Two Hoots and A Holler: End of the Year Program and Summer Break

Hoot #1

We had our end of the year program! What a bittersweet day this was!  We started by providing all parents a chance to sit and have breakfast with their child while looking through a portfolio that was filled with work samples, pictures, writing, and LOTS of memories.  And did I mention that our PTA provided breakfast for all 6 kindergarten classes!?! 
They are awesome!!

Here is a pic of our portfolio boxes.  These 5 gallon containers are the perfect size to carry all of the memories that we had saved throughout the year.  We decorated the boxes with a Cricut machine, and organized the work inside by each 9 weeks.   

After breakfast, we all gathered in the gym for our Kindergarten Program and Graduation! We were ready to party!!

I think Jamie was as pumped as the kids!

Our kids did a great job singing their songs!

Every child was called by name to receive their hug from our principal and their diploma!

When  all the students' names were called, the students sat to watch a slide show with pictures of our year in kindergarten together.  On the last verse of "Roar" by Katy Perry, the students jump up to sing and dance!  This really gets the parents and teachers up and moving!

Ms. Jamie couldn't contain herself! She had to dance once last dance with her Jitterbugs!

What great memories were made that day!

Hate to see them leave, but LOVE to see them SOAR!

Hoot #2

Need we say anymore?!?!
 We will not be setting our alarm clocks tomorrow! Now to catch up on all the stuff we put on the back burner this year at home and school, and we must begin our plan for next year!  Then we must prepare materials, organize rooms, laminate new things, cut out all the new laminated things, go to conferences...the list goes on and on for the summer!  Maybe we do need to set that alarm clock to get everything done!
 A teacher's job is TRULY NEVER DONE!!

This Week's Holler...

Our holler this week goes out to Megan Wheeler at mrswheelersfirst.blogspot.com.  We had the honor of meeting this awesome girl at the Spring Blogger Meet Up.  She is so down to earth and friendly. We quickly checked out her blog when we got home, and you should too! Megan teaches first grade and you can definitely tell that she puts her heart and soul into it!  Right now, we are loving her guided reading pack! It covers Kinder thru Second grade! She had a million more activities and ideas on her blog along with great pictures! Check her out!!

Two Hoots and A Holler: Field Day and A New Blog

                                                            

                           Hoot #1                                 

Our new blog design is finally here!!  We are so excited about this!  Christi Fultz did an awesome job!  Thank you so much for all of your help, support, and patience!  Thanks for Crystal Fox for helping with our mini-me clip art.  They both did an awesome job!  You should definitely check out both of their blogs and TPT stores! Now that we have dressed our site, be sure to follow us!  We would love to know what you think!

Hoot #2

Field Day was a blast! It was a beautiful day to just celebrate the school year!  We played games and ate more food than you can imagine! These kids are awesome!

 Jodi helping little Kush with the relay race! You can only image what she is saying to me as I took the picture! Lol

Jamie and the Jitterbugs enjoying the day!

Here's the whole gang! All 48 of us! We survived Field Day!!

Holler!

This weeks holler goes out to Jessica Plemons @ mrsplemonskindergarten.com.

We love her latest post. She is part of the "It's A Wrap" blog facebook hop!  Be sure to check her out!. 

Two Hoots and A Holler

Hoot #1

Last week we were spoiled by our school's PTA.  They had lunch prepared for us every day (YES! ALL 5 DAYS!), and they had breakfast prepared 2 mornings.  It was so nice to have lunch brought into us, and the food was SO GOOD!  We are so blessed to have a PTA that truly cares for its teachers.  On Friday, they surprised us with tote bags, sports bottles, and a Cracker Barrel gift card!!  Thank you to all of the parents who volunteered their time to support the teachers at Walls! 

Hoot #2

Last week, I shared with you about the journals that my students created with Art To Grow On,LLC.  I promised to show you what we did with these books.  Here it is!! 

Each year we create portfolio boxes for our students (we will tell more about that in next weeks Hoot).  We made these journals into our memory books that will be placed in the portfolio box.  I am so excited about the way that they turned out.  Each child created their own cover and wrote about their favorite memory related to that picture.  Each child had about 13 pictures.

 "I liked the train ride the best."

" I like to work. I love being a Jitterbug."

"I like riding the camel."

The last page in their memory book is a picture of me and my wonderful assistant, Amy Willoughby.  I couldn't do half the things I do without this lady!  I couldn't describe how special she is.  During the school year, I refer to her as my other spouse (we are literally together more than we are with our husbands)!  We are truly live, love and laugh our way through the day!

This Weeks Holler . . .

This weeks holler goes out Brittany Banister! This girl has got it going on! 
She has not only one blog...BUT TWO!!!!
When you visit Brittany at iheartkindergarten.blogspot.com, you will see her classroom blog.  This is such a great blog.  We are really loving her baseball theme activities that she did this past week! She has incorporated it into every aspect of their learning!  It is too cute! You have to check it out!

Her second blog is co-written with Tiffany Copple. This blog is all about technology.  We are loving their blog post "Facilitating Creativity: Relinquishing Control." If you want to learn how to expose your children to more technology, look no further than 2techiete4achers.blogspot.com

Two Hoots and A Holler

Hoot #1

Today, Ms. Jamie's Jitterbugs had a visitor in their room.  Alice Denton from Art To Grow On, LLC, came with gifts for everyone.  She brought each child a journal.  Little did they know, the journals were just half of the surprise. These special journals have a hard, blank cover. Most of the Jitterbugs thought that they would get to color and decorate the cover.  They had no idea!! Alice stayed to do a special art project with them!

 

The students picked the colors that they wanted on their cover.  They drizzled paint over shaving cream.  That's right! SHAVING CREAM!

Each design was so unique.  Once it was lifted from the shaving cream, they took large craft sticks to scrape off the shaving cream. Finally we patted them with a paper towel and they were ready to go!

What can be more fun than shaving cream and paint!

 As you can see, these turned out amazing! I can not wait to share with you next week what we did with the inside of these amazing gifts!  Thank you Alice Denton for sharing your talent with the Jitterbugs today and thank you Art To Grow On LLC. for donating journals to our classroom!

Hoot #2
 This second hoot took a lot of thinking!  I am sure every teacher knows how busy and stressful the end of the year can be!  There definitely is no tired like end of the year teacher tired!  So the fact that we survived another week deserves a big hoot!  We have completed the majority of our testing, and next week we will begin to gear up for our Kindergarten Graduation and Field Day.  The end of the year is always bittersweet for us.  We only have 11 more days with our students.  We stay so busy finishing things around the classroom that our time with our students always flies by so quickly!

This Week's Holler. . .

We are giving a holler to Greg Smedley-Warren this week over at The Kindergarten Smorgasboard! Greg has been very helpful to us over this past year.  We discovered him on TPT, and we LOVED all of his products.  We began to follow him on Facebook, and we discovered that teachers were actually visiting his classroom.  We knew we had to go see Mr. Greg and his 'Staches in action!  Our whole kindergarten team visited his classroom for a entire day!  IT WAS AMAZING!! It was on this trip that we talked to Greg about starting a blog and TPT store.  We discussed our concerns.  He simply said, "You can do this!" As soon as we got home, we started out blog. We learned so much on that visit, and we continue to learn new things from him daily.  Mr. Greg, you are truly awesome and we thank you from the bottom of our hearts for all of the support and words of encouragement you have given us! We are so proud to call you "friend." If you haven't ever checked out Mr. Greg's ideas and products, then you definitely should hop on over to his blog and TPT store!