A little bit of this and a little bit of that

Thought #1

Now that my cubs have left for 1st grade, I am going to figure out this whole blog thing. I just finished a class that I thought would teach me how to upload and manage my blog the way I want. However, that is NOT what the class was about. So, I am back to square one. I have enlisted the aid of my niece, Sweet Tart, who is a blogger and hopefully she will get me all figured out (I should say her blog is  Happily Ever After Take 2).

                  (So, as you can tell from the picture, I figured out how to post pictures. Yay for me! )

Thought #2

This is a picture of my classroom on the last day. I am very fortunate to have a large room.I have two entrances and share a Jack and Jill bathroom with my pal Mrs. Magnuson.Last year it was all about bears in my room. This coming year it will be, "Wild about Kindergarten!" My outgoing cubs agreed this was a good choice as long as "Baxter", my bear, would still be part of the mix.

Thought #3

One of the great things about teaching in Vegas is the wonderful freebies that come our way. A couple of weeks ago, one of my colleagues invited my children and me to a once in a lifetime event. We had the opportunity to go see a preview of Madagascar 3. The event was two days before it was released to the general public. The event was sponsored by Hewlett Packard and Dream Works for one of our Elementary Schools. Because they had more seats available, other district employees were also invited to attend with their children. We started with a "kid" friendly buffet at the Venetian Hotel and Casino. As we were finishing up dinner, a very special guest dropped by for a few photos.

Poor Alex, I am not sure he left with all his teeth. When everyone settled down, we were escorted into a huge conference room where we all found popcorn, soda, and candy on our seats. Soon another special guest was welcoming us to the movie, Jeffery Katzenberg, President and CEO of Dream Works. After he had some fun with the kiddos, the movie started. Let me say, I LOVED the movie. It was the best of the three. Since my husband wasn't there, we will be going to see the movie again and maybe again.

Final Thought

I love doing bulletin boards! One of my favorite this year was my April/May board. We were studying butterflies and this is the board I made.

All of my monthly boards feature "Baxter" and then something my cubs made. This board  had a boarder of mosaic butterflies and a large tree with our caterpillars' chrysalis gently stapled to a branch. Inside the "chrysalis" was a caterpillar each student made from clothes pins and pom poms. On the day our real butterflies came out of their chrysalis, we took down our paper bag chrysalis to see if anything happened. Never have I seen paper bags treated so gently. When we were all seated on the carpet, my cubs all opened their chrysalis together. Inside, were butterflies (I should tell you they were giant gummy butterflies). One of my favorite comments was, "how did that happen?" I simply stated, the magic of Kindergarten! Some ate their butterflies right away, but the majority put them in their back packs to "keep forever."
 It was an interactive board my cubs will never forget. This was also the day my little ones figured out I wasn't going to first grade with them when one of my little girls asked me if we could do this again next April.:( So sad when I had to tell her I wasn't going with them to 1st grade.

So, that's it for now!   Patti