My multi-talented and super sweet friend, Shannon, from Very Shannon and Luvinthemommyhood, has just released her latest sewing pattern for The Sally Dress, and I was lucky enough to be a tester for this pattern and be a part of the pattern tour! Shannon's Sally Dress Pattern is just as amazing and simple to make as her Sweetheart Dress Pattern. I adore them both, and even better, Ella loves wearing them both! To see the Sweetheart Dresses I made last year, click HERE and HERE. The Sally Dress Pattern features two large (I mean really big) pockets that are just perfect for active little girls who love to carry around stuffed animals, Little People, Barbies, or even Legos. Ella has had no trouble loading up those pockets while playing around the house or when we run to the store. Another great detail of the Sally Dress Pattern is that it has no closure and just slips on and off over the head. This is great for little ones asserting their independence in the "I can dress myself" department! Back View The square neckline bodice and shorter skirt length give this pattern a vintage vibe. In addition to sleeveless, the pattern offers two sleeve length options: short and 3/4 length. I think the sleeveless version would be great for fall or winter with a t-shirt worn underneath it. Although the pattern instructions don't include details for adding piping around the neckline, armholes, and waist, any experienced sewer can do it. It took me roughly an extra hour's sewing time to make and sew on the piping. The bodice is fully lined, and Shannon's pattern instructions and illustrations provide you with detailed steps on how to do this effortlessly. Thank you, Shannon, for letting me test The Sally Dress Pattern! I absolutely love it! As far as the fabrics I used to make this dress, I was recently contacted by Kelle of Ann Kelle designs for Robert Kaufman about using some her fabrics. Immediately, I knew that the Sally Dress would be perfect to showcase several of her coordinating fun, colorful prints. I made this very outdoorsy version of The Sally Dress using Ann Kelle's Woodland Pals fabric in Bermuda for the bodice and skirt, Remix Small Chevrons in Bermuda for the outside of the pockets, Woodland Pals Raccoon in Bermuda for the pocket lining, Remix Dots in Bermuda for the bodice lining, and Remix Stripes in Bermuda for the piping. You can purchase all of these prints at a variety of online and brick and mortar retail fabric stores. Ella loves looking over the skirt for the hedgehogs, bunnies, fox, moose, deer, and mushrooms. Sometimes I turn it into a game to see how many of each she can find or if she can identify the colors on the pockets. Who knew that fabric could help your pre-schooler learn her colors and to count! Thanks again, Kelle, for all the fabric! I love the quality, the colors, and most definitely the designs. Fun! Want to make your own version of The Sally Dress? Then be sure to head to enter the contest below to win your own copy of the pattern. If you just have to have the pattern right now, then head over to Very Shannon to purchase your own copy of The Sally Dress Pattern. a Rafflecopter giveaway Thanks sewVery much for coming by today! Please be sure to visit all the other amazingly talented bloggers on the Sally Dress Pattern Tour for more inspiration! Hope you'll visit sewVery again real soon!

Yesterday we went up to Oklahoma City so my daughter could receive a Poetry Award (she won 1st place in the 2015 Oklahoma Lore Youth Poetry Contest for 10th grade). Afterwards we decided to stop at the zoo for an hour. Last time we were there, Sullivan was all about the animals. In fact, he spent 20 minutes jabbering to the gorillas. In a dramatic turn of events, he went into hysterics when we entered the ape building this time. He started screaming "No monkey!" No monkey!" when the orangutan got close to the window. So...we headed for the gift store. After placating him with a new giraffe rubber duck (he has a rubber duck obsession, at last count he had 50+, all unique and much loved, they are his go-to distraction and as toys go, relatively cheap!) I got to peruse the books and found this gem, 10 Little Hermit Crabs, for our upcoming Ocean Theme: It's a super cute counting book with a happy ending (all 10 hermit crabs show back up on the last page!) We've been finishing up our Spring theme in class - although our butterfly and chicken eggs arrived late this year so we'll be doing our Life Cycle unit in conjunction with Ocean and Farm instead of during the Spring theme as planned. One of our favorite Spring activities was our Pattern Worms. These are super simple and a great quick patterning assessment! I cut pipe cleaners in 1/2 and then twisted one end to form a loop. I had both clear and opaque pony beads, so the kids could choose whatever colors they wanted. Once the beads were in place, I made a small loop at the opposite end and hit it with the glue gun to ensure the beads stayed on.When the wiggle eyes were attached, the kids were thrilled with our "worms" and loved playing with them! The best thing is that everyone can be successful - whether they're still working on AB patterns or have moved on to more complicated patterns (I had a sweetie do an ABCDEFG pattern correctly!) each child was able to create a pattern worm. And, its great fine motor practice to get those slippery beads onto the pipe cleaner! Our Sand & Water Table also got a fun Spring theme activity! I took chenille chickens and baby chick (both from Hobby Lobby's Easter aisle) and added mini eggs (also Easter) and mini birds' nests (from over by the artificial flowers and birds). Then I added some plain white paper litter (from PetSmart - it's meant for small animal cages, but its dye free & dust free so its great for the sensory table!) and some lima beans. The lima beans had upper case letters, lower case letters and the #s 0-20 on them. After the kids had fun playing with the chicks, invariably they wanted something to do with the lima beans! We did everything from sorting them by upper/lower case, sorting by letter/number, finding specific letters, spelling out names etc. This was a super quick bin to put together and the kids had a lot of fun with it. They did wish I had created a sorting mat for them like I did for St. Patrick's Day, so that's on my to-do list for next time I change the materials!

I am completely in love with this quilt. It's going to be so hard to take this one to the post office! This quilt uses Jennifer's starflower block tutorial -- my choice for my month as the quilter for the Peace Circle of do. Good Stitches. This quilt will be donated to My Very Own Blanket. It was so much fun to have these blocks arriving in the mail every few days! It was tricky to get the points to line up well -- each quilter had very slightly differently sized blocks -- but in the end I think it's quite a stunning quilt. I debated adding sashing in between the stars -- but decided that I liked the intense, bright colors right next to each other better. All of the yellows and oranges make me think of fall, and I used a yellow binding to keep it cheerful and light! For the binding, I used Rachel's ZigZag binding tutorial. I have never been a fan of machine stitched binding -- until now! I absolutely love this, Rachel! The back Linking up to: Be sure to check out all of the beautiful, colorful fall entries at Stitched in Color!

I am so excited to have my new Operations and Algebraic Thinking Unit posted and ready to share with you. So far this year, my sweet kinders have learned so much in math. We have mastered 1:1 correspondence, reading and writing numerals to 20, counting to 100 by ones and tens, how to compose

Happy Saturday. We've been on fall break, but that fun is just about over. It's time to start getting ready for next week, which happens to be the week of Columbus Day. I was a history major in college. Anytime we have a chance to learn about important people from the past, I love it. In math we'll use my Sail Away on Columbus Day math mini book. This booklet features Columbus themed word problems. It is a great review of the math concepts we've covered so far this year. You can have a copy by clicking on the picture. Another Columbus themed activity we will be using is Ship Shape Digraphs. This literacy center is from my Tiny Tricksters {10 October Themed Literacy Centers} packet. With this center, students will practice matching initial digraphs with corresponding picture cards and then complete a recording sheet. You can have a FREE copy of this center by clicking on one of the pictures. Of course we'll be doing Columbus themed read alouds. We will also make a Christopher Columbus craftivity for our hallway. I'm all about connecting our art projects to our studies. I really think these little projects help students better retain what they have learned. After learning some important facts about Columbus, we'll be completing a Christopher Columbus bubble map. The bubble map will be a graphic organizer to help us with one of our writing pieces later in the week. You can have a FREE copy of this bubble map by clicking on the picture. I want to leave you with one final quick and easy Columbus Day idea. Be sure to check out Brain Pop Jr.'s Columbus Day movie. It is another great way to explain explorers and Columbus's accomplishments to your young learners. I especially like the animated maps. I hope some of these ideas will help you next week. Thanks so much for stopping by. Enjoy your weekend!

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This week, kindergarten continued their exploration of line, and started these fun line paintings! We used a new medium, to them, oil pastels and tempera cakes. 😄 Here's how we did it! Materials: Sax 90lb paper Crayola Oil Pastels Jack Richeson Semi-Moist tempera cakes First, we reviewed the different types of lines. Then, I showed them how to draw the lines from side to side of their (vertical) paper. I also talked about how you need to make the lines dark with the oil pastels, or they won't show up as well,when you paint. After that, I went over each color with the tempera cakes paint. I used rainbow colors, but told them they could use different colors if they liked. Many of them have not ever painted before, so we discussed how to hold a paint brush on the grip part of the handle, and to not get on the metal part of the brush. (As Cassie Stephens says, "the DANGER ZONE!") We go over the process of DIP, WIPE, and SWIRL, in the tempera cakes. We dip it in the water, wipe it on the rim of the cup, and swirl our brushes gently in the paint. We wanted our paint to go side to side as well, and try to stay in the lines we created. Here's some great artists from Mrs. Garcia's kindergarten class! Stay tuned for more awesome art! After the kids get done painting, we're going to use shapes (another element of art) to turn them into monsters! inspired by Georgetown Elementary's blog! I'll get them to draw the monster shape, on the back, with me Then, we'll draw the shapes out on black and white paper. If they want to go a step further, they can add accessories! Ms. Placha's class has some super cut and scary monsters!! Great job Mrs. Garcia's class! Here's some scary cute little monsters from Mrs. C. Campbell's class! Here's some super spooky, and precious monsters from Mr. Gonzalez' class! Here's Mrs. Kerr's adorable little monsters! “Lauren Stacey is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.”

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We love connecting projects to books, and we're always inspired by the amazing group of bloggers who participate in the Virtual Book Club for Kids (you can also check the club out on Facebook) as the group comes up with some great extension activities each month. This month's author was Leo Lionni. We chose to read and do a project using a book we've really been enjoying lately, A Color of His Own. This is the sweet tale of a little chameleon who is looking for one color to stay all the time, but keeps running into that challenge that chameleons change color. In the end, he winds up finding a friend to always be with so they can at least always be the same color together. I've used this book in the past as a primary teacher. It's a great way to talk about friendship and also about what makes us each unique. My boys have been loving the simple tale and the colorful illustrations this spring. For our activity extension we decided to use cray-pas and watercolors. I love how colorful this art technique can be. I sketched several chameleon outlines onto white drawing paper using permanent marker. (I'm including a printable copy here in case you just want to print one out, or use the printable to trace onto thicker paper.) Afterwards the boys and I each colored in a chameleon using the cray-pas. Big Brother and I thought about ways to create different patterns. Little Brother focused on just coloring his in, using mostly one color. After we were done coloring, we watercolored on top of the cray-pas. The watercolor doesn't stick to the cray-pas, and fills all the white spaces around it. We all had different strategies for painting. When they were done I cut the three chameleons out and we hung them in our play room. I love how they are a set but each one unique. That's part of what can also make this project a great classroom activity, especially for the start of a school year. Or turn it into a fun family project, with each family member creating a chameleon to represent themselves. What Leo Lionni books does your family enjoy? Have you read this one yet? This post may also have been shared at some of these terrific link parties.

These felt crafts for kids are simple and fun! Crafting with felt is so versatile and creates some truly unique and fun crafts.