Five for Friday {May 2}

I haven't done a Five for Friday in a couple of weeks! What is wrong with me?! Five for Friday is a weekly linky hosted by Doodle Bugs Teaching where teacher bloggers post five random things about their week. As you may already know, school is over for me as I was a student teacher this year and just finished up last week! However, I am including a project we did on my last day in here, so don't fret. Still my usual Five for Friday self!

First off, on my last day of my internship last week, we did a fun jellyfish craft which has been pinned on my Pinterest for months now. As mentioned in previous posts, we had our big field trip to the aquarium last month so we have been integrating ocean activities into our day ever since. Check out our CD fish HERE.

Here's the jellyfish though! Ain't he a cutie??

Here's a step by step!

Step 1:

Glue pieces of colored tissue paper all over the bottom side of a paper bowl.

Step 2:

Choose the googly eyes. Kids take this part very seriously.

Step 3:

Glue on those beautiful eyes!

Step 4:

Choose your ribbon and streamer strips.

We attached the streamers and ribbons with scotch tape to the inside of the bowl.

AND VOILA! Jellyfish!

This week was opening night of Happy Days the Musical at the school my mom teaches at. She is the music and drama teacher for grades K-12 at a private school here in Central Florida. It is a HUGE job. The school is a supporter of the arts (which is sometimes rare these days) and my mom has built a wonderful program there. They are fortunate enough to have had a donor give money for 25 full size Yamaha keyboards! My mom can actually teach these students how to play!

Pretty neat, huh?!

Well, this week they are opening their spring production for the drama class and it is a musical version of Happy Days! I was the choreographer and the kids are doing such a fantastic job!

I love this picture of them having fun during their dress rehearsal. To see more pictures, check out the slideshow at the local newspaper HERE.

The End of the Year is drawing near. I just finished up a series of new products for the end of the year in kindergarten and first grade. Click the images below to check out all of them and get the downloads, or for more details on them, click HERE for their description in a previous post!

I just joined the ranks of people who wear glasses as of yesterday. I was reluctant at first and will probably be getting used to having something on my face all the time for a WHILE, but I can't believe what all I haven't been able to see!! I had no idea! Everything is just so clear!

My mother-in-law says I look like a teacher now. Lol?

Volunteer night at the school I was interning at is coming up soon, so before I left, the kiddos and I made these gifts for the volunteers who are consistently helping in our classroom. I was fortunate enough to be at a school that has a lot of parental involvement. I know a lot of schools in my county are not as lucky. However, we have 4 volunteers that come all the time and are SO MUCH help!

We decorated flower pots with our fingerprints and turned them into sea turtles and fish, since this was a big ocean year for us. I used a Q tip to make the head and legs for the turtles after their thumbprint dried and then used a purple sharpie to add the fins to the fish. I also used a green sharpie to add seaweed at the bottom and a blue sharper to add waves and bubbles!

What do you think? Think the moms and one dad will like them? Let me know in the comments!

Can It Possibly Be The End of The Year Already?!

Hey there readers. I can't believe it is already May!! It is really silly how fast time flies (when you're having fun of course...).

I just wanted to let ya'll know that I have a new series of products for the end of the year. Some for Kindergarten, some for First Grade, and some for any grade level. Check 'em out!!

The End of the Year Writing Prompt Task Cards

There are 16 task cards in each bundle and are appropriate writing prompts for each grade level. The prompts are writing topics that deal with kindergarten or first grade experiences as well as things the students look forward to or how they feel about the next grade level.

Click the pictures for a preview.

 The End of the Year Scrapbooks

I'm a huge lover of memory books and scrapbooks. I know I'm not the only one. Scrapbooking is something I've loved to do since middle school! These are half page books to help save on printing that the students can color and decorate till their heart's content as well as adding in memories, drawings, and kindergarten/first grade favorites. There's also a page at the end for autographs. Each scrapbook is 9 half pages long. Just print, cut, and staple together for each kiddo.

Click the pictures for a preview.

The End of the Year Classroom Trading Cards

Probably my favorite end of the year activity are these trading cards. Each student collects their trading cards on each student (think baseball cards or the more current Pokemon cards). Each student has a card that their peers can collect featuring their name, their favorite things, a picture or a drawing of them, and of course, their signature. This is appropriate for any grade level and included are traditional size trading cards that would fit in those plastic binder card sheets and larger cards for smaller hands. There are also Teacher Cards they can collect. Lots of fun and the kids love it. Who doesn't like collecting cards?

The End of the Year Autograph Pages

Some of my own fondest end of the year memories growing up was getting everyone's autograph. I especially loved getting my teachers' autographs because they always wrote nice little notes. Some schools do yearbooks and students can sign those, but yearbooks can be expensive and some students are not able to afford them. Providing them with an autograph sheet will make sure that everyone is included in the autograph signing and that the students who may not be able to obtain their own yearbook, can bring this home and treasure it just as I have treasured my autographs. There are 4 different designs to choose from and are appropriate for any grade level. ;)

And if you are interested in all of the downloads, they are bundled at a discounted price! I am currently finishing up the First Grade bundle so bear with me, but the Kindergarten bundle is up and ready for download!

The bundle previews have images of every product, so click the pictures to check that out. :)

My Last Day of College!

I am so terrible. My last day of my internship was last FRIDAY and here it has been almost a week and I haven't posted about it! I am sorry, readers! Although my last day of internship was last week, this week has been its own kind of crazy. I am the choreographer of a musical and this week is their "hell week" as we like to call it in the theater world. That means, first time in costume, first time with their microphones, first time with lights, etc. It has been a nutso week for us all. But the show looks wonderful and I see it tomorrow, so I will let you all know who it went! I am very excited!

But back to my last day...

It was bittersweet, for sure. I can't believe that I am finally done with my bachelor's degree! It felt like AGES. I was fortunate enough to have a wonderful class and a very supportive supervising teacher. I walked in on my last day and there were two wrapped gifts from her: 

The other wrapped gift were the sheets! So happy...

Then the students started coming in and all crowded around me with gifts and cards to open. I felt so loved and they were all so excited to watch me open things. I don't have a picture of everything, but I have plenty of pictures to share with you the love I received that day.

Large photo on left: A student made that for me! I love it!

Small photo upper left: That is the little bag the student made for me that he filled with "teacher stuff."

Small photo upper right: A pencil pouch that coincidentally I saw at Target the day before and thought was cute. ;)

Small photo lower left: A plant!

Small photo lower right: A wax melter and refills (not pictures) that smell amazing!

And the cards were just SO sweet (and hilarious).

The flowery one says "Go Noodle Rules!" I love it! If you don't know about Go Noodle, you need to look it up now! My kiddos loved it!

And the envelope on the bottom has a little drawing under my name. It is a thumbs up, which is something I do a lot and stuck with this student for some reason. They are so sweet!

And then of course, the class gift:

They made it with their fingerprints! My supervising teacher is the spider. Hehe.

Needless to say, I had a great day and a wonderful internship in kindergarten. Now it is just a waiting game until jobs are posted for next school year and another waiting game till I get hired somewhere. Sigh.

Wordless Wednesday: Earth Day

Week 2 linking up with Sugar and Spice for Wordless Wednesday! This week I'm doing things Earth Day style.

What did you do to celebrate and learn about Earth Day?

Cutest Picture Ever

Happy Easter everyone! I am just relaxing and enjoying my husband's and puppies' company until supper time with my folks and brother!

Here's what I have today! HOW CUTE ARE THESE BABIES??? Oh my gosh. I can't stand it! They are so adorable!

Have a great day!

Five for [Good] Friday! April 18

Don't worry everyone! I'm gonna make it today! I'm finally going to get my Five for Friday done! Hehe. I'm not sure it really counts though... I'm off from school today...

Here we go!

This is one of the activities we did for maps last week. I've seen this done many times and it was a great activity. The one on the left was made by one of my students who is VERY particular about his projects' appearance, so his naturally looks very clean. The one on the right was created by a child who is the complete opposite, but it still looks great. I wanted to show both ends of the spectrum here in case you decide to tackle this project in your own classroom. Don't expect them all to look like the one on the left.

Here's one of the pages! I decided to pre-cut the circles to save time and pre-print and cut the maps on each page. The only pages I left blank and up to them was their house and their town. I let them decide what to put on the page for their town. We have a HUGE horse community in this town, so a lot of students drew roads and horses. :)

Easter is this Sunday! So we have had a lot of Spring time activities and Easter bunny stuff going on. Of course, in the public schools they are all "Spring Time" not "Easter." 

Anyway, we totally did an egg hunt...

And this was just for OUR class! There are 4 other kindergarten classes!

We had students create their own baskets to collect the eggs and decided to combine it with the upcoming Earth Day by having them make them at home with recycled materials. We had some pretty creative stuff!

We had braided grocery bags (upper left)!

We had milk jugs and shredded paper (upper right and bottom left)!

We had yellow milk jugs and styrofoam pieces (bottom right)!

They came up with some great stuff! I realize parents probably did most of the work, but still! 

These were fun and turned out so nice! We made them for gifts for parents this week. After they dried, we hot glued a pin to the back and pinned them to little cards they made. I didn't get a picture of the cards, though... sorry!

I know this is blurry because the credits were rolling fast.... BUT...

I was in a film a few years back in my acting days and it won an award at a film festival last weekend! I went and saw it and was a little ashamed to say that it was the first time I was watching it. I don't really like to watch myself, so I never did. But I knew it was going to be at the film festival and I really wanted to go and support the director. It is with my maiden name (Amanda D'Amico) and I played Stephanie! It is 6 down from the top in that picture. :)

I didn't go to the other films due to my busy schedule, but John Travolta opened up with a kickoff speech and attended quite a few of the films himself, which I thought was pretty awesome!

Here's a picture of some of the cast and the director and writer. It is blurry for some reason, so I'm trying to find a better one... But having difficulty...

There I am in blue! It was a lot of fun and the film won the People's Choice Award which means it was basically everyone's favorite! Congratulations to Ben, the director. Here's a link to the website about the film: Catch of a Lifetime

I decided to go for it and I created a Facebook page! I was reluctant at first, but it isn't so bad! Check it out and tell me your thoughts! Don't forget to like my page so you can get updates on a "maybe-kinda-soon-first-Daisy-Designs-giveaway." ;) Click the picture to go to the page or click HERE.

Thanks for reading and hopefully enjoying yourself on my blog! New posts coming soon!