1 Year Blogiversary Giveaway!!

Hello Friends!  Very excited for today!! Not only am I (still) celebrating being done with grad school, BUT it's also my 1 year Blogiversary!!!  I started my blog after being inspired by all the wonderful bloggers at Vegas last year, and now that I'm done with grad school (did I mention YAY!!! yet??), I will have more time to actually blog about whats going on in my classroom.  

In honor of the occasion, some very wonderful kinder blogging friends have generously offered up products to help make this is fabulous giveaway!!  Here is what you can win:

From me:
My newest inspiration is a game from one of my profs this summer and I am very excited about it!  It's called Plot a Word, and while the cover page and directions are not quite done... I still wanted to give it away!  Here is a little preview:

From Laura over at Differentiation Station Creations: Her Monster Munch: Addition to 20 pack!  You can check it out HERE.

 From Carolyn over at Kindergarten: Holding Hands and Sticking Together: her Eric Carle Prezi! You can check it out HERE.

From Cara over at Kindergarten Boom Boom: 1 free item from her store!!!  You can check out her store HERE.

From Terri over at Kinder Kapers: her Peas and Carrots: Composing and Decomposing numbers to 10!  You can check it out HERE.

From Allison over at A First Grade Teacher: her Nonsense Word Cards Set 1!  You can check it out HERE.

From Jada over at Daisy Days of Learning: her Kindergarten Year Long Skills Practice pack!  You can check it out HERE.

From Debbie over at Rainbows Within Reach: her You're Wonderful digital download!! I have lots of experience with this song- it is AMAZING!!  You can check it out HERE.

Wowie wow wow!! That's alot of stuff!  You can enter on the rafflecopter below until midnight on Monday night, August 4 and the winner will be announced on Tuesday.  Good Luck everyone!!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Book Talk Tuesday- The Very Brave Bear

Another Tuesday, another book!  Linking up with Deanna from Mrs. Jump's Class for Book Talk Tuesday!

I got this book free through Scholastic- don't you just love them!

 So Bear meets Boris the buffalo one day:

Boris apologizes for scaring Bear, who of course says that he wasn't scared, and that's when they start challenging each other- "I know something you're scared to do."  BUT it turns out that they are both able to do everything that the other can do!

 That is, until they come upon a very scary cave!!

 Looked at their scared little faces!  Then they hear a noise and get so freaked out that they run away, jump in the muck and mud, and discover that the very scary thing is .... just a frog!!

 
 Now, all through the book there are rhyming words that let the students guess what the challenge will be on the next page.  The frog is also hiding on every page, which I didn't notice until a student pointed it out!  How fun!  

Hope you enjoyed the book!  Head back over to Mrs. Jump's Class for more!

Monday Made It- Pointers and Pork Chops!

Happy Monday yall!  I'm linking up with Tara from 4th Grade Frolics for Monday Made It!

 I've got 2 for you today!  

Number 1!
I totally got this from Janaye over at Tales of Frogs and Cupcakes.  It was her Monday Made It last week and after seeing it I knew I just had to do it too!!  POINTERS!  Super cute and wonderfully easy pointers!  Dowel rods, washi tape, hot glue gun, and something to glue on top to do the pointing with.  Here's how they turned out:

I LOVE how they turned out!  Hopefully the new group of kids will be good to them :-)

Number 2!
Another recipe for you all!  I love to cook and I LOVE to eat!  AND we have been taking advantage of the grill on the roof and here is another gem that I made on it:

That would be marinated pork chops and potato gratin- all made on the grill!  

For the pork chops I bought 4 thin cut bone in chops.  Poked some holes in them with a fork and marinated them in a mixture of equal parts soy sauce and balsamic vinegar, a couple garlic gloves, salt and pepper.  I marinated for about 2 hours when all was said and done and it was amazing!  

The potato gratin is from Food Network Mag's 50 Things to Grill In Foil:

Toss 2 thinly sliced peeled potatoes, 1/4 cup grated Parmesan, 2 tablespoons melted butter, and salt and pepper in a bowl. Arrange in 4 to 5 layers on a sheet of nonstick foil. Drizzle with 1/4 cup cream and form a packet. Grill over medium heat, 25 minutes.

All of that is wrapped in foil and then I cooked it for about 30 minutes just to be sure and it was great!!

Hope you had a great Monday!  I am FINALLY enjoying summer- grad school is officially over!!! AND you will want to stop by later this week for some excitement!!!

Wordless Wednesday- just for fun

Today I'm linking up with Christina from Sugar and Spice for Wordless Wednesday!

 This is my first Wordless Wednesday and I thought I would just make it fun!  First, meet Allie:

Now tell me... How did the couch end up like this while I was at grad school today??

Book Talk Tuesday- Grumpy Bird

Happy Tuesday friends!  I only have 3 days left of grad school!!! And to celebrate I am linking up with Deanna from Mrs. Jump's Class for Book Talk Tuesday!

 Today I'm going to share a book called Grumpy Bird by Jeremy Tankard.

So, bird wakes up really really grumpy...

 Look at that face!  He's too grumpy to fly, too grumpy to eat, so he just walks instead.  He ends up walking by all his friends, each one asking him what he's doing and he snaps back at them and then they join him on his walk.

Eventually bird realizes that his friends are doing everything that he is doing- walking, stopping, standing on one leg...

And he cheers up and they all go back to his nest for a worm snack.

Super cute book and the kids end up loving bird!  We use this book to talk about sequencing near the beginning of the year- beginning, middle, end.  I simply make copies from the book:

We love to revisit Grumpy Bird when talking about feelings.  In fact, the kids remember him the whole year and make a lot of text to text connections with this book!  Hope you are able to read it sometime.  Have a great rest of the week :-)  And head back over to Mrs. Jump's Class for more books!

Monday Made It- Steak Tacos!

It's a double linky for me today!  Linking up with Tara from 4th Grade Frolics for Monday Made It 

AND Christy from Teaching Tales Along the Yellow Brick Road for her Eating Drinking and Linking linky!

Today I want to share a SUPER yummy Skirt Steak Taco recipe that has been bringing joy to my life since May :-)  I adapted it from a Tyler Florence recipe that you can find HERE.

OK so here's what you do:

First, make the mojo sauce:

4 garlic cloves, minced
1 jalapeno, minced
1 large handful fresh cilantro leaves, finely chopped
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 limes, juiced
1 orange, juiced
2 tablespoons white vinegar
1/2 cup olive oil
** I use a little less olive oil AND I add in some red chilli flakes and Chilli Garlic Cholula Hot Sauce  to give it a little more spice.

 

Trim the fat from the skirt steak (1 lb for 2 people) and put it plastic bag or glass container.  Pour mojo sauce over meat (make sure to save some to put on your tacos because it is soooo good!!).  Marinate for at least 2 hours and up to 8 hours.  

 

 When you are ready to cook, you can either grill on the grill to desired doneness OR use a grill pan on your stove.  I do about 6 mins per side to get medium well, which is how the hubs likes it at home "just to be safe".  ;-)  

Unfortunately I wasn't getting a good crust on this one, so I had to heat up the pan and turn it over to get some nice searing.

While cooking the meat, I warm up the corn tortillas on the stove- but you can also just throw them in the microwave for 30 seconds.

When the meat is cooked to your doneness, let it rest for 10 minutes so the juices will stay inside when you cut it.  After that, cut against the grain into thin pieces.

Then build your tacos!!  We do meat, lime juice, queso fresco, and cilantro.  The hubs adds some extra hot sauce and I use the Mojo sauce because its so good!!

Enjoy!!!

Book Talk Tuesday- Mo Willems

Today I'm linking up with Deanna Jump from Mrs. Jump's Class to share my love of Mo Willems for Book Talk Tuesday!

Oh Mo Willems, how I love thee!!!  Have you read his books?!?!  Elephant and Piggie, Pigeon, Knuffle Bunny??  Maybe I love him because he gives so many emotions to a Pigeon.  Maybe it's because one of his main characters is a pig- a PIG!!!  Maybe it's because he took that silent K at the beginning of knuffle and made sure we all had to say it!!!!  Whatever the reason, he is fantastic!  

We use his books near the end of the year.  After talking ALOT about character's emotions and inferring these emotions we then start talking about speech bubbles and how Mo Willems use them AND the illustrations to show emotions.  It's super fun!

I like to start off with Pigeon:

 I do this because it's one character using speech bubbles, which makes them a little easier to understand.  AND Pigeon interacts with the kids! 

And when the kids say no??

I love that he looks so sad- putting his head down and all...  Then Mo Willems is just so good at showing how to use speech bubbles:

And our favorite part??  When Pigeon screams of course!!! Look at the emotion in the illustration AND in the speech bubble!  The kids pick it up so easily!

 So after working with Pigeon for a week, we move on to Elephant and Piggie:

 You get emotion and humor, BUT you also get conversation using speech bubbles!!

 AMAZING!!

So, then my kids get REAL good at using speech bubbles.  Unfortunately- the school took back our iPads for the summer :-( so this is the only pic I could find:

This is page 4/4.  Mom has been asking and asking and Malak keeps saying no.  Now you read: "MALAK give me a spoon." "Ok."

 Don't you just love mom's angry eyebrows and the absolutely sweet innocent face on the girl!!! Amazing!

Hope you have enjoyed the books and are able to use them in you class! Can't wait to read about more book back at the linkup- head over to Mrs. Jump's Class!