It's the Day I've Been Waiting For. Plus Sweet School Pics.

Today is one of my favorite days of the year. It's not a holiday. It's not my birthday. So why do I love it? Well I'll tell you why. December 1st is the best day of the year because it's the day I can bust into my chocolate advent calendar for the first time. I have to exercise a lot of patience and self-control to wait until the 1st before I start opening the paper windows of the calendar. Hmm. Speaking of exercise, exercising patience and self-control is the only kind of exercising I do. Definitely not any of the physical kind going on around here. As if that wasn't already obvious considering the fact that I'm writing a post about my love for a box filled with 24 chocolates...

And here she is. Window #1. This little chocolate square is currently sitting in my belly. It was delicious.

Do any of you do a chocolate advent calendar? My Momma's been buying these things for us (my siblings and I) since I was a tot. I still love them just as much (if not more) at the age of 28 as I did back then. Delicious tradition. I've written about my advent calendars for the past couple years on my blog. HERE's a post from 2009 and HERE's a little mention from last year with some of my favorite Christmas things, just in case you're interested in some Waiting on the Butterflies archives.

As a kickoff to December, I will give you much delight as I bombard you with some Christmas photos. I have some pictures of my home Christmas decor including my beautimous tree, but those will wait for another day. My tree is not that of the average bear. I don't believe in putting up green trees. It clashes with my living room. But all of that will have to wait for another day.

Today I'm going to share some school pictures because I just finished this project today and I'm wanting to show it off. I don't really do a great job of posting pictures of things I do in my classroom, but since I've recently acquired many new teacher follower friends (hey guys!), I thought I'd share a little somethin', somethin' for all you because you'll appreciate it. This has been a labor of love. I have a sore back and glue stick burns to prove it. Thanks to stinkin' Pinterest, I was inspired to decorate my door for the Christmas season. Well, one thing led to another and the ideas just got bigger and involved more and more glitter.

The end result: a gingerbread duplex. 

Our duplex. Unit A (Kelly's classroom) and Unit B (mine).

I did this little project with the help of two great kindergarten assistants and Kelly, one of my kindergarten teammates and my classroom next door neighbor. It took us a couple of days to get it completed. It was exhausting but SO much fun. I love doing crafty things at school when we have the chance. It just makes me happy and the kids love it. They said, "It's like we're really inside a giant gingerbread house!"
One of my students from last year (that is a total character and one of my favorite people in my life) walked by and said, "Hey, cool Gingerbread Fortress". I love that I have a fortress. Another kid, that I love just as much and that I could sit and listen to for hours, said (in the cutest country twang you've ever heard), "I just love all this decoratin'".

My classroom

The full view

The roofing is my favorite part. Beautiful gumdrops and "icing" that looks like sparkly clouds.

Here's another close-up of the beautiful glittery gumdrops. I painted bowls and covered with Diamond Dust glitter to make them look sugar-covered.

You know, I love glitter so much. It makes me so happy but I swear I'll be sweeping it up from my classroom floor for the next month. Extra emphasis on I because I know the night custodian sure as heck isn't going to do it. Grumble, grumble. Anyway, I'll be sweeping it up for the next month because it just gets everywhere and it's impossible to get it all cleaned up. Glitter is like the herpes of the crafting world. It stays with you forever.

Yummy candy.

Scrumptious.

I took this shot before we were finished with the roof of our duplex. I wanted to show the peppermints and gingerbread men from the ceiling that we hung for added cuteness. It's important to make hallway displays as over-the-top as possible. It brings out the comments from haters and grumblers for sure.

Oh, and let me explain the Japanese flag. We didn't just randomly hang this as part of our gingerbread decor. At our school, we have international flags hanging all the way down both of our super mile-long hallways to represent all of our diversity. Just wanted to clear that up.

Here's my bulletin board. It is the most boring and simple and pointless bulletin board that I've ever done, but after doing the door display...well, I had nothing left to give. So I sprinkled candy on the board. Short and sweet. Pun very much intended.

Well, that's my little hallway tour.

Here's one more little treat for you. This is my cute little classroom Christmas tree. It's actually a picture from last year, but the tree still looks the same.

I hope you enjoyed the picture fest. Happy December!

"In Lunch Lady Land, your dreams come true."

School pizza days are my favorite. Today was school pizza day and I was counting down the minutes until lunch time. Chicken ring days are pretty spectacular too, although they're not as good as they used to be. The deep fryer was jerked out of the kitchen last year and now everything is baked to be more "healthy". Boo. Bring back the deep fryer! I miss fatty goodness.
School pizza has always been a delicious treat for me. The day that's it's on the menu is a day that makes you say, "My belly is going to shout with jubilee after I fill my lunch tray up and begin eating this delicious cafeteria miracle". It's a day that my students don't pack a lunch and actually want to eat the school food.
Did you all love school pizza? I always go for the cheese. I'm a plain cheese pizza kinda lover. What's the best thing about school pizza, you ask? Why, that's easy. School pizza is served up with a spoonful of corn. Pizza and corn is probably the strangest yet most delicious lunch combination of all time. It's the perfect little duo. A match made in Lunch Lady Land heaven.

Just look at these guys. True. Love.

Who would have thought that pizza and corn would be such a perfect match? Whoever made this combo is a food genius. It's probably the same person that first paired peanut butter with jelly. Now, I can't say that when I'm at home and order a pizza that I suddenly have a hankerin' to whip up some whole kernel corn to go along with my Papa John's. That would seem a little odd. But somehow, within the walls of a school cafeteria, it's perfectly normal. You just can't have one without the other.
Our school doesn't serve these anymore, but I used to love the Octagon Mexican pizza when I was in school. It's a tasty treat and exposure to geometry all in one. What's not to love? Does anybody still have these at their school? Ship one to me if so.

And for your Friday night enjoyment, I'll leave you with the always enjoyable Lunch Lady ditty. May you dream of hoagies and grinders, navy beans, meatloaf sandwiches, and slop, sloppy joes. Eat well, friends.

Life is Sweet.

I've been absent from my blog for a few days. I've been pretty busy. I wish I had some really cool story to tell about what I've been doing, but I don't. I've been at home. Mainly in my kitchen. This isn't a room I frequent much, unless it's to retrieve a cold drink from the fridge or a snack from the pantry. I've been in this foreign land known as the kitchen because I was preparing things for my fundraiser for my classroom. I've been a chocolate melting machine. I made 41 chocolate pops, 37 marshmallow pops, and 26 chocolate dipped pretzel rods. Then I packaged and tied ribbon on it all. Took stinkin' forever. I attempted to make cake pops. Big mistake. I'm going to leave those to Bakerella. I don't really know where I went so wrong, but mine weren't forming into balls as needed for cake pops. Mine were more like cake poops. They really looked like patties. Cow patties. The perfectionist in me couldn't take it, so I threw them in the trash. It was a definite fail. I should have taken a picture of them to show you all, but I was flustered and mad at myself because I couldn't get it right, so taking a picture was not on my mind.

 Last night was the big night I'd been preparing for. The school's Chili Supper. I'm still exhausted from it. This is our annual winter time family event to raise money for classrooms. Each teacher is responsible for a game or booth of some type. Whatever profits we earn, we get to keep for our classroom account. For the past five years I have done a Sweet Shop. It has always rolled in the Benjamins for me. This is how I was able to buy that iPad for my classroom. It's a lot of work to get the Sweet Shop ready, but it's worth it and I actually do enjoy it. It's fun, pink, and involves sweet stuff. What's not to love?

Scrumptious stuff is sold here. 

The set up. Three tables full of goodness.

Do you like the toilet seats behind me? I feel it really added a little something extra to the pretty factor.

I made these little rose pops. Fancy.

And these little heart pops.

I had a several ladies ask me if I had my own business or a website. To me this was pretty hilarious. If they only knew half of my baking mishaps. Like the cake pops.

Chocolate dipped pretzel rods. These are a best seller. Everybody loves sweet and salty.

Chocolate dipped strawberry marshmallows. Easiest things to make ever.

For those of you that don't know, I hate strawberries. I won't eat them or any strawberry flavored things. I was curious about these strawberry marshmallows just because they were pretty and pink and actually smelled really good. I decided to be brave and try one. I ate a plain one (minus the chocolate and sprinkles) and started chewing. I tasted the strawberry-ish flavor and gagged. I spit it in the trash. I'm pathetic. I know.

Monkey cupcakes that a parent of one of my students made.

This wouldn't have been possible without a lot of help from some very nice people. A local bakery in town donated items for our sale. Also Wal-Mart gave us a gift card to help us buy baking supplies. I also had many parents of my students that made items or purchased candy for us to sell. I was blessed with generous community members and great families in my classroom this year.

Me with my Block student. We're both Sarah's, so this picture was necessary.

My little classroom mascot, Marley at the Chili Supper.

The little girl that had him for the evening had Marley dressed up and was pushing him around in a stroller all night. I swear this monkey has a better life than I do.

I had a pretty successful night. During the two hour event, I made $240. Not too shabby. Also, each homeroom made a canvas using the thumbprints from each child to make a picture. Our class canvas had a monkey theme, of course. The canvas was auctioned off and it brought in $175! Woo! I'm going to pull out my teacher supply catalogs and plan a big order since this girl is having $400 added to the classroom account. Cha-ching.

Guess What I Just Got...

...an iPad! I'm a super happy girl. I bought an iPad for my classroom using money from my classroom account. Apparently I had been a bit of a money hoarder and saved up some pretty big bucks. Well, big bucks as far as school accounts go. All my hard work at our school Chili Supper's over the years to raise money really paid off!
I have tons of the free kid-friendly apps on it already, but if anyone has any suggestions of good things to add, I'd love for you to share.

100 Days Smarter.

I apologize in advance to non-teacher readers. This is yet another school post. School takes up so much of my time that it's kind of natural for me to want to talk about it. Maybe I should start an additional teacher/school blog...I've been thinking about it.
Friday was a fun day. Several of my kids told me that Friday morning was "the best school day ever". One told me, "Today is the best day ever. The day we had to eat lunch in the hall was the worst day ever." The day we ate lunch in the hall was a day that we were under a few tornado warnings. That day was pretty crappy. I had totally forgotten about it though. It's funny what little minds remember.

We spent our 100th day of school doing many '100' activities.
We ate a 100 for breakfast:

Strung 100 fruit loops to make a necklace:

Made crowns:

And made a giant gumball machine filled with 100 gumballs:

I got this idea from Mrs. Lee's Kindergarten

Busy and fun day. "The best day ever".

So. Do groundhogs chuck wood?

I'm really hoping that Punxsutawney Phil emerges from his little burrow tomorrow and doesn't see his shadow. I'm gonna need winter to be over. Work it on out, Phil.

And y'all. This is embarrassing...I guess. I didn't know until tonight that a groundhog and a woodchuck are one in the same. They're apparently also called land-beavers or whistlepigs too. Huh? Where have I been? Maybe this is common knowledge, but I had no clue. I learn something new every day. I probably wouldn't have added this extra wrinkle to my brain if I hadn't been researching some new groundhog activities for my students. Some people have the impression that we just "play" all day in kindergarten. Sure, we have our play and a whole lotta fun, but we learn a heck of a lot. I've learned so much just by preparing my theme units (science/social studies) for my kids.

All the groundhogs/woodchucks/whistlepigs/land-beavers around these parts would be too scared to come out of their burrows tomorrow. It is so windy here that it sounds like a locomotive is rollin' through my backyard. We're going to have 40-50 mph wind gusts tomorrow. That's so much fun. Especially for the hair. Glad tomorrow is a jean day at school. Definitely going to wear jeans and a hoodie.

I'm a firm believer that kids and animals are great weather predictors. They start acting all sorts of crazy when cold fronts move in, if snow is in the air, if it rains, if there's a full moon. You get the point. My Assistant and I also use kids hair styles as predictors as to what kind of day we're going to have in my classroom. If this particular child walks in with her hair like this...

We know it's gonna be one heck of a day. Holds true every time. Crazy hair=crazy day.

I hope everyone has a Happy Groundhog's Day!

Cigarettes and Happy Meals.

Woo! It's official. Our city passed a clean air ordinance. I'm so glad this smoking ban will now be in effect. It is long overdue, in my opinion. I don't have a thing against smokers. Really. Every body's got their vices. I feel that. However, I don't like being exposed to smoke when I'm at a restaurant or in a public place. It aggravates my eyes and I hate that day-after smoke smell on clothes when I go out. I also don't like getting to a restaurant and having the server ask me, "Smoking or Non". I always want non, but the wait is always double. Should I have to wait longer for a table just because I don't smoke? This sista says nu-uh. The servers really need to start asking, "Smoking or Second Hand". Really it's all the same air anyways. I might actually decide to hit up a bowling alley in the future once this ordinance is in full effect. There was nothing worse than smelling like bowling alley. Smoky skank butt. That's what it was. So glad that we're just 90 days away to a smoke-free Bowling Green!

In other news...
I watched Nightline last night and they did a story on Happy Meals. It was all about McDonald's being threatened with a lawsuit for including toys with Happy Meals. What? There have been people complaining about the food not being healthy (Duh. It's fast food) and that the toys are like a cigarette to kids. Some suggested that McDonald's should stop giving out toys and then kids wouldn't want to eat so many Happy Meals. Hmm. I smell a challenge coming on.
While I know kids love these little toys inside the Happy Meal boxes, I think a lot of them genuinely like the food too. It's good. I love me some McDonald's. I liked it as a kid and I still like it as an adult.  Let me just tell y'all. The 2 cheeseburgers meal doesn't come with a toy, but that doesn't stop me from ordering it. The food is the prize to me.
So, just for fun and because I like being a nerd, I decided to conduct a little survey with my guinea pigs students. During indoor recess, I conducted individual polls because I didn't want them to be influenced by others. I asked each student:

• Do you like McDonald's?
• What do you like to eat there? Do you get a Happy Meal?
• Let's pretend that McDonald's stopped putting toys in Happy Meals. Would you still want to eat there?

I surveyed 18 of my 19 students (one left early). Yes, I have a dream size class this year, and yes, I am loving every minute of it.
All of my kids said that they wouldn't like it if McDonald's stopped provided toys in Happy Meals. However, out of my 18 kids, 16 said that they would still eat at McDonald's even if they didn't get a toy. All but 2 kids would still eat McDonald's without the toy influence. See. They're all food lovers like me.

Here are some quotes from those that would be bummed about not getting a toy, but would still down some McDonald's food:
"I would still eat there. I love their fries. I wouldn't like not getting a toy but I would still eat there."
"I wouldn't like it but I would still eat there."
"I would be okay with that. I really like their food."

One kid said, "I like Happy Meals the most because they have toys." Yes. These kids love the toys, but what kid doesn't. What makes me said is that for some of my kids, a Happy Meal toy may be the only new toy that they get unless it's Christmas or a birthday. You take these toys away and there will be some sad babies. Let them be kids and have some joy and get a junky Happy Meal toy.

One of my kids that said he wouldn't go near McDonald's again if they stopped dishing out the toys said, "If it doesn't got a toy, I'll never go there again."
Once my surveying was done, I asked my Assistant to guess the two boys that said they wouldn't go to McDonald's without the toy influence. I told her to think about the personalities in our classroom. She guessed the two kids right off the bat. They're both kids that don't want to work without getting a little something back as a reward. They're driven with the "what's in it for me" mentality. If they don't get something out of it, what's the point. Interesting? I think so.

I also found it interesting that out of my 18 kids, they're all chicken nugget eaters except for three. The other three like burgers. They all said they loved McDonald's fries though. Some even talked about the Apple Dippers and McFlurries. Yes, we're Americans and we love fat nasty food. I'm lovin' it.

Click here for the Nightline article and news clip if you're interested.

I like funny kids.

I love to laugh. I love funny people. This year I'm lucky to have some pretty funny little kids in my class. They have big personalities and are pretty outspoken. I love that about them. Today was a funny day. Here are some funny stories.

This morning during literacy centers, a pair of students were playing a beginning sounds game. They had a picture of a rabbit and needed to find the 'r' card to match it. One of the kids matched the rabbit up to the letter 'w'. The kid said, "Wabbit. It goes with W." The other student ran over to me so upset. He said, "I keep telling her that it's rrr-rabbit. Not wabbit." Aw. Poor kid.

One of my little girls (we'll call her T) came up to me to say that another girl (we'll call her G) told her that G and her whole family were black. T was so confused. She said, "G keeps saying that she is black and her whole family is black, but they're not. Her skin is brown. It's not black. I know my colors." I love how literal kindergarten kids are.

I wore my cowgirl boots to school today. One of my kids told me he liked them. He said, "Oooh! I like those. But where are those goldish-sharp things?" My spurs... ;)

The same little girl from above story, T, was talking to me about shopping. She said she wished I could take her shopping. Then it led into she wished I could take all the girls in our class shopping. Mainly for American Girl dolls. She stopped and thought about it a second and then said, "But then everyone might think you're like John and Kate plus 8 because you'd have so many kids. Never mind."

Top Ten Teachery Things.

Well. I thought I was going to be back at school today, but no. Another snow day. I've been off for a week straight. Getting paid and not having to go to work. Hmm. Not a bad livin'.
I couldn't sit around my house any longer. I needed to get out and do something constructive today. I decided to take myself to the school house to do a little work. I actually got a lot accomplished. Tidied up and filled up a large black trash bag. I was proud of my accomplishments until the janitor started fussing about "All these teachers comin' in here during these snow days deciding to clean their classrooms. Then they put their trash in the hallway. They can take it to the dumpster just as well as I can." Listen, lady. You should be glad I'm decluttering my classroom. Less for you to have to dust mop around. Oh wait. That doesn't ever happen. Nevermind.
While I was at school, I was thinking about the items in my classroom that I love and that make my job easier. I decided to do a little "My favorite teacher items list". Here goes nothing.

1.) Organizers. I love me some plastic organizers more than Posh and Becks love making babies. I love labeling too.
My favorites are my rainbow-colored drawers (that sounds like I'm talking about some rainbow panties--I just might have some of those too) but I'm talking about these little guys:

They could stand to be de-cluttered a little bit. We've hit midyear. Things start to get a little unsightly. I just pretend I'm at a place like, say, Wal-Mart. Just keep on walkin' and try not to stare too hard.

I also love my Monday-Friday tubs from Lakeshore Learning. These help keep a girl straight. You see there's not too much "planned" in these tubs since we haven't been to school in what feels like 50 million days.

These are tubs that I use to organize the student leveled readers. They're for winners.

I've always said my classroom looked like a rainbow exploded. It's very colorful and probably way too over-stimulating. Eh. Who cares.

2.) Sharpies, paper clips, and Post-Its. These are all daily essential items.

3.) Related Arts pocket chart. I don't ever know what Related Arts class we have from day to day. It's a confusing rotating monthly schedule that's impossible to keep up with. I'd be lost without this. I mean, really. I'd probably be wandering the hallways with my class in tow completely lost.

4.) My personal laminator! I've blogged about this contraption a few times before. I'm in love with it about as much as my heated blanket.

5.) My beautiful computer. I wish it could come live with me at home.

6.) My microwave and fridge. It's important to have access to food and drinks at all times. This lady likes to eat.

7.) The Cokes that I keep in the above fridge. This is my fuel to get through the day.

8.) ActivBoard. It's an interactive whiteboard. They're pretty great.

9.) Chair pockets. These little lovers have lasted five years so far and they're still going strong. My students keep their supply boxes, journals, and finished work folders in them.

10.) My teaching chair. This is my favorite place because I get to do read-alouds and talk with my kids during our circle times. This is where I laugh a lot because my kids share the funniest stories.

There are so many more things I could add to this list (like my daily planner, cardstock, flashdrive, a glass of wine to drink after I get home from a long day...). You feel me.

Oh, and I like that this little lady gets to come to school with me after hours while I work...