18 December 2011

Only 4 More Days... 4 More...

So my bloggy friends... apparently on Friday someone decided to take my well mannered, extremely wonderful class of 25 third graders and replaced them with some loud, unruly, rude children. I'm thoroughly convinced there is NO possible way those kids that were in room 127 on Friday are my kiddos. I'm horrified at what 8:50 a.m. will bring my way. I pray to the school Gods that they bring back my normal children for the next 4 days. Heck, I don't even care if they get crazy on Thursday, be my guest. I'll trade an INSANE Thursday for a normal, calm Monday-Wednesday. Please. I'm begging you! On another note, I'm so jealous of everyone already on break, but with that said, I'm ubber excited to not be on break until Friday. I feel like when we used to have the week before Christmas off, you spent all of your break getting ready for the holidays, then only had a few days to recoup. I will get off Friday and not return until January 9. I'm a million times excited about it!

So here's a few things we've been busy creating. I've been doing all projects with my wonderful neighbor/teammate (so no, I don't have 60 kids in my class LOL)
Mrs. Jumps Snowglobes (via 3rd graders)
{we modified/enlarged them a bit to fit more writing}

  



 
They did a fabulous job!!

Here's the dictionary project!! They did AWESOME!! :)



I'm not really sure where "He's like a little ruler and a little king" came from...





 {idioms central}

{truthfully I'm embarrassed to put these on here - but these are both things I couldn't find much help with, so I thought maybe my ugly little charts can help someone out there in bloggy land - yes I'm a perfectionist who can't stand anything handwritten}


So that brings me this... My kiddos are going to be making their handprint ornaments for their parents tomorrow. I know, I know they do it every year, but I think it's cute to see how your kids hands have grown over the years. I am also making the parents an ornament for them to have. So here is what I made... it's hard to get the full picture because I blurred out the kids faces, but you get the point!

{24 clear ornaments - Hobby Lobby}
[plus I have a child that doesn't celebrate Christmas so I'm making his Mom a frame!]

{boys got green background paper, plus green/black ribbon}

{girls got red background paper, plus red/white ribbon}






After trying to make some last night in the dark, I gave up and left a mess on the floor. I returned to them this morning when there was a lot of light and quickly finished all of them. I was getting very frustrated last night though!! I also got each kid a copy of Sideways Stories from Wayside School because they were $1 each from Scholastic. Can't beat that!!

On a side note, we have a radio station here in Chicago with a morning show called "Eric and Kathy" I absolutely LOVE them. I get very upset if they're not on in the morning. So I'm a "fan" of them on Facebook. They randomly post things on there, like questions about holidays and things. I always look, but hardly ever respond. Well I took an afternoon nap, yes I adore napping! When I woke up {usually I'm grumpy as it is when I wake up from anything} I see a post that says something along the lines of  "Has everyone's children brought home their homemade ornaments yet?" I thought cute! Let's see what kids are bringing home. The responses I saw ENRAGED me!! People were complaining about their typical "foam" picture frames, and "all 3 of my kids brought home the same ornament, they did every year!" People then proceeded to say teacher's lack creativity and some said, "well I guess they won't put much thought into the gift, I won't put much thought into their gift either." 

So I went into a rage-ful post back to those people about how I spend thousands of dollars on my classroom, plus $30 on books, plus probably another $30 or more on the ornament supplies for them, and me to make. I also said I have to pay for presents for my own family and I don't make a ton, so I do what I can. I mentioned that it takes an hour or 2 to make ornaments for 30 kids. Needless to say I was NOT happy! I couldn't believe how ungrateful they were being. So the point of this is that even though I don't have kids, I appreciate everyone who takes the time to make things with their kids, even if it is a "thoughtless cheap foam frame" {ugh, angry posting this now!}. Please don't let anyone make you feel as under appreciated as I felt when I read that post!!

Anyway peeps :) I hope you are enjoying your vacation or last week before the holidays! I wish you the best of luck with your kiddos behaving! If anyone wants directions on the ornaments let me know and I'll make a post, it took me a few tries to really figure out what I should do in order to get them to work! 

Night lovelies! ;-)

15 comments:

Erika said...

I love the dictionary project. Would you write a specific post about it? Or may be you already have.
2B Honey Bunch

Jill said...

I love everything about this post! And go you for telling those people how you felt!!!!

Marvelous Multiagers!

Mrs. Corbitt said...

I LOVE your post!!! I learned several things to work on when we get back in January (sorry, I'm already on break). I hope that your real students come back to school this week for you. : ) Either way, you'll survive!

Jen R said...

yay for you standing up to them girl!! People just DO NOT GET IT!!!


♥ Jen Ross
The Teachers' Cauldron

Amber @ Adventures of a Third Grade Teacher said...

I love your blog FYI! Good for you for setting those people straight! That would have made me beyond irritated as well. Maybe one day people will understand the life of a teacher.

Kelley Cirrito said...

You go girl! :) I just found your blog! You are very creative. And by the way I am in school until Thursday too, but we go back like the 4th. I wish we were out until the 9th.

Anonymous said...

Good for you! People don't understand just what teachers do...just that we have it so nice "being off ALL summer"! Thanks for all you do!!

Anonymous said...

Great stuff! FYI: The "little ruler and little king" on Ryan's stuff comes from his name's actually meaning. Ryan means "little king". :)

Elisabeth said...

I love your economics poster! That is such a boring topic and I will be borrowing your ideas to make it more fun! Thanks for sharing!

Tanya V. said...

Hey there. I'm a follower and a 3rd grade teacher. How are you liking the curriculum/grade level?

Take care!

Tanya
http://msvs3rdgradeclass.blogspot.com/

Anonymous said...

Hey! I made very similar snowglobes with my class. I thought I'd share a cool idea I found online. For the snowglobe part, we used construction paper, cotton balls, etc. to decorate and then we sprinkled it with silver glitter and glued a clear plate over top to make it 3-d. I found the perfect size plates at a party store. It took a lot of work on my part b/c I did all of the hot-gluing of the plate on after school but they turned out super cute!

Bethany said...

I would love to know how you made your ornaments. I always make the snowman handprint ornament but would love to make one of these as well with their pictures. Thanks for all your wonderful ideas!!!

Anonymous said...

Love your ideas! Kudos to you for standing up to the insensitive people who have no idea of the time, energy, and expense to which we go for their children/our students. Keep your chin up! Your work is brilliant!!

Mrs. G.2 said...

Would you post the directions for the photo ornaments? I'm not sure how to decide what the diameter of the photo should be so it stays upright,

Thanks!

Anonymous said...

Great!