Liebster Award!

I'm so excited, I have been nominated for the Liebster Blog Award!  I want to say thank you to "What's Working This Year in Kindergarten", "Fun In PreK-1", and "Pink Polka Dots & Pre-K" for the nominations!

What is it?

The Liebster Award is given by bloggers to up and coming bloggers who have less than 200 followers. It is to show new bloggers that they are appreciated and to help spread the word about new blogs.

 

The Rules:

- You must post 11 random things about yourself.

- Answer the questions that the nominator set for you.

- Create 11 questions for the people you nominate.

- Choose 11 blogs you love (with less than 200 followers) and link them in your post.

- No tag back (but please leave me a comment on this post with the URL to your Liebster post so I can learn more about you)!

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11 Things About Me:

 1. I live in Maryland with my husband, but we are both from Ohio.  I am from the Columbus area, and a HUGE Buckeye fan!

2. This year I used a jungle/animal print theme for my classroom.  It has led to a small obsession with anything animal print ;)

3. I have a yearly Black Friday tradition of standing in line at the Coach Outlet store with my husband and mother-in-law.  I love their purses and they have such good deals!

4. I love cooking and baking.  I spend a lot of time on Pinterest searching for new recipes.

5. I have two cats named Mocha and Java.  Can you tell I love coffee? :) We adopted them both from the humane society.

6. I also have a severe Starbucks addiction.  Grande iced vanilla chai latte, light ice.  Or grande iced doubleshot if I'm in need of some serious caffeine!

7. My favorite food is sushi. Eel sushi, in particular.

8. I taught at a daycare for a year before moving to Maryland and getting my job teaching kindergarten.

9. Scrapbooking is my stress relief.

10. I recently started the "Couch to 5K" program to stay fit.  I'm not looking to lose any weight, I actually have never been able to hit 100 pounds! :(  Maybe someday!

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 11 Questions from

 What's Working This Year in Kindergarten

1.  What is your current favorite article of clothing? I have a blue and white striped sweater from Loft that I am currently in love with!
2.  What is your dream car (obviously, money is not an object)? Something by Lexus
3.  What is your favorite flavor of ice cream? Birthday cake or coffee
4.  What is your most memorable teaching moment? My whole first year!!
5.  What is your favorite lesson or topic to teach? I really enjoy the Jan Brett unit that we do each year.
6.  Do you prefer to read books or magazines? Magazines
7.  What made you want to get into blogging? I love Pinterest and reading other teaching blogs to get ideas for my classroom.  That led to me sharing some of my own ideas as well.
8.  What was your most favorite vacation that you ever took? Hawaiian honeymoon!
9.  What is your favorite pizza topping? Pineapple
10.  Why did you decide to become an educator? It's something that I really enjoy and it's such an honor to be able to make a difference in the life of a child.
11.  What is your favorite holiday? Christmas

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11 Questions from Fun In PreK-1

1.  What is the funniest thing a student has ever said to you?  Do you even brush your teeth??
2.  What is your favorite color? Pink
3.  Favorite children's book? So many to choose from!
4.  Favorite places to get cute clip art/fonts? I usually google specific things or search Pinterest
5.  Cats or dogs? Definitely cats, I have two!
6.  What is your favorite subject and least favorite subject to teach? Social studies is probably my least favorite.  I really enjoy language arts.
7.  Favorite type of music? Little bit of everything, except for country!
8.  Favorite grown-up book?  Hunger Games is a good one.
9.  If you could travel anywhere, where would you go? Back to Hawaii!  Or maybe a tour around Europe?
10.  Disneyworld or Disneyland? Unfortunately, I've never been to either one!
11.  Advice for a new teacher? Just take it all one day at a time! The first year is a little (or a lot) overwhelming!

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11 Questions from Pink Polka Dots & Pre-K

1. When did you start blogging? This past August

2. How many kiddo's are in your class? 18

3. What is your favorite theme to teach? I love our Jan Brett unit.

4. What is your favorite teaching blog to get inspiration from? Dr. Jean's blog!

5. Favorite color? Pink

6. Favorite holiday? Christmas

7. Do you look forward to summer vacation? Um...duh...?

8. If you could own any animal, what would it be? A giraffe!

9. If you had to choose another grade to teach, what would it be? First

10. What is your favorite children's author & book? Too hard to choose!

11. What is your favorite Disney character & movie? Probably Belle and Beauty and the Beast.  A classic. :)

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And now...

the blogs that I'm nominating:

Live, Laugh, I Love Kindergarten
Mrs. Bohaty's Kindergarten Kingdom
Kick Starting Kindergarten

The Convenient Teacher
The Connected Teacher
Peace, Love, and Pencils
Mrs. A's Room
Simply Inspired to Teach
Lights!  Camera!  Action! in Second Grade 
Follow Your Bliss
Play to Learn in Kindergarten 
 

 And my 11 questions...

1. What's your favorite teaching memory?

2. How long have you been teaching?

3. Favorite hobbies?

4. What's something on your bucket list?

5. If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go?

6. When did you start blogging?

7. Favorite book, child or adult?

8.Favorite TV show?

9. Which holiday do you enjoy the most?

10. Favorite celebrity?  
11. Pinterest or Facebook? 

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Oh, and be sure to check out my Cyber Monday sale on TPT!

"Leaf Man" by Lois Ehlert

One of my all time favorite fall books has to be "Leaf Man" by Lois Ehlert!  The illustrations are so vibrant and wonderful.  I really enjoy sharing this book with my students each year.  This year, I used our school's die-cut machine to cut out several leaves of various fall colors.  The students were able to make their own "leaf creatures" with the leaf cutouts!  We then named our leaf creatures and wrote about their likes and interests.  The students really enjoyed it, and now we have a wonderful fall display in our classroom!

Hope you have a safe and wonderful Thanksgiving holiday!!

Pumpkins and Fall Party

Happy Wednesday!

Today was our first day with students this week, which felt a bit odd!  Monday was a teacher work day, and yesterday was a day off for the election.  It never fails...no matter how productive I am on teacher work days, I always feel like I leave with a bigger to-do list than when the day began!

Our class has been enjoying lots of fun pumpkin activities.  We cut open a pumpkin to study the inside.  We learned about the parts of a pumpkin, and then made a giant diagram to show each part.  We scooped out the seeds and pulp with our hands.  Messy!!  Today, we predicted how many seeds were inside our pumpkin.  We then grouped the seeds by ten, and counted how many we had in all.  The results were surprising!

We also made a visual to help us understand the number of seeds.

Last week we had our "Fall Harvest" party in lieu of a Halloween party.  The students played a fall bingo game, decorated jack-o-lantern cookies, and played "Pin the Nose on the Pumpkin".

 

 

I've been compiling a pumpkins unit with all of our games and activities.  To check it out, head over to my TPT store!