activity, a printing practice game, an independent practice letter identification hunt, a class sorting activity to sort what does and does not begin with the letter sound, and an independent cut/glue sorting activity.

Here are some pictures of my class in action this year with the fun!

Hunting for /m/ pictures with a monster wand

Hunting for /p/ pictures with a paw

Hunting for /l/ pictures with a light

Hunting for /i/ pictures with inchworms

Hunting for /o/ pictures with octopus hats

Hunting for /u/ pictures with umbrella crayons

Hunting for /t/ pictures with turtle shells

Tracing Rr with a robot

 Tracing Mm with a moose

 Tracing Tt with a turtle

Printing Qq with quills in a spin and record game

Printing Tt with a top spinning game

Grab these units this month for only $25, filled with over 325 pages of fun for your young learners!

Happy 4th of July!

I hope you're enjoying your Independence Day!  I am having a small-ish 'sale'bration in my store this weekend to celebrate America's birthday. 

Everything is marked 20% off and will be on sale through Sunday night.  I also just finished some of my letter units.  You can grab them while they're on sale by clicking below.

Have a happy holiday!

More fun with QR codes!

I was so excited and blessed to get an innovative teaching grant from my district's education foundation before the school year ended!  They came for a surprise visit and awarded the grant to me.  My class will get 4 iPod Touches in the fall.

  

I wrote this grant to get more tools to use for scanning QR codes.  I LOVE using QR codes and so do the littles in my classroom.  I have made a few goodies about QR codes that are available in my store.  Click below to see them.

I also have a whole page on my website about QR codes if you want to visit it to learn more.

And here is a video of my class using QR codes for a sight words hunt:

Here is a video about my surprise grant award.  My interview begins around 1:22.

Thank you Pflugerville Education Foundation!

"Alpaca" my bags for Peru!

I have not been the best blogger lately.... sigh....  I have been teaching summer school for English Language Learners and preparing to go to Lima, Peru to work at an orphange with my church.  The craftivites are making their way to our luggage and I am so excited!

 

 

I have also posted three new Donors Choose projects for my Kinder class in the fall!  There are four days left to get donations matched by using the code INSPIRE at check out.  Click below to see what's up.

 

S'more fun on the last day of school!

Last Thursday was the last day of school for my sweet pre-k kids and we had tons of fun!

We started the day in my bare classroom (since I am moving grades, it's been emptied out slowly).  I showed them my box from Mr. Sun and they were immediately excited to open it up.  Well, right as we were about to head outside to open it, our school's AR parade started, so Mr. Sun enjoyed the parade with us.

After the parade we headed outside to open our box and saw what was inside.

 We used some inferencing skills to decide what to do with the supplies inside and one little finally said, "We could make s'mores!"  So then we got into a discussion over how to make them and we decided that since Mrs. Siegel, our principal, would never allow us to build a fire at school.  After sharing our thoughts, we decided that the sun could cook them for us!  Sprinkles to Pre-K!!!!

We built them, let Mr. Sun do his work, and then enjoyed them.  Yum!

We also created some cutie, tear-jerking, flowers with poems.  Sniff...

...and sent them on their way to have a "kool" summer.  

I loved every moment of this year and look forward to having some of them again in kindergarten.

I am already in summer school.  Day 1 was today.  Let's hope the next three weeks go quickly so I can enjoy reading, blogging, and creating!