Welcome campers and parents! My girls and I are excited to have you visit on the last day of "Weird Science" week at Summer Fun Camp 2013! My husband and I

I think I have blogged too much about this camping day I was going to have. I can't even think of a good title! lol Anyway, I had such a wonderful day with my kiddos today---it was great to hear the giggles and watch them just have a blast. I'll try to be short, in my long winded ways! My room: I hung bulletin board paper from the ceiling! Next year, I plan to tie a string along the beam up there and drape the paper over it for "ease" of setting up. Next up-we made "s'mores." Since we can't have food----I remembered my son's preschool craft of s'mores. I cut 3in squares out of a cardboard box (it worked in the paper cutter!!!), brown squares out of construction paper a little bit bigger and I gave the kids 4-5 cotton balls. BUT FIRST! As I was passing out the cotton ball marshmallows...... the thought came to me! ROAST them! I had a campfire at each table. We took the cotton ball and attached it to our pencil points and "roasted!" The giggles were priceless! Then we did a few pages from my camping IN unit (on TPT) I did NOT have "how to make s'mores" because I wasn't planning on making them. Click on the pic to grab yourself a copy! We continued with more from my unit and they kept these in their "camping folders" (brown construction paper folded). We took another break to read some Charlotte and came back to our seats to make binoculars! I L.O.V.E. the duck tape that's out there! We decorated toilet paper rolls with DUCK TAPE!!! I am SO mad that I did not get a close up of THAT cuteness! You'll have to scroll down a little to see how we used them in the afternoon-and you can see how cute they were! ;) Then the kiddos took a break to read. We spread out over the room on blankets and sleeping bags, turned out the lights and they read with flashlights! Then we had our normal, recess/lunch/specials time.... In the afternoon we took a "nature" hike around school looking for the ABC's of nature! We of course couldn't do this without our binoculars! We had such a great day! I'm a little sad that I'm out tomorrow for an all day long writing meeting. I planned Charlotte's Web stuff. I uploaded what I made to TPT also, if you are in need of some quick things to do for a day (or longer) with it! Click on the picture to read about it! Also-I just wanted to let you know that I broke up my Common Core Checklists by Language Arts and Math, incase you were interested in only part of it because you only teach a certain subject. I had a request to make 3rd grade so I will be looking to do that in the near future too! As of right now I have Kindergarten, First and Second Grades posted! Thanks for the great feedback so far! Have a great week!

Brownie Girl Scout Troop 65026 from Danvers, Massachusetts led by Allison MacDonald, Maryann Owen, and Niki Mather made tie-dye t-shirts and “Bum kits” to celebrate a great year and a great troop. The shirts were made for all the girls in the Girl Scout troop and the leaders. We wore the shirts to a recent …

Després de visionar, aquesta divertida animació , els nens i nens de primer han pintat aquests simpàtics porquets. Material necessari: - tempera rosa (dues tonalitats), - tempera verda (dues tonalitats) - tempera blanca i blava - pinzell - pot de vidre per a l'aigua - paper basik DIN A-3 - botonets - cola - cera negra EL PORQUET LLAMINER- alumnes de 1r (6 - 7 anys)

You've probably seen this project before. I recall finding it in another of my good ol' Arts & Activities magazine. You can see more (bette...

I've just returned from another year of Girl's Camp where my friend, Lisa, and I are the "Crafty Ladies." It can be a lot of work, but als...

This camp activity & class is one that I'm sure many of you have either heard about or done in your area. It tied in perfectly with our camp theme this year It's My Turn On Earth. We had a mini lesson prior to beginning the activity based off of President Monson's talk on Role Models. After the class...each Young Woman placed a bandanna over their eyes and had to make it from one side of the field to the other. We then spoke to the girls about the Holy Ghost and how we have to listen to the guidance that is being given to us in our lives. The next step on our adventure required the girls to once again cover their eyes with the bandanna. We had set up rope running around some trees which would represent Holding to the Iron Rod. The girls held on to the rope and were tempted by the YCL's to let go. Some of our girls did. After the activity those that did felt really bad about doing so. We had the rod (rope) run near the lake and also had the large and spacious building with some rowdy YCL's taunting the younger girls. At the end of the rope there was a tree that had white bags attached to it. The Young Women were able to take away a little bag filled with fruit snacks to enjoy. This simple little exercise was one of our camp highlights. By going through the motions of reenacting the Book of Mormon story touched many of our girls in a spiritual way.

We learned about Russian architecture, and Sebby (especially) just LOVED the Russian Orthodox churches---especially St. Basil's Cathedral. He devoured every scrap of information we could get about it. So I thought and thought about how we could possibly make our own onion-dome models. The only ideas I could find online were just 2-D or involved modeling clay, which I didn't have on hand (and didn't want to buy). I spent hours trying to think of a solution, because I just felt like we HAD to do this. Finally I found instructions for making these paper ornaments, and I thought the beads and curls on top of them looked sort of like Russian Orthodox crosses: This type of ornament is pretty easy to make, but it did take much trial and error before we really figured it out. Our biggest problem was trying to use wire and ribbon to lace the strips of paper onto. It was just too slippery and the paper wouldn't stay put. Once we started using pipe cleaners, it became MUCH less frustrating for everyone. Abe and Seb were able to make the "domes" with no help from me (after the first ones). Malachi could help me fan out the paper and choose the beads and slide them on. Daisy just watched and TRIED to do things. :) So, we just made a bunch of the round paper ornaments on pipe cleaners with beads on top. (You can slide the papers up and down the pipe cleaners to adjust the curvature of your domes.) We left long tails on the pipe cleaners so we could string them through the toilet paper tubes to form towers. Then we taped the towers on top of boxes to make the cathedrals. Abe's model I think these models turned out really awesome, but I should point out that for Sebby, their accuracy was not really sufficient. He first of all really wanted to make his favorite dome, which he calls the "Peppermint Dome" (you see it prominently in the picture below): One of one-million depictions of the cathedral that Sebby drew I told him we didn't have a way to make horizontal stripes, only vertical ones, and that would have to be close enough. He tried steadfastly to come up with a way: but he wasn't satisfied with this, so he reluctantly conceded that point. Then, he was unhappy with the shape of our (mostly spherical) domes. They did not, as he pointed out several times, have the characteristic of "convex, then concave" that true onion domes exhibit. (Neither do the domes of the Taj Mahal, which makes them less appealing, Sebby opines.) We had another book which showed how onion domes were constructed, with vertical struts inside and overlapping shingles on the outer supports. Seb tried to construct a "true" onion dome using this book as reference, with the result below: This looked good, but it was very time-consuming, and Seb was unable to come up with a way to cover the outside so it could be decorated. So, in the end, he settled for the original version. And he did try to stay as faithful to the real colors as possible (though he was forced to adapt them somewhat). He also made a taller support to more accurately depict the middle gold dome. And he was pleased with the results. But he couldn't help saying to me wistfully several times, "I wish we could have made REAL onion domes for our models . . . " Poor guy.

Feeling beach-y lately? Here's a word search colouring page that is yours for the taking. Enjoy!

I've just returned from another year of Girl's Camp where my friend, Lisa, and I are the "Crafty Ladies." It can be a lot of work, but als...

When I first started thinking about choice-based art teaching, sitting down and asking myself some tough questions as I planned my units hel...

Assalamaleykoum,voici une nouvelle idée d’activité à faire avec vos petits muslims au début du Ramadan.L’idée est qu’ils comprennent que le début de ce mois est déterminée par l&…

So, I've been keeping really busy these last few weeks putting this camp manual together for my Camp Director. It has been so much fun. I LOVE Girl's camp. It is the highlight of my year and I feel so lucky that I've been able to go each year for the last 9 years. I went 4 as a camp assistant, 3 as camp director and 2 as a Young Women leader. What a huge blessing it has been to work with the Young Women. Camp can really be such a magical, spiritual time to renew and bond and strengthen one another as sisters. Yah, so I can't say enough about how much I LOVE girl's camp. So, do you guys get the idea that I really really love girl's camp? Haha! Without further adieu, I want to introduce this amazing camp director's kit. It really stems from so many years of compiling my own lists and coming up with my own layouts, plans, ideas and such. I thought I would make it available to others since there really is nothing else out there for this sort of thing, at least that I've found. This download kit includes: Camp Roster Girl's Camp Overview - general questions and planning Weekly overview page with hourly planning Daily detail page with a hourly plan and menu overview Packing lists for: Kitchen, Paper-Goods, Equipment, First-Aid Kit, and miscellaneous Weekly menu overview Daily menu guides with a place to write down the meals and the ingredients needed for each meal to help generate a master shopping list Food preparation reminders Individual shopping lists broken down by section: Fresh Produce, Bakery, Meats/Deli, Paper Goods, and Other Certification broken down by level from first year up to youth leader. Each requirement is listed along with a place for each girls name and checkbox for when they have completed that item Direction on extinguishing a fire, how to help accident victims, life threatening cases, shock, the Heimlich maneuver, rescue breathing, CPR and burns. You can teach the girls right out of your planning guide. A master overview of all certification requirements by year and by category. Assignment checklist Name slips and a Secret Sisters "Who has who?" form Notes pages throughout Camp Craft checklist Tent/Cabin Assignments Camp packing list for the girls & leaders 8-1/2" x 11" Sheet, Full Color. Recommend that you print on at LEAST a #50 paper (so as not to show through like in the pictures, but only if it bothers you ;) So those are just a few samples of the colorful pages that you get with your DOWNLOADABLE purchase. It has just a bit of everything you need to plan a great camp. These are meant to be downloaded, printed (according to your needs/wants, ie. if you have 20 + girls, print out a couple rosters and certification sheets, if you have 5-10, print out one, etc. ) If you want to make multiple copies for YOUR WARD ONLY, then that is perfectly okay with me. If you are purchasing for a stake or bulk, let me know and I will give you a discount. I really liked how this turned out in the spiral notebook. I had them bind it and hole punch it so that my camp director can store in in the binder with her other envelopes, certificates, receipts, etc. and can pull it out when she wants to take it in her backpack, shopping or somewhere without the bulk. BUT, it also works great punched straight to the binder. This is an at-a-glance certification spread for ALL 6 years. Nice to have in one section. I will be offering this spread as a free download soon just because I think everyone should have one. ;) I LOVE that this has everything at your fingertips that you need for directing camp AND... It's so cute and fun too!! I hope you like it! Grab your download today at the store.

What?! Yes, you read correctly. You can teach kindergarten students to "read" on their first day of school! I say "read" as it is really just a lot of fun, and NO PRESSURE! The children get a huge kick out of hearing that they will learn to read and especially take something home and show their family that they have learnt to read something.We do it with lots of fun, enthusiasm and a little bit of silliness! Word Card Box You will need word cards (if you print out my freebie at the end of this post - you will have them) - I sort all of my 'reading' word cards in an index box. It is one of my favourite and essential tools in my classroom. I can make that little box into a thousand lessons and activities! Sentence Maker You will also need something I call a 'sentence maker' - really just a bit of wood with one or two grooves cut down the middle. I would love to say I made this, but my fabulous Dad did. It was not difficult at all. The grooves have a slight lean to them, so the cards angle back when you rest them in. You could also use a pocket chart or the edge of the blackboard (do you still have one of those??) to stand your cards up. Here she is from the front. Very well used and a little battered.. and a bit of black marker from when I used it as a ruler (oops).. The grooves only need to be cut down a few millimetres. My dad cut me two, as he is like me, and always like to have a spare for everything (just in case) - but I have only ever really used one of them.. Learning to 'Read' So after some lovely relaxed play type activities on the first day, tell the students they are going to learn to read. They first look shocked but then excitement kicks in! Tell them they are SO CLEVER now and that part of coming to school means learning to read. Make sure they are settled in the main teaching area. Reassure them that you will help them every step of the way. Set up your sentence maker so all can see it. Tell them: about the 'starting star' - which shows us where we start reading from and place it on the far left - have a star on a word card for this. Reinforce that the starting star shows us where to start. Use the starting star idea for the first 10-15 weeks of kindergarten Then get the cards out {I go to school.} Scratch your head a little, say 'I can't remember how these go" and read each card as you place it randomly in the sentence maker. Do not try to teach 'sounding out' or word recognition skills at this stage. Your students will be first learning to read sight words by sight - they will see the whole word and the shape of it. They will certainly not be up to looking 'through' the word at the individual letters, or thinking about the individual letters within the word. Some may, but most won't, and the focus of this activity is FUN! At this stage many students are basically learn to read this by memory/rote, but pick up valuable beginning reading skills along the way. Put the words in random order and then tell them about the full stop (period for USA) at the end - and how it is her job to stop words from falling off the sentence. Tell the students that you will now show them how to read. Make a big exaggerated effort to point to the starting star and say 'I remember we start here' and then point to each word reading it along the line. Look at them with a very pleased look on your face, expressing that you are very clever to have just read the sentence - "go I school to". They are normally laughing at this point, because of course your sentence does not make sense. Repeat a few times and eventually a few students will know what order the words should be in, and they come to help. When you have the words in the correct order, again do the exaggerated point and read. Ask them to help you read and read it together. Ask each child to come to the front of the class and point and read, giving them a huge high-5 when they 'read' for the first time. They will be VERY excited. Keep this up in the classroom for the rest of the day. Practise on and off for the whole day - it only takes a minute, Randomly pause through the day and say "oh boys and girls, help me to read again" and point to the words, with everyone joining in. The more times you get them to look and read the words, the better. Occasionally mix the cards up and see if a student notices and can put them back in order, of course, reading it out when they have finished. The students complete a little reading worksheet to take home with them. Tell them that they can show their family how clever they are and read to them. They write their name, and colour the picture to match their new school uniform. Practice quite a few times, at their desks, reading the "I go to school" sentence. You can download these worksheets for free from google drive, by clicking on the images below. Spend the first whole week of Kindergarten (sometimes 2 weeks, depending on the abilities within my class) - learning with the "I go to ..." sentence structure. You can begin to teach reading/writing strategies like spaces between words, capital letters, left to right progression, full stops etc After you have done "I go to school" you can use the sentence maker and cards to introduce other words, such as 'church', 'Mum", 'Dad" - and show them how easy it is to make a new sentence by switching one word out. Please remember that this idea is carried out with lots of support, enthusiasm and fun. Do not put any pressure of the students. It has always worked beautifully and I promise you will never forget the looks of excitement and accomplishment on the students' faces when they know that they have learnt to 'read' on the first day of school! As the weeks pass of course, you can explain to the students that there is also more to learn about reading. I have also put together this little packet of writing activities, that incorporates using the "I go to school' pattern. I would probably only use the Day 1 to Day 3 activities in this packet, in the first week of kinder, but again, it would depend in the abilities within the classroom. It is also FREE for you! Find it HERE

This week's preschool letter was "X." We did X for x-ray and pirate theme for x marks the spot. Here are a few activities I created for my s...

Now that my brain has been fired up and I am interested in reading again, I came across some cool camping resources on archive.org. The fo...

Click here to download YCL Leadership Training Workshop Packet LEADERSHIP: Teach – Testify – Experience What makes a good Leader? What does it mean to be a Youth Camp Leader? Gain Res…

Honey I'm Home - A blog about creative ideas

lds Activity days, acheivement days, Faith in God

I want to be Mrs. Frizzle. (If you have no idea who I'm talking about, grab some Magic School Bus books--they're the best!) When I say I w...

Thank you to Natalie from smART Class for this Great lesson and draw-a-long she provided. It was the perfect project to kick off my summer art class, Cool Canines and Fantastic Felines. They also had the option of adding a hat to their dog just for fun. After the children drew and Sharpied their pups, they used oil pastel to add color. The last step was to paint the background with liquid watercolors. Love all these cute faces! Artwork by children K-5th.

I have been dying to link up with my sweet friend Kacey over at Doodle Bugs for her Five for Friday post. Well, I have come to this realization...that is never gonna happen! :) By the time Friday night hits...this teacher is so doneeee! So...pretend today is Friday! Here is how my week went down! 1: SLEEP You know you are exhausted when you fall alseep in your school clothes and don't wake up until 6:30 a.m. True story. On Monday night, I told myself that I would lay down for just a second, and before I knew it, it was 6:30 the next morning. I was still asleep...fully clothed...jewelry and all! My husband even tried to wake me up and then he gave up! {Not sure if I believe that story!} :) ...seriously though, I need summer to get here ASAP so I can be awesome every single day! Ha! 2: Summer Writing Fun After a week of state testing, we are back to a normal routine. This week, we spent a lot of time writing our way through my End of Year Writing Bundle. The kids loved thinking about and planning their futures. After that, we also planned our summer with our Dive into Summer Writing. Love how these turned out, but I love these sweet babies even more! Going to miss them so, SO much! {But we won't talk about that right now!} 3: Do the Harlem Shake A few days ago, I posted about my end of the year behavior management system. If you missed that, we are using balloons! :) So...what was day three you ask? Make a Harlem Shake Video. The kids brought props and were counting down the seconds until go time! Here is our Harlem Shake... 4: Science Experiment Fun I love living so close to a local university. They are always so wonderful about bringing experiences directly into the classroom. On Friday, our kids were instructed by the 5th and 6th graders {they were trained earlier in the week}. During this time, they completed 12 hands-on science experiments! Such a great way to give ownership to our older kids and build school community throughout our grade levels. Also a great way to keep our kiddos engaged during these last few weeks! 5: End of year mayhem! Oh my...I can feel it inching closer. Today, I will be working on my classroom awards and finishing up my end of year gifts. Here is a little peek... I will be posting more about this tomorrow! Be sure and link up with Doodle Bugs to show us your week! Have a great weekend!

Who doesn’t like BINGO? My students all do! It’s almost the end of my school year, so we’ve been playing BINGO games using mini M & Ms as markers. My students are all loving t…

Day 1—Tuesday, 25th June Well, we finally "hit the road", getting away on Tuesday around midday and headed up the Hume to Holbrook. This would be about a seven hour drive with the van, the first two and a bit just getting through Melbourne. There was a lot of wind at departure time so we decided to give the city and the Bolte Bridge a miss, taking the Eastern Freeway to Doncaster and then on up to Greensborough and the Eastern end of the Ring Road. Don't do it, pay the toll! It did take two and a half hours to reach that Shell servo where we pulled in and had lunch in the van. Then it was non-stop to Holbrook, getting there in time for dinner with Sarah and Tristan and the children. We had a good couple of days stopover with them, Sarah at home for the start of three weeks holidays, which coincide with NSW school holidays. Day 3—Thursday, 27th June So, off again on Thursday morning, not too early as we were only headed for Junee, about 135kms. We stopped in Wagga Wagga to visit the Telstra dealer and buy one of those Wi-Fi modems so we can both get on the internet, me on the old Apple laptop, Helen on her new iPad. At this point, it might be of interest to show our intended route to Katherine, where we'll meet up with Andrew, who'll be down from Darwin and spend a week with us. Nyora to Holbrook (486kms) Day 3—Thursday, 27th June So, off again on Thursday morning, not too early as we were only headed for Junee, about 135kms. We stopped in Wagga Wagga to visit the Telstra dealer and buy one of those Wi-Fi modems so we can both get on the internet, me on the old Apple laptop, Helen on her new iPad. At this point, it might be of interest to show our intended route to Katherine, where we'll meet up with Andrew, who'll be down from Darwin and spend a week with us. Nyora to Katherine 4500kms So we eventually arrived in Junee. At first, we had thought to budget camp or free camp just short of Junee but the weather was so cold in Holbrook, frost both nights, we decided on the Junee Caravan Park, a Top Tourist Park, of which we are members. Two nights at $27.00 per night. There will be plenty opportunities for budget camping as we move into warmer weather. After setting up, we settled down to enjoy the setting, right next to a small lake and the weather very mild. Plenty of bird life around and on the lake. Good TV reception, so after dinner, we were able to watch Essendon sneak home against West Coast. A peaceful setting at Junee Caravan Park Day 4—Friday, 28th June So it could be said that Friday is our first day. An overcast day and cooler than yesterday but much warmer than Holbrook. We started the day, after breakfast with a visit to the Junee Licorice and Chocolate factory. Yum. A conducted tour and presentation of how the stuff is made, also how it came to be made in an old flour mill! Clue: wheat is a major ingredient in licorice, is this instance Spelt Wheat. Next a wander into town and a walkabout, including the Railway Station where we checked out the Railway Cafe, a beautiful building with the cafe conjuring up pictures of railway travel in the hey day of rail. Another wander around the town on the west side of the tracks, them back to base for lunch. Junee Railway Station c1883 After lunch, off to the Roundhouse Railway Museum. The old Roundhouse here in which I counted about 45 bays, was at the time of construction, the largest in the Southern Hemisphere! Only half of the Roundhouse is part of the Museum, the other half is leased to a private company and used for servicing diesel locos. Final visit for the day was to the Monte Cristo Homestead, a fully renovated old fine home, full of period furniture. The homestead was actually the owner's second dwelling, having prospered in the area. The original home, still stands behind the Homestead and was eventually used as servants quarters. Back to the caravan park and some writing up of the days happenings and a trial run with the new Wi-Fi modem to catch up with news and mail. Cooked the snags in the CP camp kitchen and finished dinner just in time to settle back and watch the Swans slog it out with the Blues. Wet weather footy is not attractive and this was something else again, it came down in bucket loads.

Kids practice identifying and completing patterns in this 1st grade math worksheet. Which ball comes next in each line?

Three years ago, my husband and I moved from Ohio to Virginia to pursue teaching jobs. We teach 20 miles outside of D.C. and three years later, I am still amazed at the military presence in our area. A lot of (if not the majority) of our students have parents…