My day with Mr. Greg

I am on Spring Break this week. I know, how can that be? It's only the second week of March! Honestly, I think they did it because of the big snow storm that took us out of school for an entire week at this time last March. If that is the case, they got it wrong. (Thankfully, because I wouldn't be having this much fun if I was snowed in for the 4th week in a row!)

Anyways.... today was super exciting! For any blogger that follow Mr. Greg from The Kindergarten Smorgasboard - be prepared to be jealous!

Yep! That is me and Mr. Greg himself! This isn't the first time we have met. In fact, I first met him WAY back during the summer of 2012 when we had dinner together! Here's a picture of that!

Reminiscing, that was such a fun night! I got to meet Greg for the first time, Erin Eberhart from Eberhart's Explorers, Laura from Kinder Kraziness and one of Laura's friends Elizabeth! Such a fun-filled night with a group of amazing kindergarten teachers! Then again a few years ago I got to meet Greg again at another dinner with more wonderful kindergarten teachers and we went and saw ICE! afterwards.

Digressing, today was amazing! I got to have lunch with Greg and his lovely co-workers. Than I was able to see Greg interact with his kiddos during recess and teach math!

Today's math lesson was on subtracting. While most of his kiddos had the concept down, Mr. Greg worked with one kiddo who struggled. It was amazing seeing him at work. He was very patient with the kiddo and asked lots of assessing and advancing questions to get him thinking. He really got the student to think about the problem and what it meant!

If you know Mr. Greg and have seen his blog, you know he loves bright cheerful colors and ANYTHING sparkly! His manipulatives did not disappoint! They were so colorful and shiny. Made me think of crystals! I think I will be on a hunt for something similar to use with my own kiddos.

I was definitely inspired to go back and work with my sweet babies on this topic once we return to school!

One of the activities that I plan on using with my kiddos is my Barnyard Subtraction Freebie! Click on the picture below to head to my TPT page to get this freebie!

It's an oldie, but the kids love it! What are you using to teach subtraction to your kiddos?

Back to Blogging

Hey ya'll! It's been such a long time. The past two years have been  CRAZY BUSY! One of the last blogs I wrote, I told you the big news. I got engaged to the love of my life! Well, this past October we got married!

 

We honeymooned in Charleston, South Carolina! It was a beautiful city and I hope to go back once we have kiddos! The town, especially the pier and aquarium, is very kid-friendly. If you have kiddos, I definitely recommend planning a family vacation to Charleston.

In addition to this wonderful time, I have also dealt with the loss of both my mom and nephew. Handling the estate has been a time consuming process. I still can't believe my mom, dad, and nephew have passed from this life into their Heavenly home. Prayers for my family are appreciated.

Lastly, I have been working towards my Masters in Education. I have just finished my last course and am currently working on finishing my portfolio! I graduate May 9th and will be taking my Praxis on May 16th. I will be studying a lot of this test in the upcoming weeks in order to ensure I pass this expensive test the first time around.

So enough about me! It's time to get to the kiddos! This year I have been blessed to work with 19 amazing kiddos. Their progress in math and reading is amazing! Currently we are on Spring Break. This month has been crazy with the amount of snow we have gotten and time we have had off. I am so ready to get back into the classroom and get back to teaching! 

Hopefully I'll be back to blogging full-time now that my life has settled down! I can't wait to share more resources and ideas with you as I begin this blogging journey again! Thank you for sticking around! 

Alphabet Letter Exchange

So I was reading blogs the other day when I saw that First Grade Found Me is doing an awesome Alphabet Letter Exchange. After reading about it, I am really excited to join the exchange! I've never done it before, so I hope it goes well.

I was reading one of my friend's blog and she was explaining how she not only used it as an exciting way to do introduce letters but also used it in math (graphing) and social studies (marking the places they received the letters from on a map). Go read Laura's blog of at Kinder Kraziness to see how she plans on using these letters.

I'm thinking that I'll either use them on a bulletin board or to decorate our Chick Chicka Boom Boom tree that I made for the fiance's 6 year old cousin's birthday party. Aloha!

It isn't HUGE by any means. But I'm thinking it's gonna go into the library. Whatcha think?

So go on over to First Grade Found Me's blog to learn more about this awesome blog exchange!

Donors Choose Opportunity!

Hey ya'll! I hope your having a fantastic summer! I haven't done much. I've gone to a few inservices, been fishing a lot, and been working on wedding planning stuff. Oh the joys (and stresses) that come with planning a wedding. However, I have gotten the date officially set. October 11th, 3014. And I have the venue booked.... which I'm in LOVE with! It is on the river that I said the first "yes" to so many years ago (we've been dating 5 years this September).  The only hinderance of the venue is that it only can hold 100 people and with family and a few friends I'm already over 100. So we'll see how that works out.

Anyways! So I have a VERY important reason for posting today.

I wanted to share an opportunity with you. It's a chance for you get to get 2 freebies from my TPT store by donating to my very first Donorschoose.org project! Everyone knows that with common core hands on math is VERY important. I have a good amount of counters, but lets be honest. You can always have more. So here's what I'm asking you to do: 


I'm asking for donations of $5 to help my kids. For the next week, any donation you make to my project will be doubled! If you know anyone who is passionate about education, please pass this along. Your donation will brighten my students' school year, and you'll get photos and thank yous from our class. To have your donation matched dollar for dollar, enter the match code INSPIRE on the payment screen. This awesome match offer lasts through July 13, 2013. (http://www.donorschoose.org/project/manipulatives-for-hands-on-math/1020920/?utm_source=dc&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=proposal_approve)


Once you have donated please send me an e-mail at buggyinkindergarten@gmail.com with the amount that you donated and the two TPT items that you would like from my store and I will send them to you for FREE! Everyone loves free right?

Oh, and for every $5 you donate, you get 2 free products. So donate $10 dollars and get that matched using the code INSPIRE (making it $20) and you will get 4 free TPT items from my store.

I WILL be back tomorrow to share some awesome information from my inservice today! I look forward to seeing you then!

What I've been up to (REALLY B.I.G. news!!)

Okay... so I know it's been a very long time since I've posted last. (Hey what's new? That has been my thing this year I suppose.)

I got my paperwork for my professional license. So I should be receiving my new PROFESSIONAL teaching license soon! Yay! Super excited. Kinda nervous about only having 2 observations starting in the fall. I'll have to be on the ball at all times, because just one bad score and my overall average is gonna go down. (Not good!)

I'm gonna be HOPEFULLY *fingers crossed* starting my grad program soon. Hopefully in June. Looking forward to it, but kinda very nervous about the application process.

I've been working hard at losing weight. So far I've lost 37 lbs (since Jan. 22nd). I'm up to four miles each time I go walking. I need to get a gym membership so that I can work on muscles/toning. I've got 40 (maybe 50) to go still. The total number just depends on what I feel like/look like when I reach the 40. 

 Lastly... and this is the B.I.G. news! The boyfriend is now the FIANCE! Yes, you read that right! After almost 5 years of dating (it will be 5 years September 17th) he finally popped the question! It happened on Easter Sunday. He made breakfast, eggs and bacon, arranged it into a heart shape and then got down on one knee and asked. It was more romantic than it sounds.

So with that comes the territory of spending lots and lots of time wedding planning. I think we've settled on the center piece, the venue, the guest list (A, B, and C  --- the venue can only hold 100 people and we both have big families so we've had to move some of the people that we really really want to be there to list B and/or list C.), and the date. We're going to be waiting another year before getting married to make sure that we can afford everything. So our date is officially 10-11-14.

Okay.... well thats what I've been up to in the time since I've last posted. If you read all of this, thank you for being a loyal reader... even when I have not been a loyal blogger. I appreciate it!

Have a good week.... we're closing in on the end of the year. We've got 12 1/2 days left and I can't wait until the final bell rings (so to speak).