Our $chool $aving$ Program

Does your school have a savings program? One of our local banks has started a savings program where one of their workers comes to our school once a week. The students can deposit 25 cents or more into their account. I like the program because I think it's important to teach kids how to save and not to spend their money so fast.

Each year this bank holds a contest that is open to all the students who bank. They are to write an essay about "What I would do if I had a million dollars." The winner gets to have one million dollars put into their savings account for one day. At the end of the day that money is taken out and the child gets to keep what ever interest was earned that day. It usually is close to $50.00 that they get to keep.  This year the student from our school is in my room. She was delighted and excited. Here are some pictures below of her excitement.

She is treated like royalty. The bank gets a limo and picks the 5 kids up and drives them around in this all day!
(I want to win sometime!) 

We can see the LIMO coming around the corner.

We are oh so excited!

It's SO Big!

Check out that door!

She got a new shirt and balloons too. 

They really made her feel special.

She looks like a princess waiting for her prince charming!

The kids all wanted to go now!

And she is off!

They went to 4 other schools and picked up other winners, then on to Pizza Hut, Bowling, Dairy Queen and then to the bank to meet the President and see the vault!

Patty

Math Movers May Be For YOU!

At this time of year my kids (and I) are tired of sitting around. 

I found Deana Kahlenberg's Math Movers Spring edition 

to be just what they we needed!

(I took this picture on my floor so I could show you the cover of it.)

I set it up in the hallway on a bulletin board. 

(Don't anyone mention about how crooked the word Moving is!)

I backed them with a colored paper so they 

would pop off the bulletin board a little better.

Here is a sample of what some of the pages look like.

I was ready to set my kids to work! I allowed 4 to

 go into the hallway at a time to work on this. 

With a white board in hand as a hard surface to 

write on, they were set to go!

When I checked on them later, this is what I found!

So far my kids love this. 

Plus it makes my room at least 4 children 

quieter when they are in the hallway!

If you are interested in picking this up for yourself, 

just go to Deana's TPT Store and you can get one too!

It just may be the thing to help YOU (and your kids) 

make it through to the end of the year.

Patty

Join My School Shirt Linky Party

This is just a quick post because I have WAY too many other things to do tonight. . .

I didn't say "other more fun things." 

Just other things that I need to do instead of playing on my blog . . . .

Which I love to do. . . 

Which I will sorely miss. . . .

So here's my idea. . . 

Dig out your favorite school  shirt and share it here. You can just display a photo of the shirt, or you can give a little description of why your shirt looks the way it does. 

Maybe it's a shirt from this year, but maybe it's an older version. Which ever it is. . . Tell us about it.

Here's my shirt for this year.

We had the kids brainstorm words that represented our school. Then we narrowed that list down to the words that you see here. We used Wordle to make the design. Each student now owns a shirt that our PTO paid for. We also allowed them to buy sweatshirts on their own.

We keep our school shirts in our classrooms all year long (we order them in the fall). We wear them for any group gatherings or if we have to go someplace as a group. It makes it so much easier to locate our kids if they look alike.  On the last day of school they get to take them home. 

I'd love to see what your school shirts look like. Run to your closet and take a picture of your shirt, either on your body or not.  Click on the linky below and add your name to the list. Feel free to grab the linky button above if you want to share this on your blog. 

The linky button uses fonts and backgrounds by Christina Bainbridge,

frame by Lisa Parnello, and stars by Creative Clips

Educational Aides Appreciation Week

At our school we always do an Educational Aide's Appreciation Week either right before Teacher's Appreciation Week or after.

You may call yours ParaPros or something else, but whatever you call them, you know they are very valuable and probably aren't getting paid for all that they do. So we team up in our building and two teachers take one day during the week to do something special for all 8 of our EA's. (There jobs are library aide, kindergarten aide, title one aides, playground aides, lunchroom aides, and most also help in the classroom too.)

This year we had the kids decorate diecut hands. It's a great way to use up all those last bits of sequins, pom poms, etc that you have left over from something else.

)

The kids brainstormed adjectives that described each of these ladies and we wrote those words on the back of the hands.

Next I glued some ribbon on some clay pots and tied bows on them.

Then I hot glued Popsicle sticks or skewers to each hand.  I put some green floral foam in the bottom of each pot and stuck the sticks in it. I also put some green shredded raffia in to make it look like grass!

I used my Cricut to make name tags for each person. 

WA-LA! Now they are done!

 Do you do something to celebrate the tons that those staff members do for you? I'd love to hear about it. 

I just posted a freebie on TPT that you might want to grab especially if your year is coming to an end SOON!

I don't think the preview is very clear, so I wanted 

you to be able to see it here.

I give each child a mini flashlight on the last day of school to encourage them to read all summer long. It's a lot of fun to read under a blanket or in a dark room and many of my kids don't have a flashlight to call their own. Please grab one of these to use for your kids. (You'll be able to put your own name in the wooden sign at the bottom of the page!)

Patty

A Sale, A Gift, and a Give Away, OH MY!

Have you been shopping so much that you have forgotten to look at some of the giveaways? Well, this is your reminder to check out  Hello Mrs. Sykes!

Her giveaway ended up so big that she spread it out over a few days. Tomorrow is the day you could win this

from me! It's my Words in Context activity. I find that my kids needed lots of practice figuring out what new words meant. By using this they can try it out before they actually get tested on it.

If you don't want to wait to win it, you can get it at my TPT store and it's on SALE today and tomorrow. . . as is EVERYTHING in there!

Don't forget to read my feedback below in my most recent posting. IF it is your comments, you can leave me your email in the comments section. You get to choose a gift of anything from my store and you get it for FREE! Check it out!

Happy Shopping!
Patty

Did You Leave Me Feedback? You Could Be A WINNER!

It's time to celebrate all the teachers of the world. 

Without you, where would the children of the world be? 

I've always said that sports figures, doctors, lawyers, etc, got where they are 

because a teacher helped them along the way. . . . 

However, sports figures, doctors, and lawyers, (among other professions) 

make a heck of a lot more in a paycheck than teachers do. 

 To celebrate YOU a sale is being held in YOUR honor. 

Go to my TPT Store  find what you want and don't forget 

to put the code in at the end. The code is TAD13. 

That will get you the full 28% off. 

I hope you find something you really want!

I'm also joining Christina Bainbridge and celebrating some great feedback on my TPT Store. When someone takes the time to tell me how they truly feel about my products, it helps me make future products that appeal to you. I have chosen 3 people who left me good constructive comments. If they recognize their name, they need to contact me and I will let them choose something of their choice in my store. 

If you recognize a name, you may contact them and tell them to contact me.

Christmas Whisperings

Verb Tenses

Snownouns

Thanks for stopping by my blog today and I hope you come back again. Remember that leaving a good piece of feedback is appreciated and every once in a while, you just might get rewarded for it!

P.S. I'd like to give credit for the sign, frames, and stars used in this post. 

Patty

Multicultural Day in Our Little Town

Friday was our Multicultural Day and it was so informational. Well, it was FUN too, but I wasn't sure if I was supposed to admit that we have fun enjoyable times in school!

This is something we do every year in our building. If you want to read about last year you can click HERE. I didn't share any pictures, but that's because I was such a newbie. Today I have pictures for you.

We are a small town of about 10,000 people, yet we are able each year to find many people from around the world who are happy to come and share their cultures with us.

 First we all decorate outside our classrooms. This is for England.

This is for Armenia. We couldn't find a lot about  this country except that this is where Noah's Ark was found after the great flood! We had 2 students from our  high school exchange program who talked about Armenia.

The guest from Netherlands was here to share many things with us.

If you look through the Euro (the money they use) you can see other pictures in it.

Tulips are from Holland in the Netherlands. She told us that when the people were hungry during WWII they would eat the Tulip bulb. You can also eat the petals of the tulips. . . I learned something new!

India was very cool! This guest set up 4 stations to rotate through. One for snacks from India, one for trying on the jewelry, one for getting painted or tattooed, and one for writing their names in India letters. 

 You can't see it very well, but they do have dots painted on their foreheads!

She even brought lots of outfits for her helpers to wear!

 

Mexico is very important to us because about  40% of our school is Hispanic.

This room was for Dominica  in the morning.

And it was for the country of Tonga in the afternoon.

She showed us the many things that are from Dominica.

By the end of the day we all have jet lag, but oh did we learn a lot today!

Patty