I know Mother's Day has long passed, but since life is a whirlwind at the end of the school year {I know you know what I'm talking about!!}, I didn't get a chance to post about what we did. I adored our gift to our moms this year and the kids loved making it!
Just like last year, we made breakfast in a bag for our moms. I let the kids decorate bags, tie a little poem to it, and the kids filled it with a honey bun, granola bar, water, and a "fancy" napkin. They were so excited to make the bags for their moms! We also included our cards to our moms in the bag. You can grab the card and breakfast in bed poem template here.

The other thing we made for our moms is probably my most favorite thing I've ever made with the kids! I'm not sure where the original idea came from, but this is the pin/source I used for inspiration.

I got some mason jars and spray painted the outside. Then, I painted the kids' hands white and put it on the jar to make a vase {I also sprayed it with clear spray paint to help make it not scratch}. We made some handprint flowers to add to the vase and they could not have turned out cuter!!

In other news, we're working hard on our memory books and getting ready for the end of the year. I don't really do anything too extravagant as far as memory books go, because honestly, things are a little crazy at this point with field days, field trips, AR parties, graduation, etc. Our memory books are super simple and we work on a page or two each day. Then, I'll put them in a 3 prong folder with the same end of the year poem that my first grade teacher gave me and a letter I write to each child. Here are the pages we've done so far.

We still have a way to go and we'll be working on them next week in between field day activities. You can get the memory books in my TpT store.
This is the poem...you can click on the picture to grab them! :)

For those of you already out of school, congrats on another year!! We have 7 more days and although I am super excited about playing with my sweet girl all summer, I am sadder than ever to be losing this class! They truly have my heart! They are so much like me it's not even funny...motivated, competitive, and eager to learn. We've had such a great year!
I'm off to the beach for a long weekend...so thankful for all the men and women who have served our nation!

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Vickie

We haven't been up to much in kindergarten this past week, other than some testing craziness! We were scheduled to take the Stanford 10 all last week then some pretty bad weather came through and had this area flooding and had us in the bathroom in the middle of the night while some tornadoes came close by! So, we got a little off our testing schedule and are having to make it up this week along with a field trip to Gulf World and a field trip to see a play at the local junior college. Sounds fun, right?

{A little flashlight fun in the middle of the night}

In between, we're working on Mother's Day gifts {click here to see what we did last year}, learning about plants {click here to see what we've done in the past}, and getting ready for first grade!
Here are a few of the packs I'll be using to help finish out the year. {Click on the pictures to see more information}.
We'll start our ocean unit next week and we'll use centers from this pack:

I'm working really hard to get EVERYONE super comfortable with digraphs and blends before 1st grade, so I'll be using this pack in small groups and centers also:

We'll work really hard in math to make sure we're super fluent in our math facts within 5 using this pack {my kids love the games in it!}:

Of course, we'll work on our memory books. I make a DVD slide show for all of my families, so our memory books are pretty simple and something the kids can work on while I'm tying up end of the year testing, cumulative folders, etc.

Last, we've been working really hard on distinguishing long vowel sounds from short vowel sounds in pictures and in words we read, so we'll be using my brand new sorting pack. I'm so sad I don't have any pictures of the kids working with it yet! I can't wait to use it in a variety of ways!

 Sorry I've got no fun pictures today, but the good news is, these packs, along with the rest of my store, are on sale Tuesday and Wednesday! TpT is celebrating teachers during teacher appreciation week and offering a discount code also! Go fill up your cart! I know I am!

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Vickie