Here chicky, chicky!

Attempt #2.  I got my eggs again and am ready to hatch!

After last year's debacle you probably thought I'd give up {and almost did} but I'm ready to roll again with a full-on official incubator!

In the movement of making everything better, I'm putting together an egg hatching observation journal.  Since I'm using the oh-so-talented Jessica Weible's designs, I will have to charge for it {not to worry} so I want to make sure it's something you can all use!

{here's what I have so far}

*living vs. non-living & oviparous vs. viviparous
*prediction page - what animal is in the egg?

*how to care for the eggs/chicks

*calendar to chart 21 days of growth

*candling observation page

*writing about "the birth"

*voting for a chick name graph

*writing about the chicks
*thank you letter for the person/place we received the eggs

*vocabulary page

What else do you want me to include?  What other aspects of the chicken world am I missing??  :)

I would also like to thank Jennifer at {Teaching with Grace} and Steph at {Be a Nutt With Mrs. McNutt} for the One Lovely Blog award!

I would like to continue sharing the love with these 15 ladies you should know:

Heather at {Heather's Heart}

Heather at {Mrs. Shelton's Kindergarten}

Cara at {The First Grade Parade}

Roxanne at {Books that Heal Kids}

Maddie at {Class Full of Crazy}

Randi at {Teach it With Class}

Sharon at {Teaching With Sight}

Teri at {A Cupcake for the Teacher}

{The Princess & the Tot}

Melissa at {DillyDabbles}

Deb at {Oh my little Classity Class}

Laura at {Kinder Kraziness}

Melissa at {Teaching Fashionista}

{Miss Nguyen's Class}

Jeannie at {Kindergarten LIfestyle}

Happy Monday!  And don't forget to watch my {friend of a} friend Tony Lucca {but who's counting?!} on The Voice tonight!!  ;)  Yes...from the original Mickey Mouse Club, where he was friends with Christina!  Yeah 80's childhood!!

Common Core at your fingertips!

Did you see the new addition to my blog today???

It might not look like a big deal, but go ahead and click it.

The Common Core!  Rocking your world, right?!  No more googling or remembering websites or clicking through pages and pages to get there.  It's all. right. here.

And it's super easy to use.

Click on your grade level and your objectives pop right up.  If that's not enough to jog your memory...click on one.  A breakdown of the objective and the underlying tasks that fall under each are listed right there.

Or if you're planning a lesson, there's a "More Resources" section back at the beginning instead of clicking on math or literacy.  There's a "What the Standards Don't Cover" section, further unpacking of the objectives and a vocab list!  {First year teachers and new curriculum adopters, I hear your cries of relief!}

P.S. Scary terms like this make me glad I teach kindergarten!!!

At any time you can click the tab and it will disappear again.  No more lugging home my standards notebook or stressing about lesson plans when I can't remember which task is in which objective.  Thank You Mastery Connect!  Create a free account to add one to your site.  You can also upload common assessments or search for others that teachers across the country have shared.  It acts a little like Facebook with an activity page for who you follow but it was worth the quick registration for me just to get this handy little tab.  :)

Happy Planning!!  How else are you simplifying the switch to Common Core??

The Cat in the Hat...2012 style.

We are predictable people, as Dr. Seuss knew. As kids, we are easily engaged by tricks and magic, seeing people do amazing things. Then we get a little older and try to do it on our own, to figure out the secrets. How many of us have tried to juggle using kleenex so that it wouldn't fall too quickly? {And I admit, I can't even do that!} It doesn't stop there, though. As adults, we are still mesmerized by people who can juggle multiple things. And we want to be those people. We use all of the things we are juggling to impress our peers...

Look at me!
Look at me!
Look at me now!
I can hold up my job
And my kids and my spouse!
I can hold up the school,
My book club and clean house!
I can work out and eat right
And play with my friends.
And look, if I don't sleep,
My limit has no end!
For that is not all.
On no.
That is not all... 

We think that we're impressive and have learned the secret to juggling things. We get caught up in being so involved and doing so much. But isn't it funny how we forget the rest of the story?

{graphics courtesy of Dr. Seuss}

As a recovering perfectionist, I am one of those people who wants to jump into the book and save everything from hitting the ground. But that's where I have to stop myself and realize, it's beyond my control and it's more than I can handle. {teachers: reread and repeat.  again.}  I am going down with it all and can't save myself from falling, so where do I even start? My initial reaction is to go for the cake, but I think that's another place we miss the boat. The fish, the original thing that he balanced up on his umbrella, is really the only sacrifice to be made if it all gets dropped.

Are you following my childlike mindframe here? It is so easy to get caught up with life. We run from meeting to meeting, from social event to social event, running errands, filling out paperwork, grabbing dinner where we can and there are people everywhere so it doesn't occur to us that we're isolating ourselves. But when we really sit down and think about it, this isn't quality time. Our friends don't know what's really going on with us. Our family hasn't seen us. Our students hear our directions and corrections but did they get their daily hugs?  Even with the people that we see the most, is it thanks to meetings and obligations that we are even together?  And we wonder why we're so tired and stressed and hoping for Friday afternoon!

It's hard to stop lesson planning and blogstalking and pinning because there are just SO many good ideas out there.  {says the woman with her OWN office IN the house...guilty as charged.}  But I think that it's better for us to own up to it than to just keep on with our lives, balancing everything up on umbrellas and balls, waiting for the inevitable day that we lose our minds. What is life if not for the people we love? Don't we owe it to them to take them out of the web of things we're trying to juggle? I'm not saying it's easy to find a few hours to just sit down for coffee and I'm not saying I won't have a thousand and a half things running through my mind that I "should" be doing instead. But I've realized that in balancing so many things, pepole don't end up impressed by all that you can do. They just find someone else, with a little bit of time to offer, to give themselves to instead. We can't be Jesus to people by filling out paperwork and attending meeting after meeting. And while a lot of {especially in education} is inevitable, we have to stop, leave work behind and separate for a time.  We have to be available to catch our students or co-workers when they fall. And if at all possible, help them not to fall in the first place.

I think maybe {though it wouldn't have topped the bestseller list}, the cat could've said this instead...

Look at me!
Look at me!
Look at me now!
It is fun to have fun
But you have to know how.
I can talk with my girls
Or spend time at the lake.
I can laugh with my friends
Over coffee and cake. {apparently, I think the cake should stay.}
I can love on my students,
Lend a listening ear.
And look! My resolution needn't
Involve "less stress" this year!
Saying "no thanks" to requests
And "I'd love to!" to fun.
Replacing stress with balance
And still getting it all done.

The Lorax

First of all, how smart are the people at Universal to have The Lorax premiere tomorrow?!

{and for casting Zac Efron.}

Like many other books-turned-movie, my kids are extra excited about The Lorax so I had to include it in our Dr. Seuss festivities!

There's a super cute printout from the Sub Hub of Truffula Tree tops.  She uses them to have students sequence events from the story but younger students could draw pictures for retell or just color and cut them out and use them as a decoration to their writing!  {Or take my even easier way out and print them on colored paper to begin with!!}  Colored drinking straws also make excellent tree trunks!

We'll be using this Lorax coloring sheet from HP to cut out and add to our writing.

If you're really feeling ambitious you can make this adorable life sized version, complete with directions from Mrs. Lodge's Library.

And of course, there's even an app for that & online games from the official movie website.

Your Lorax snack is a no brainer, right?  Hello cotton candy trees!  Rock UR party did it super cute with grass cupcakes.  But I don't blame you if you just give 'em a handful of puff.

Seuss story puppets.

When I pulled my Dr. Seuss bin down last week, I found these:

I don't even remember buying them!!!  It must've been last year when the Dr. Seuss stuff went on sale.  Cute, right?  But what was I thinking when I bought them?  Because I surely don't remember.  The stickers are broken up into 6 stories {The Cat in the Hat, Green Eggs & Ham, One Fish Two Fish, Yertle the Turtle, Horton Hears a Who & The Sneetches} plus some additional ABC stickers.

There are plenty of each so the first plan is to make some puppets.  Perfect for retell!  I hot glued a popsicle stick to the back of each then covered the stick with some cute scrapbook paper to make it harder to pull off.

Voila!  You could also make them from flat stickers or graphics on card stock if you have those in your collection!  Or stick them down in a candy jar or box of tissue paper for a decoration!

Today's snack is for your picky eaters.  This spin on green eggs & ham comes from Mandee & Brandy.  If you have kids that freak out to try new foods, this version will put a smile on their faces!  {sugar up!!}

The Cat in the Hat.

The Cat in the Hat.  Classic Seuss.  I thought about skipping this one but found new favorites I want to try this year and figure I'd keep you in the loop with the goods.

One writing activity I like to do is have the kids answer the question at the end of the story.  "Well, what would you do if your mother asked you?"  Start with a house outline.  You can make it by using a long sheet of construction paper, folding in both sides to meet in the middle and then cutting whatever roofline you want on the top.

Glue the writing inside to display.  It's interesting to see how many of them would tell their mother the truth about the weird cat invasion and how many of them wouldn't.  The reasons they come up with for why the house is a mess are priceless.

{Forgive my make-shift example.  I had a picture uploaded of the real display and for the life of me, I have no idea where it went!!!}

These adorable puppets are from My Everything Else when she was featured on obSEUSSed.  She bought red party bags but we'll using the regular {free} brown ones from the art room, colored red.

This Pinterest link wasn't uploaded right so I don't know the original user, but how great are these thing students?!  Blue easter grass hair!!  :)

I also like the hair on these little guys.  Curl the paper around a pencil to make it roll up like that.  We'll definitely be making these.

For math, we play this counting game from Hubbard's Cupboard.  Each pair of students gets one game board.  Student A rolls the dice, gets 4 and colors 4 hats pink {she will be pink the entire game}.  Student B takes a turn, rolls 2 and colors 2 hats green {and will stay green}.  Continue until the board is full then count to see how many hats each person colored and who had the most.

You can also turn your students into The Cat himself!  Wear all black, add a striped hat, red bowtie and some {eyeliner} whiskers.  Now see what kind of mischief you can come up with!

I love these Cat in the Hat hats for snack!!  White chocolate dipped oreos and red chocolate dipped marshmallows!  Thanks Jill!

One Fish, Two Fish, Word Family fish.

There are so many pins and posts for Dr. Seuss that mine may just be white noise.  But nonetheless, if you're still looking for something else among the masses, I'm going to share some of what we're doing this week.  Today's activity...

{One fish, Two fish, Red fish, Blue fish}

A teammate of mine found a fish coloring page & made this cute word sorting game a few years ago.

My cute-OCD wasn't a fan of the rectangles.  I cut them out completely so they can jump into a fish bowl.  About half way through cutting all of them out, her way was looking much better!  But now that they're finished, they're super cute.

I also made a capital and lowercase letter sort using the same template.

Here's 2 {different sizes} sheets of fish you can make yourself. Print on white and color yourself or print on colored paper to make cards. Possibilities are endless for their use.

There's {of course} a recording sheet. You can have the fish jump in a rhyming fish bowl or just be laid out on a table in columns. Either way, you can put these in a literacy center and hold your students accountable for their learning!

And a super cute snack idea from Simple Girl at Home.  Swedish fish & jello!