Last Day of School!

Here are the pictures from the last day of school. We all had a blast eating pizza and tearing down Mrs. Crull's room!

The classroom BEFORE I cleaned up the mess!

The classroom AFTER I cleaned up the mess!

I will miss you all! Check back here whenever you want to reminisce about old times, or see what my new class is doing! :)

Have a great summer and school year next year!
(ya, I know...I am posting this right before school starts, but I do hope you had a good summer! :-)

Picnic Pictures Part 1

After the Awards Program, and our class reception, we all went outside and had a class picnic! It was a BEAUTIFUL day! We all had a great time! My husband and boys were also able to come.

Here are some pictures from that special day.

I am so blessed to have a supportive family who loves spending time here at NPE. We love being a part of the lives of my students and the community!

Picnic Pictures Part 2

I think I have a picture of my class in this tree every year!
Poor Tree!

My WONDERFUL class!
I'll miss you all! :)

Scrap Books

One thing that I have been doing for a couple of years, is to have my kids make a scrap book. All year long we keep our writing projects, drawings, pictures I have taken, and so on, in a folder. Then at the end of the year, I laminate everything and bind it for them to take home on the last day of school. This year, I did it a little differently. After the awards program, I had a little reception for my kids and their parents to come back to the classroom and get their Reading Counts awards and scrap books. This was an awesome experience, because in the past, I didn't get to see the joy the scrap books bring to the kids and their parents. It was really cool seeing everyone sitting and looking through their scrap books, and remembering all the fun times we have had, and how far they have come in a year.

This was my favorite memory of this year! :)

Brannon's Day at School

On one of the last days of school, Brannon came with me to school to practice what it will be like to go to "big school". He will be starting kindergarten in the fall. Thank you to all the sweet kids in my class who spent extra time playing with Brannon, and just being his friend! That means a lot to me as a teacher and a Mommy! :) He had a ball that day and felt so big!

The Night at the Museum

Here are the pictures I took of everyone who came to see The Night at the Museum. We had fun! I just wish I had taken more pictures! :) I plan on doing this again in Oct.? when Where the Wild Things Are comes out.

So watch and see when we plan on going and you can join us! :)

Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian

Class/Family Night to see:

Night at the Museum:
Battle of the Smithsonian

When: Friday, May 22 @ 7:00
Where: Kerasotes Theaters on Washington Street
Dinner: McDonald's (New Pal) @ 5:30ish

Don't forget this is not a school sponsored trip; just something that I thought would be fun to do together. All families will be responsible for their own dinner and tickets to the movie. :)

Please let me know if you plan to attend so that we can all try to sit together! Also, since this is opening weekend of the movie, we should probably be at the theater no later than 6:30.

See you Friday! :)

Our Top 3 Insects

This morning, our rookie entomologists showed off their insect "discoveries" and read about them to the class. Everyone did an EXCELLENT job on their insect creations!

Here are the top three insects the class voted to be the best.

#1 - The Wacky Yellow or Green Inflatable Intertube Bug
Discovered by Evan


#2 - The Weezle Beetle
Discovered by Gabby


#3 - The Brickbug
Discovered by Matthew T.

This afternoon

And the rain came down...

With all the rain this afternoon, we had an early recess (we had spent about 2 hours in the computer lab after lunch finishing up our insect project...they did an excellent job!).

Below are the kids who were very excited about putting together all the "puzzle piece game thingy"! Good job!

After recess they watched an episode of Prehistoric Park that about insects that lived back in prehistoric time. They/I love the Prehistoric Park series! It is made by the same people who made the Walking with Dinosaurs series. Thanks Brannon and Alex for letting us barrow it! This is one of their FAVORITE things to watch.

Here are the kids watching the movie. They were completely engrossed in it! :)

Here is the insect I created. It is called the "Idea Sucking Fly". Unfortunately, we seem to have an infestation of them in our class at times! ;)

Insect Creations

We have been studying insect. (this is one of my favorite units :-) We have learned what makes an insect an insect, how insects adapt to their surroundings, what kind of life cycle do different insects go through, etc. One activity I always do with my class is to create an insect. I encourage them to be creative! I told them to think about things that happen at school, home, or even the bus, that you could explain by creating an insect that did it. For example, "What causes all our things that we tape up in the hallway to fall down?" or "What causes every one's pencil led to break off in the pencil sharpener?" Yesterday they wrote about their insect (where it lives, what it eats, who are its enemies, and 3 interesting facts) and typed everything up on the computers. Today, they created their insect using all kinds of things, from sticks and pipe cleaners to aluminum foil and googly eyes. They all turned out REALLY well!

Here are some pictures of the kids making their insects.
I am going to have the kids choose who's insect project is the best, and post the top 5!