Lemonade For Sale

We just did another room transformation and I will have to say this is my most favorite of them all!

We had a lemonade stand! There are so many standards and skills covered in this room transformation! The kids learned so much and they had a blast doing it!

First let's talk about the room set up! Of course I have to have my giant @melonheadzillustrating kids! I had them inside my classroom and outside! 

I absolutely love the children cancer clip art! 

Thanks to @orientaltrading for the amazing lemonade stand!

This stand is so easy to put together and it is absolutely so stinking cute!!!!

But I got more then just the lemonade stand from @orientaltrading! I got the table cloths, banners, wall decorations, beachball minis and the sign!

Don't you love these cute tablecloths!!!

Isn't the lemonade sign adorns!! @orientaltrading is amazing!!!!

We learned so much during this unit! We covered goods and services for social studies. We read and learned about lemonade so we focused on nonfiction text and comprehension.  We wrote opinion pieces about which lemonade do we like better pink or yellow. We also wrote how to pieces on how to make lemonade. We made cards using scentos and paint stix and sent them to @stjudeschildrenshospital. 

We also spent a day and learned about Alex's lemonade stand and childhood cancer. Our focus that day was Empathy. We then made lemonade and sold it for 5 cents a glass. All money we raised will be sent to Alex's Lemonade! My kids had a blast making the lemonade! The pitchers from @target dollar spot are perfect for this!

My kids made the lemonade themselves. They worked on following directions and measurement! They also counted the coins and gave change when needed. So they worked on their money skills and counting skills! We had a cute money collector that I found @walmart and decorated it for our stand! 

Did you know that @alexslemonadestand has a curriculum for schools?  Well they do! The book is amazing and it helped my kids understand the importance and reasoning for the lemonade stands. This book allowed them to be more empathetic and understanding about childhood cancer! 

I also made supply buckets for their tables! I found these amazing buckets at Michaels!! 

Of course we had to have yellow mustache lollipops during our unit!!!!!

Here are some more pictures from our unit!

Even our morning message was a lemonade pitcher!

We had special thank you notes for all of those who supported us! They are printed on bright astrobrights paper!

 We made a total of $163.40 from our lemonade stand! We would like to thank Oriental Trading for the amazing lemonade stand and materials as well as All of those who helped us!

May the Fourth Be With You!

One of the best days of the year is May 4th. Star Wars Day!!! The kids love it and you can teach so many standards throughout the day. It is a great day for review!

The one place to get the best Star Wars merchandise for your day is Oriental Trading! They have everything.

To decorate my room for my kids, I got the most amazing tablecloths, table top decorations, buckets  and decorations to hang from the ceiling! 

To finish my room decorating, I got Yoda Easter baskets from Walmart and a BB8 stuffed animal from Walmart! I got these after the holiday on clearance!!!

The baskets from oriental trading are perfect to put goodies in for your kiddos to get at the end of the day. I put in Star Wars Easter eggs from Oriental Trading in one bucket, pencils from and a picture in another bucket and Star Wars fruit snacks in another! The kids loved these treats at the end of the day!

I also sharpened a set of Star Wars pencils and put light saber crayons found at target in the yoda heads at the tables! 

On each table are Star Wars books I found at the @scholasticbookfair. The kids loved reading these throughout the day!

Oriental Trading has a Star Wars paper chain to make! I used it in the hallway for my photo booth and gave the kids the extra links to wear as bracelets!! They absolutely loved it! Another part of the photo booth I got from oriental Trading is a life-size C3PO and R2D2! The kids loved it! Give them the light saber that I also got from Oriental  Trading and the Star Wars photo props and you have a galactic photo booth!!!

Don't you love her mask! She came in with the Chewbacca mask that makes noise as you open your mouth!!!!!

Here are some more pictures of my room! Thank you melonheadz for all of your help! 

We also made a stamp for the day using our silhouette Mint!!

I also found an amazing Star Wars app on my Apple that allows you to take their picture as a Jedi or Princess Leia!!

For an activity that the kids love, we did a directed drawing of Yoda and wrote about whether or not they would want to be Yoda.

Star Wars day is so much fun to do with your kids! They absolutely love it and oriental Trading has so many amazing things available to make this day absolutely amazing.

So from our galaxy to your may the fourth be with you!

Mindfulness and Class Dojo!

Hello all! As you all know I am a class dojo fanatic! I love class dojo! They have been such an amazing group that want to make things better in the classroom for both students and teachers. Their goal is to increase communication between home and school and also to teach the kids about important concepts that will help shape them into productive members of society!

They have worked with both Harvard and Yale to create video series that help mold out students! 

Well.......Today is the day that a new video series is available!! They have brought us videos on growth mindset, perseverance, Empathy, gratitude  and now...............

MINDFULNESS!!!!!!!!!

What is mindfulness? Mindfulness isnunderstandingnwhat is happening right now! It is understanding how and why your body is feeling at the time! You are noticing what is going on around you.
 

 As usual they have a video, discussion questions and activity! I can not wait to share this today with my kids!!!

 

I can not wait to see what mojo and his friends have to say about mindfulness! So click on the picture  below to see the new video!!!!!!!!

Thank you class dojo for once again listening to us and giving us what we asked for!!!!!
 

Kwik Stix at Toys R Us and a Giveaway!

As you all know, I absolutely love Kwik Stix!! These are amazing paint sticks that dry in 90 seconds!! The pictures that your kid make are amazing! So bright and colorful and the best part is they do not make a mess!!! No water needed!!!!!!

 Aren't the colors amazing!!! So bright! 

The best thing is they are now available at Toys R Us!!!!!

So one lucky reader will win a set of these amazing paint stix! Just enter by commenting below to win a set of these amazing paint stix!!!! I will choose a random winner on May 9.

Good luck everyone!!!!!

scento-sational Point of View Writing

I love teaching point of view! This is such a fun topic! There are sooo many amazing storybooks to use when teaching this concept. So for first person point of view I love using interactive storybooks! The two that I used this year are 

And 

These books are amazing! My kids love them and they adore the character, Larry! 

For Don't Push the Button, my kids were asked to identify the point of view it was in as well as make a Larry out of purple paper! They also made a red button snack out of graham crackers, vanilla frosting and a red gummy lifesaver!

For Don't Touch This Book, we discussed point of view again and also discussed first person point of view writing!!!

The kids then did a directed drawing activity of Larry and used Scentos markers to make them into pop art Larrys!!! The smell of these markers are amazing and the kids were so excited to be able to use these markers!!! Then they wrote a story in first person or from Larrys point of view and got to trace their writing with Scentos gel pens!! You would have thought they won the lottery!! Using Scentos made them take their time and take pride in their work because these are special writing tools!!! 

So if you are looking for some tools that will make your kiddos want to write then Scentos is your tool! The great news is that Scentos are now found at Michaels!!!!!! A combination of amazing storybooks and Scentos will make any lesson amazing and one to remember!!!