Week of Giving T.H.A.N.K.S letters N, K, and S

I'm sorry, I got a few letters behind. Here are the letters N, K, and S.

After stuffing ourselves during our Thanksgiving feast, a few naps were necessary. 

The dogs thought the naps were necessary too…

How cute is my cousin Izzy? She is going to be my flower girl in my upcoming wedding. We were able to buy her flower girl dress this past week. She and her cuteness may upstand me during my wedding!

Black Friday shopping!

Week of Giving T.H.A.N.K.S. "H" is for HOME and "A" is for "A GOOD BOOK".

Good morning! I am a day behind so I'm going to include the letters "H" and "A" today! 

 I am thankful for HOME. When I come home, I have my two fur babies waiting at the door. I don't have children yet so these are my babies. I love coming home to two excited puppies who are so happy to see me. I am also thankful for my HOME where I grew up in Kansas City. When I go home I love having my fiance, my family, and my sister's boyfriend all together. It's great to be HOME.

Kevin and Fitz waiting at the door.

Holidays and boyfriends!

Family selfie!

This book, "Full Dark, No Stars" is my current read. It is a book made up of four short stories. These are stories full of suspense and horror. It'll keep you on your toes and it's a book that is definitely hard to put down. 

Week of Giving T.H.A.N.K.S. T is for... TURKEY!

Hello! Happy Thanksgiving break! We made it! Wahoo! I am linking up with the girls at Blog Hoppin' and doing their "Week of Giving T.H.A.N.K.S". Each day is a new letter such as the first day is something that starts with a "T" the next day will start with an "H" and so on! It will be awesome so come on and join the link up!

In my class this week, we wrote a paragraph on, "How to Cook a Turkey". Now, I teach several English Language Learners who don't celebrate Thanksgiving. However, after learning about Thanksgiving and America's tradition, I wanted them to try their best to answer the writing prompt. Some of them were hilarious and some were really great! It gave me a great laugh and made me appreciate my students' innocence. I am thankful for turkey because not only is it tasty, but in this case, it brought humor to my classroom.

Clothing Must Haves for This Winter Season

What are my clothing must haves for this winter season? Here they are:

1. Fur Vest from Forever 21

2. Vest from J.Crew

3. Flannel shirts from Old Navy

4. Jacket from Banana Republic

What are your clothing must haves this winter season? I'd love for you to share!

SUPER THANKFUL

I am linking up with the wonderful ladies at Primary Powers for their Super Thankful linky party.

Five for FRIDAY

Mell Conference

I was able to attend the MELL Conference up in KC with a few of my colleagues. We went to several interesting presentations about strategies and techniques to use with English Language Learners in the classroom. 

Kansas City

 I love being home. We stayed at the Westin Hotel, were able to see the plaza, and ate excellent food. What more could you ask for?

Cafe' Gratitude

One evening, my family took me out to dinner. We went to a vegan restaurant called, "Cafe Gratitude". It was an interesting experience, and I didn't complain. 

Would I go back? 

Never. 

Grilled polenta over spaghetti squash with marina sauce.

Mint and Cacao cake.

Garozzo's Italian Restaurant

homemade gnocchi with vodka sauce

The best Italian food in KC. Enough said.

New Friendships

I was able to attend the MELL conference with colleagues I don't work closely with at school. It was so nice to get to know them better and to create new friendships.

Adopt! Don't Shop!

I'm a little late but October was National Adopt a Pet month!

As most of my family, friends, and colleagues know, I'm a huge dog lover. I love all dogs, but most importantly, shelter dogs. They have won a special place in my heart. I wish I could save them all, but in reality, I just can't. However, I did rescue two dogs who have helped me discover the true meaning of unconditional love.

Back in August 2011, My roommate and I had the brilliant idea of visiting the local animal shelter. We didn't have any intention of buying, just browsing. 

Yeah, right! 

Advice to any of you who are new to animal shelters, don't go to "browse". You will almost always come out with an animal. That's what happened to me. 

Here he is...

How could I possibly resist? However at this time in my life, I had never trained a puppy and had never taken care of a dog on my own. Oh boy, did I have a TON to learn. 

We've been best friends ever since.

I began teaching a few years ago and realized Kev dog was having separation anxiety from me being at work all day. So therefore, as a new teacher in a new town, I decided to get...

A new puppy.

From my experience of adopting two dogs from animal shelters, here is my advice:

1.) If you have another dog, take he or she to the shelter to see if they get along with the new dog you choose.

2.) Introduce your new dog to his new environment by taking him for a walk around your neighborhood before entering the house.

3.) Know that when adopting an animal from a shelter, they are more than likely going to be sick. So it's important to take them to vet for a check up or to get medication.

4.) Be patient! It's going to take some time for them to get used to you, the new environment, and their new routine. 

5.) Give them lots of LOVE and realize you saved their life. 

This post is dedicated to my two shelter pups who have enhanced my life tremendously. Sometimes I wonder, who saved who?

Five for Fraturday

PWIM

A writing activity where I put a picture on the Smart Board.
 We label what we see as a group using nouns, verbs, and adjectives.

Each student writes their own complete sentence using the nouns, verbs, and adjectives we labeled on the picture. 

NEW BLOG DESIGN 

Thank you Kassie at http://designsbykassie.blogspot.com/! I LOVE my new design!

CONTRACTION SURGERY

The students cut the two words apart and put a bandaid where the apostrophe would go.

OCEAN ANIMAL RESEARCH PROJECT

We researched on the computer different ocean animals.

The students are creating their own poster board of their ocean animal.

A COLD FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS

My sweet friend braced the twenty degree weather with me while watching my fiance's football team.
 What a good friend!

Enjoy your weekend!

Calling ALL the doctors...CONTRACTION surgery NEEDED!

Calling ALL the doctors!

Over the past few weeks, my class has been working on contractions. What a difficult concept to master for these sweet seven and eight year olds. I have mostly English Language Learners (ELLs) in my class whose first language is Spanish. Can you imagine learning contractions while you are trying to learn the English language? Not easy.

My colleague showed me a super cute activity called, "Contraction Surgery". I told my class, "Today we are going to play doctor. You will receive several words that need surgery! You will need to cut the words apart and then fix them with a bandaid".

The kids were SO excited. They almost instantly burst out of their little chairs.

I'm fortunate to have parents who work in the health field. They generously donated gloves, masks, and bandaids for each of my students.

I think this is a lesson my students will never forget. Hopefully when they think of contractions, it will jog their memory back to second grade where they conducted, "Contraction Surgery".

Here are some photos from our surgery:

Thank you to Kassie @ http://designsbykassie.blogspot.com/ for creating my new blog design. I love it!