Big Post! {Five for Friday Linky}

Hey bloggers!

You're in for a big post tonight! It has been quite the week for my firsties :)

I'm joining in with Kacey over at Doodle Bugs for her Five for Friday Linky!

{1.}On Monday, we had our field trip! We went to the zoo and then to the park. I was nervous at first because Sunday night we were in a tornado watch and they were calling for scattered storms on Monday...but it ended up being a beautiful day! We were so lucky! :)

We started our zoo trip with a class! They brought out 2 salamanders, a tarantula (yikes!), a chinchilla, and an armadillo. At the end, all of the kids got to pet the armadillo! It was very cool and they learned a lot! Then they went off with their groups to explore the zoo.

Next, the groups all met back up to walk over to the park to have lunch and then to play! The park tends to be extremely crazy because so many schools play there before or after their zoo trip. This day was no exception...but the kids loved it! Then we got ready to head back to school. It was an awesome day! Here are a few of my favorite animal pictures from the zoo!

There was 1 mommy tiger (rolling around) and 4 baby tigers. Cute! The wallaby was hopping freely in the Australia (fenced in) area. I was walking along the path and it came hopping around the corner at me...it was natural reaction for me to run the other way until I realized how little it was and that it was okay for it to be out of a cage! Haha. And of course we headed to the Africa area to see the giraffe, zebra, & lions!

{2.} On Tuesday, a parent brought in some animals of her own! She works as a vet at the zoo we went to on Monday and has taken in some animals as her own. She brought in a snake, a lizard, and a tortoise! The kids thought it was pretty awesome when she fed the tortoise a banana...but not so awesome when the tortoise used the bathroom (we were so glad she brought a tarp to put down over our carpet!). It was another exciting day. We had read a few books about turtles and tortoises so the kids had a lot of questions for her!

{3.} The weather here has been pretty nice since all of the rain went away! Hubs and I went for a walk Thursday night, played some frisbee golf at the park by our house, and then went to see the new Star Trek movie (loved it!...call us nerds, we're fine with it!). We have a lot of wooded areas around our house so there are always deer! When we were playing frisbee golf, we were able to get pretty close to some of them! They have about zero fear when it comes to being around people at the park.

{4.} On Friday, we had "Fun Day" at our school! It's a normal morning (well, kind of...it's more of a cleaning morning) and then the students get to play games, eat treats, etc using the tickets that they have earned over the last few weeks (for positive behavior, attitudes, work ethic, etc). It was a good day! Here are a few pictures from our afternoon! Some of the activities were: bags, dancing, popcorn, nail painting, face painting, tattoos, parachute, bubbles, obstacle course, and freeze pops!

{5.} And last this week, I have been working on cleaning up my room! Our classrooms are completely carpeted, which is nice most of the time, but is frustrating over the summer. Each summer they clean the carpets. I know, you're thinking "that's nice of them, why are you complaining?". Well, in order to clean the carpets, they move EVERYTHING to one side of the room and then a few weeks later move everything to other side to clean the carpet there. When we go to school in the fall, the rooms are destroyed and don't get put back. It's really frustrating to have to move all of the furniture & items back each fall. I'm trying really hard to get everything into closed, organized containers so that things don't get lost/broken. I dread walking into the room in August when I'm 7 months pregnant to see what kind of work I have ahead of me! Blah. I've also started changing a few things for next year! I've revamped my word wall a bit and I'm adding a math word wall to the front of the room. Here are a few in progress pics!

This is the new word wall. I start each year with kindergarten "bubble gum words" on it so those will be added later! The circle alphabet cards are new :) You can find the link to them below!

TpT    or    TN

This is the new board area in the front of the room (next to the SMARTboard). We do calendar every day on the smartboard, but I like to have the calendar up all day for them to see as well. (Link to rectangle polka dot number cards TpT or TN) I have started making some cards for our math word wall next year...{download them} and let me know what you think!

I have students for a half day on Tuesday and then I have in-service on Wednesday before my summer starts!...And then on Friday we have a baby appointment to FIND OUT THE GENDER OF BABY J!!!! Ahhhh, I'm so excited!! :)

Have a great weekend!

And don't forget to check out my husband's blog for some great ideas on how to incorporate technology into a middle school or junior high classroom!