TpT App

Just when I thought I had all the apps I needed on my iPhone, Teachers Pay Teachers introduces one of their own! Woo hoo!

Now we can all be super multi-taskers. 

Speaking of which, hasn't it been nice to slow down and do less multi-tasking this last week? As much as I love my job, I have really enjoyed thinking about other things for a while.  

Like these guys, for example!

These are my besties from high school.  We still get together whenever possible.  I'm all the way on the left and the little guy on my lap belongs to the lovely lady next to me.  Clearly the kids in this picture would have rather been doing something else!

Go download the TpT app if you have an iPhone!

Silence for Sandy Hook Elementary

Freebie!

It was just one of those weeks, wasn't it?  Maybe it was just me, but I was exhausted and playing catch up all week for some reason.  I don't think I even took any pictures of the stuff we were doing! 

You know the feeling!

Anyway, I was able to create this fun little activity this afternoon.

Your littles will LOVE to hunt for the gingerbread man around the school. And, best of all, it's FREE!

{Click the picture download.}

Candy Cane Science

Today I did some Christmas science with my 4 year olds! 

I explained that scientists ask questions and then try to find the answers.  Today the question was, 

"How do we make the stripes come off of the candy cane?"

We put on our scientist hats and pulled out some candy canes.  The first candy cane went into a container of water. 

We took guesses as to whether the candy canes would dissolve in vegetable oil (second container from the left), corn syrup (3rd container), and rubbing alcohol (last container).  

It surprised me that the rubbing alcohol took as long as it did to remove the red from the candy cane.  According to my husband  (a chef), alcohol actually has preservation properties, and therefore the candy cane did not dissolve as quickly as it did in water.  

It took about 5 minutes for the one in the water to look like this:

 And of course we had to test how long it would take our saliva to remove the stripes! 

Every hard working scientist deserves a candy cane!

Fabulous Freebies!

Normally I really don't like the first of the month.  

The first of the month usually means I have a whole lot of work to do in order to shift my classroom into that particular month.  Change the classroom calendar, do the decorating, hang up the right birthday banner, get the new hot lunch menu posted... I could go on and on. But now I can actually look forward to the first! The lovely ladies at Freebielicious have organized a linky so that bloggers can participate in handing out freebies! What a fabulous idea!

{Click on the picture to go to their website.}

And here is my freebie contribution!

{Click on the picture to download.}

I use this with my 3 year olds littles to practice number recognition and numerical order.  They LOVE hunting around the classroom to find hidden things!

By the way, would you consider following my blog?  I thought maybe I could lure some followers in with a freebie. :) This is actually my second blog, and I started it about two weeks ago.  I always love feedback from other teachers!