Thanksgiving Fun! :)

So yay for Thanksgiving Break!  :)  I'm always ready for one when the time comes!  :)
We started off the week with our Thanksgiving Friendship Feast on Monday.  I cooked the bird on Sunday and we were ready to go.  Everyone remembered to bring what they were supposed to and I had a lot of fabulous parent volunteers.  It was so much easier with their help.  We set up the food on the counter and then I called up groups of kids to fill their plates.  Our lunch tables were set up in the hallway for the students to go sit at.  They took their Native American paper placemats that they weaved and their headbands and were all set.  While the other students were waiting for food they watched Garfield's Thanksgiving.  Here are some photos from our feast.  :)

The bird, before I cut it all up.  

Lining up to get food.  

Feasting away.

Here are my November bulletin boards for the month.
First up is the pumpkin cut paper craft I got a LONG time ago that we do every couple years or so and a pumpkin acrostic poem.

 Here is a turkey glyph that we found somewhere online last year and it turned out cute and the kids wrote either a turkey story or what they were doing for Thanksgiving to go with it.

       

Here is the wall outside my room where I put the class writing we did together.  Here is our class how-to article on How to Make a Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich.

Also as I'm sure you know TPT is having an after Thanksgiving sale Monday + Tuesday.  Teacher's Notebook is having one Saturday through Monday.  So stop by either of my shops to pick up my Treasures units for up to 28% off.  :)  Below you will find the button that the fabulous 3AM Teacher made to link up to the TPT sale.  Click below to go to my stores.  Have a wonderful Thanksgiving and fun shopping (either in store or online)!  :)

 

Crazy Week & Silhouette contest

So this week started off not great for me, as my mom called me Sunday evening to tell me that they rushed my dad to the hospital in the early hours of the morning.  She didn't call earlier because she knew that we were going to the circus, typical of my mom.  She said that my dad's heart was racing and wouldn't slow down so he told her to call the paramedics that he thought he should go to the hospital (thank goodness my dad is not afraid to do that sort of thing).  Now some background info on my dad, he is 70 years old and has had 2 open heart surgeries.  One 30 years ago when I was a toddler and one 5 years ago.  Luckily he's been fine.  The other thing that is always scary for me is the fact that he is the first one in his immediate family to make it to 70.  His parents and 2 of his siblings did not.  So like I said, yay for Dad not being afraid to go to the doctor/hospital.  My mom said that once they got to the hospital they tried to give him some medicine to slow it down, but it didn't work so they had to shock his heart.  The first shock didn't work, so they shocked him again and then he was fine after that.  All of this happened at like 3AM.  She said not to worry because he was fine and they'd just been sitting around all day at the hospital.  He was scheduled to get a defibrillator put in the next day so if that happened again, it would shock his heart without needing to go to the hospital.  Then she asked me to call all of my siblings (I have 4 of them) to tell them.  Yay me.  lol  So I conference called them because I didn't want to make that call 4 times.  Thank goodness for my family.  I'm very lucky to have them and that we are close to each other and don't live far away from each other.  The surgery was supposed to be very minor and would be in the afternoon.  So I went to work and got through the day (happy to have the distraction) and left immediately after school to rush to the hospital.  My eldest sister had texted me when he went into surgery and I was getting a little nervous that I hadn't gotten a text saying he was out yet because it had been 2 hours.  I met my older sister in the parking lot and she showed me where everyone was waiting (my eldest sister, my younger sister, and my mom).  I was there maybe 10 minutes and then the doctor came out saying the surgery was done, it went well, and that my dad was cracking jokes though half of it (he's sedated, but awake), so my dad.  My sisters were teasing me that I came at the tail end when they had been there for hours.  So then they wheeled my dad back to his room and he was still cracking jokes.  The doctor said that as far as he could tell on his end, everything was fine, and he'd be discharged the following day.  Relief, let me tell you.  So Tuesday I call my mom during lunch to ask when they were letting him go and she said they weren't.  His kidney levels weren't where they really wanted them to be.  They assumed it was because of the dye they had to put in during the surgery and that they just need to put another i.v. in to flush his system of it and then he'd be able to go home the following day.  So again after school I headed to the hospital to give my parents some company (my dad was starting to get stir crazy and was taking it out on my mom) and a break from the sameness.  Wednesday I called again and this time he was signed off by all of his doctors that he was good to go and went home.  Now I always go to my parents house on Wednesdays for dinner.  It started out 5 years ago after his open heart surgery.  It happened during the summer and I was pretty much with my dad from morning until my mom got home so he wouldn't be alone.  My mom worked 2 jobs so I didn't like him by himself all of that time.  My siblings would come at times too so I could get a break and do things in my classroom.  When school started I was going there everyday after school to hang out with him until my mom got home.  Then finally last October my mom quit her 2nd job.  My parents didn't want me to just stop coming though, so I cut it down to Wed. and Sat. evenings.  So anyway, my dad looked good, just tired, and we're all happy he is home.  He is sore, but good.  So thank Heaven for that.  Luckily my class was pretty good for me (I had told them my dad was in the hospital).  It was a very long week though.
Now onto more fun things (thank you for letting me get the above off my chest).
All week I have also been getting everything ready for our Thanksgiving Feast for Monday.  Every year the 2nd grade, as part of our social studies unit, has a real Thanksgiving Feast.  Us teachers cook and provide the turkey and the classroom families sign up to donate the rest.  We ask for mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, stuffing, corn, green beans, biscuits, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, juice, plates, napkins, and silverware.  Of course everyone signs up to bring juice boxes, plates, and napkins.  lol  I bought my turkey on Tuesday night so it would be thawed out for me to cook this weekend, a nice 16.5 lb bird.  Wednesday enough of my class brought back things to have everything on the list covered.  Thank goodness for those fantastic families that say, "whatever you need."  For Art of the Week the students weaved paper placemats for the feast and made either a Pilgrim hat or Native American headband to wear for the feast.  It's a very cute affair and so good because it's amazing to me how many students haven't ever tried a lot of those foods.  They are more willing to try it here because their friends are eating it or brought it.  Then they find out they like it!  So it should be fun and my house will smell great tomorrow.  :)
Last night I went out with friends and saw Breaking Dawn part 2.  I think my heart was beating a mile a minute near the end of that movie, but wow.  That's all I will say it.
Today I plan on baking Shirley Temple cupcakes that I found on pinterest for a princess party that my younger sister, niece, and I are having for the premiere of the new Disney princess movie that is coming out tomorrow, Sofia the First.  We are having a princess themed premiere party so that should be fun.  :)
I'm going to leave you with a contest that Silhouette America is having for people to win a new Silhouette Cameo.  Just go to www.silhouetteamerica.com/santa and you can do your own letter to Santa asking for one.  Below is my letter.  I hope I'm one of the three winners!!!  :)

Slacker

I'm a total slacker when it comes to this blog.  There has been so much stuff going on and usually I'm too tired at night to come on and blog about what's been happening.  Major kudos to all of those bloggers who blog daily and make all of those things for TPT.  I have no idea how you do it.  I was such a slacker that I even missed the Monthly Made-It for this month, the first time since I started blogging that I didn't do it.  Well I'm taking the time now to catch you up on what's been happening.

So we went to the CAFE workshop by The 2 Sisters and it was of course, wonderful!!  They are great speakers, so fun to listen to.  They were also great about explaining everything and showing examples. I knew everyone at my whole table because there were 6 of us from my school who went and then 3 from my old school that I taught at before my school was built.  We had a great time all together.  Going to their workshop, we kept joking throughout the day, as like being at Oprah's Favorite Things episode.  They'd be talking about something and then they'd be like, "and you're all getting one!"  We walked out with a whole bag full of great things.  It was definitely motivating, but of course there has been no time to sit down and implement everything we want to do from that workshop.  Maybe this upcoming in-service day I'll have a chance.  We'll see. If you do Daily 5 or CAFE and can get a chance to see them, definitely do.  You won't be disappointed!  :)

Moving on to Halloween.  We celebrated Halloween on the Friday before, which was FABULOUS!  Parade, party, then weekend.  My teammates an I were Super Teachers, an idea I found through Classroom Freebies.  I linked to it in a previous post.  It was fun dressing up together and we got so many compliments.

The kids loved it too.  We had a great party with a Halloween sugar cookie decorating and eating station, a trick-or-treat counter where the kids filled up goodie bags, Pass the Pumpkin (like hot potato), Pumpkin Buckets (like Bozo buckets), and a spider web craft.  

Even though the day is always hectic and crazy, I love seeing the costumes my kids dress up in and how excited they are about everything.  I had great parent helpers so it was a big success and pretty much cleaned up for me by the end of the day.  

Last weekend I did my bi-annual (is that a thing?  I go twice a year lol) scrapbooking weekend.  I took off on Friday and went to a conference room in a hotel for a scrapping weekend with this group of ladies who put it together.  We go to the same place every time and there's anywhere from 10 to 13 of us.  My friend and I found it by accident.  Her husband had found a flyer about it at work and asked her if it would be something we'd want to do.  We went and now 3 years later we're still going.  :)  This was our 6th time.  I always get a ton of pages done.  We only scrap Friday and Saturday.  I usually have too much school stuff to get ready to do it Sunday too.  This year I also brought my teacher's manual along so I could get 3 more packs ready for tpt.  I did one Friday before I started scrapping and one Saturday before scrapping and let me tell you I was very happy to have the time to get them done.  I'm trying to keep ahead.  I'm hoping to get more done over Thanksgiving break but we'll see if that happens or not.  They take me 3 hours to do one pack, so I don't usually have 3 uninterrupted hours of time and I like doing it all in one sit down, not having to come back to it.  

This week for Election Day, my teammate and I did our yearly election process.  We read The Three Little Pigs and The True Story of the Three Little Pigs and the students have to vote on who's telling the truth.  We've been learning about the election process in social studies, so this fits right in.  I tell the students that the stories are like debates where the candidates are trying to tell their side of the story to get you to vote for them.  Then I picked 4 election judges to help me run our classroom polling place.  The students have their library cards as their voter registration cards and they have to show it to an election judge and sign by their name.  Then they get their ballot and go over to a ballot booth (Really Good Stuff privacy shield) to vote.  Once they are done they bring their ballot over to the ballot box where another election judge is standing and the judge gives them an I Voted Today sticker.  While the students are waiting to vote or after they have voted and are waiting for the results they did an election day abc order sheet.  Then 2 election judges tally the results and display them.  This year it was 3 Pigs 12, Wolf 11, so very close.  It always depends on the group of kids.  We have had some years where the Pigs win by a landslide.  In my teammate's class the Wolf won by 1 vote.  It's fun and my kids get to go through the election process as well, in a fun way.  

Now that leads me to this weekend, where yesterday since it was 65 degrees here, I put up as many of my outdoor Christmas lights as I could so I wouldn't have to do it in a couple of weeks when it will be cold.  I'm not going to turn them on, but they are up.  Hopefully they are still working after how windy it was last night and how windy I hear it is today!  Today I'm going with my siblings and their families to the circus.  We go every year, so it will be a fun outing again today.  :)

I'm going to leave you with my last October "bulletin board," courtesy of A Cupcake for the Teacher.  It was one of our Art of the Week projects, "We Are Batty for 2nd Grade."  My teammate and I did it together.  We had the students do the acrostic poem.  Very fun project.  

So sorry I've been such a slacker and hopefully I'll be better, but who know how I'll be feeling!  lol  Have a great weekend and week!  :)