Zoo Day

This week was a crazy one! On Tuesday, we helped put Bibles together. The church affiliated with the school had a goal of printing, assembling and shipping 1 million Spanish Bibles all over the world. They surpassed their goal! It was fun to work on this with them. They did such a great job. :) 

Now, for zoo day! This was the very next day so we had a busy two days. I borrowed Christianna's zebra print scarf for the occasion. :)

A sort-of-zooish Wonder, Draw, and Tell page. 

I even found some zoo themed silly bands a couple days before to give out to well-behaved students. 

The highlight of our day . . . a lady from the zoo coming! And bringing animals, of course. The kids were so incredibly excited they could barely contain themselves! :)

We picked the topic of the five senses for her to talk about. She used Mr. Potato Head to demonstrate. She was really good with the kids. 

Her first visitor, Goblin, some kind of owl. Goblin is full grown. (I'm thankful for the paper she held underneath.)

Mr. Potato Head just watching everything. 

She talked about how the owl has great vision but not very good hearing . . . I think. Lol I even learned some stuff! I was impressed that Lauren K. knew what nocturnal meant. We sure didn't teach her that!

They got to pet the bottom of the owl's tail. They were so ecstatic about this . . . well most of them. :)

We even got to see Goblin flap his (or her?) wings!

Her next guest, an alligator by the name of Keystone. Now, I wasn't too fond of Keystone. And neither were some of the kids . . . more than Goblin of course. 

 Joshua seems a little afraid but I believe that he touched it in the end. 

Here she is talking about the alligator's senses. 

 A view from way in back. 

Jack touching the nasty thing. :) 

 I made the alphabet out of zebra and leopard print felt. These were fun! 

 :) 

Yes, this was a forced smile because I had to take a second picture. Lol. 

I found this cool owl template online that you can type in whatever you wanted it to say. Perfect for thank you notes. :) 

 Jared playing with my monkey learning game . . . or "Ba Ba Monkey" as he calls it. Surprisingly, he asks to play it quite a bit. :) 

 Silly boys! 

Well, I hope you enjoyed our zoo day, cuz I did! It was so much fun and the kids loved it! It is so fun to work with such energetic children. :) 

Dr. Seuss's Fox in Socks!

Dr. Seuss's birthday is next week, I believe. Therefore, we are decorating our classroom all Dr. Seuss-like. :) The bulletin board I put up was quite the process so I thought I would document it here. Enjoy!

So, first I wrote all the kiddo's names on clothespins to hang up their sock that they color. 

Next, I had my sweet boyfriend help me cut the socks out. This was on Valentine's Day, mind you. Did I mention he is sweet? :)

Here is all of the socks cut out! 

 Next step . . . Draw the fox. Now this seems simple, especially when you have talented artist friends like I do. However, after Montana drew the fox, I majorly butchered it by "tracing" the line. Obviously I didn't trace something right. Lol. Yes, it looks slightly devilish. After realizing something was wrong, I was like, "Guys, what did I do wrong?" They both started laughing hysterically  We figured out that I colored the opposite part black. Lol. It was hilarious, I just wasn't sure what we were going to do about it. 

Alas, Montana to the rescue! She had the brilliant idea of cover Mr. Fox's eyes up with white paper and correcting the problem. 

 Here she is trying so diligently to make the wrong become right, or at least decent. 

So, here is what we came up with. Now, I still wasn't too sure if it looked normal, but we shall see. 

Some of my P.E. girls helped me out by gluing the socks onto green paper and cutting them out. I greatly appreciated that! :) 

All of the socks and mess!

So, after I got everything up there, I don't think it turned out half bad. :) In fact, I even like it! 

Here's a bulletin board the Miss Baker did. 

I'm sure you will see more posts about Dr. Seuss's birthday shortly! As for this week, it is insanely busy. We put Spanish Bibles together to ship all over the world today. Tomorrow, the zoo is coming to our classroom. And on Friday and Monday, Miss Baker is going to be gone. Which means (gasp!) that I am teaching everything. Although, it will be nice because she won't be evaluating me. :) Have a great week! 

The Best Valentine's Day Ever!

Well, my Valentine's Day was probably the best one I have ever had! I just love being a teacher on days like these. And being a girlfriend isn't so bad either. :) Here are some highlights of my day plus something at the end to brighten your day. :) 

These first couple were taken the day before Valentine's Day. Here are our tables all set out for the next day. 

Miss Baker's cute heart rug. :)

 Our classroom all decorated for the next day. 

Some hearts on the chalkboard. 

 A heart reward box. If they are obeying, they get to draw a heart out of this box, which have different rewards on them such as a sticker, an M & M, get a drink, etc. 

Streamers on our door. 

Can't forget the Valentine's Day candy! 

Their heart name tags filled with their heart stickers. This is a competition to see who can get the most stickers from behaving at bathroom break. 

Making my Valentine's for the kiddos! :)

My darling boyfriend helping me. :) 

All of my finished cards! Those took a while but they were worth it. :) 

 Making my packages of "bear hugs!" :) I didn't get a picture of her, but thanks to Christianna for her help!

 Can't forget the heart shaped, strawberry flavored marshmallows for my kiddos! They loved them. :) 

 Here is my finished product! I put Teddy Grahams and gummy bears inside and then attached a card that said something about bear hugs and a personal note to each child/teacher. :) They all kept asking me what they said. Lol :) 

All of my valentines! :)

It's finally Valentine's Day! One comment was, "This is the best day ever!" And I think I agree. They were hyper from the moment they entered the door but they behaved very well for the circumstances. I taught 3 lessons today and they all went well. My advisor, Mrs. Avery, even came to observe me and graded me very well! :) 

Eating our Valentine's Day snack! They were so excited they could barely eat! :)

Silly faces! :) 

Cute kids! :) 

:)

They were so excited! Can you tell?!

:)

They all made their boxes at home and brought them to school. They turned out so good! :) 

Miss Baker's messy desk. :)

Sorting out the many valentines! 

Macey's cute owl box!

Noah's awesome Angry Birds box! :)

 Some of my valentines wouldn't fit in their boxes. Lol.

 Loved Bailey's castle! :)

More boxes!

 Jared, such a sweet boy. :) Every time he would ask me who the valentines were from, he would tell them thank you right away!

 All of their boxes and some of our extra balloons! 

 The teachers' bags. :)

Sweet Riley and the flower she made for me. :) She said, "We even both have glasses!" :)

A couple of kids got roses from their parents. 

 Messy valentines!

 They just loved looking at all of their valentines! :)

 Crazy fun! I love the camo box. Makes me think of my bro. :)

They could hardly contain their excitement! (Or stay in their seats. :))

Yummy cookies Miss Baker made. :) 

They loved the streamers. They kept saying they were going through a car wash. Ha!

I loved Bailey's hair! :) 

 Well, after the exciting school day was over, I took a nap then went to work. Josh brought us some City Barbeque for our date. Even though we couldn't go anywhere, it was very nice. :) 

 My tasty sandwich. :) 

 My handsome valentine and I. :)

 He brought me some chocolate cake for dessert. It was very tasty! :)

 I think he is a "saucy" man! Ha!

 The photo book I made him. He said that he loved it so I'm guessing he did. :)

 The looooooooong letter Josh wrote me. It was the sweetest thing I have read in my entire life. I definitely teared up. :) 

 All my valentines from my class! Finally got to look at them all. :) So sweet!

It was an excellent day! I loved it so much! I have so many special people in my life and I'm so glad that I got to spend the day with some of them. :) As promised, here is something to brighten your day. Every year, Miss Baker asks her students the question, "What is love?" As you can imagine, these answers are very cute and hilarious. So, here are this years responses. :)
Love is...
"Special" (Lauren L.)
"Mom and Dad" (Abby)
"Caring for people" (Bailey)
"Something God sends" (Macey)
"Liking someone" (Jack)
"I don't really know but it's good." (Luke)
"When you find a pretty girl!" (Jared)
"Something everyone can do." (Riley)
"Something that tells you what to do." (Anna)
"Being kind." (Chloe)
"Well, it's kind of confusing..." (Lauren K.)
"Something you have in your heart." (Joshua)
"Forgiving." (Veer)
"Family." (Keaton)
"Liking someone." (Noah)
"Giving kisses." (Ryan)
"Being happy." (William)
"When you spend time with someone every day and when you can't, you want to." (Cody)
"Kissing people. But really you should just kiss your Mom and Dad." (Isaac)

I hope those brightened your day, cuz they did mine! I does give me something to think about though. What is love? 1 Corinthians 13 has a pretty good definition. :)