It's a New Year... Time to Revamp and Update Some Materials

Hello Again my Sweet Friends, 

Well with two days left before the holiday vacation is officially over, I am in full teacher mode! I have put my mixer and icing tools away and have broken out the lap top, calendar, and class schedule!

As I do so, I have also been looking through some of my older units. I am quite surprised to see a significant change in the look of my work from a year ago to the present. Thus, I am slowly revamping some of my older items! 

First up is my Sweet for Contractions Unit!

Check out the new look! I love it! Always helps when you're a huge cupcake fan! HeHe

Included in the 57 page package are:

- 8 contraction rule signs (colorful and informative)

- a complete list of 64 words and associated contractions (can be given to the students as a reference)

- memory game (match the top of the cupcake/contraction with the bottom/words) includes recording sheet

- build a sentence game (choose cupcake card and write a sentence using the contraction on the card) includes recording sheet

- match the word with contraction game (match the cupcakes that have corresponding contractions and words) includes recording sheet

- build a contraction game (match the top of the cupcake with the bottom to create a contraction) includes recording sheet- 3 contraction worksheets (great for homework review)

If you have already purchased this unit, please feel free to download it again and receive the latest version. If you have not purchased this product and are interested in it please click HERE!

Stay tuned for more updates (it may be a while before it all gets done of course) AND new ideas and resources. 

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Holiday Fun!

Dear Friends,

Just wanted to pop in and say hello! I also wanted to wish you all a happy holiday season and a Happy New Year filled with lots of love, happiness, and most of all health! I hope you are all enjoying some very well deserved time off and cherishing every moment spent with family and friends! I know I sure am! I'm also enjoying some baking, scrap booking, shopping, and RELAXING. Of course, I am working on some winter units and thinking about what I will be doing with the kiddies when we return in 2013 too! Hopefully, I will have some new packs and crafts up soon! Here are some photos of what I've been up to these last few days :):) yumm!

Ms. Nicole

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Made from Scratch

Oh, blogging world! How I have missed you so!

Tomorrow shall mark the end of another fabulous school year! As always, it is quite the bittersweet emotions that come over me at this very exciting time of the year! I am looking forward to some well deserved rest, as well as vacation fun! However, my kiddies have really touched a special place in my heart and I am going to miss them!!!! 

I have not had the opportunity to blog in a while, as report cards and assessments were what I woke up to in the morning and what I saw last before I closed my eyes at night. With all that behind me, I can begin to plan some integral parts of my new theme: SAFARI! Let me tell you something friends, I have JUNGLE FEVER! This is going to be soooo much fun! I can't wait to start sharing some ideas. 

The safari craze will have to wait for now, as I have a great experience to share with you all. As most schools, my second home implements the common practice of chocolate drives for fundraising. To encourage the students to sell, the school and P.P.O have come up with an incentive program, whereby the teachers provide a unique reward for students to choose from, when they have sold a certain amount of boxes. Each teacher decides upon a reward and creates an enticing envelope to encourage the students. The rewards vary from, principal for the day to a special lunch with a teacher. The envelopes are displayed on a bulletin board and students can place their name in the envelope of their choice. Once the fundraiser has come to an end, one name is chosen from each envelope 

and the winners claim their prizes! 

Being the avid baker that I am, I chose to have a baking session with a lucky winner!

To my surprise, it turned out to be quite popular and the lucky winner (and a friend) were overjoyed to bake for their classmates. 

Here is my envelope! 

Gotta love scrappindoodles! The cute graphics really won them over!

I decided that I wanted to make this activity extra special for these kiddos and so I created a recipe sheet for each of them to follow and keep. I also made them some pretty spiffy chef hats!

Here is a sneak peak at our vanilla cupcake recipe with buttercream frosting. 

I made the students follow the recipe and they made everything themselves. They did such an amazing job and we had a fabulous time together! I definitely plan on offering the same reward next year! 

It was so much fun!

As I mentioned, I also made hats! I got the idea from, none other than, Cara Carroll over at the First Grade Parade. Stop on by and check out how she made them! Super easy and "OH, SO CUTE!" 

Here's how mine turned out!

Not gonna lie, I wore one too! We would have made any pastry chef proud!

My little chefs created some real delicious masterpieces!

What I loved most about this idea was that the students got to choose any activity with any teacher. Thus, I got to spend time with some fifth graders! 

Thanks for stopping by and I apologize for being M.I.A. for some time now!

I am currently working on many new units for next year. 

I shall be posting all about my safari theme soon and posting some new fun units on TpT! I'll be teaching math again next year so I'll have some language arts and math units!

Until next time...

Ms. Nicole

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A little Baking Fun!

So I may have mentioned in previous posts that I am an avid baker! It is quite therapeutic and a great way to demonstrate my creative side! I tend to find any which reason to bake... birthdays, showers, holidays.. I even volunteered to bake, every second month for my schools social committee events!!! I also like to bake with the students, usually as a reward, special occasion... I love to have them bake for parent events! They get a real kick out of eating the cupcakes or cookies their little ones made! Baking or cooking can also make for a great l.a. or math lesson, what with all the recipe reading and writing, as well as all the measuring and counting!

 I thought I would share some ideas with you (recipes not included sorry... don't have that kind of blogging time on my hands!) You can find easy quick recipes on the internet, baking magazines, etc... I'd like to share the more artistic side of my endeavors! I apologize for the emphasis on the holidays, I love to bake for christmas!! Besides it's only 4 months away... hehe

These snowflake cookie cutters are awsome!!! I like to use food coloring, sprinkles and icing pens to decorate.. So easy simply dye the icing with food coloring, buy matching colors for icing pens and sprinkles!! 

These were super cute! Made a regular brownie batter.. used a circular cookie cutter and added a marshmallow (with toothpick), some icing and smarties yumm! Super easy to do with the kiddies and a fun little math activity as well... Patterning!! 

Same concept as the previous picture!

These are delicious! Double cookies. Simply use a circular cookie cutter for both cookies, then make a star shaped whole in one cookie (using a cookie cutter). SMEAR the full cookie with nutella (yumm!!!) and place the star cookie on top!

I also make my own chocolate! I use molds of course! White chocolate can easily be melted and dyed to any color (food coloring!) I also like to experiment with fondant (pink hearts) using different shaped cookie cutters.

These turned out great and were super easy to make! Rolled out some fondant and used cookie cutters to make different shapes and decorate! Also great for the kids (fondant is like edible playdoh!) Great for teaching shapes and colors!

I looooooooooovee this! It's called New Year's Kiss! I can't take credit for this as I found it in a recipe book, however this one is my very own!!! So easy to make... Go to your local Dollar Store and purchase  3 foam spheres. 1 for the inside of the pot, and 2 for the giant balls. Oh and don't forget to bye a pot while your there, and some giant wooden skewers, ribbon, and herseys hugs and kisses! Once you have all that, which will cost you all of 7 dollars, you can cover the spheres with aluminum foil, connect them all together with the skewers and hot glue the chocolates and ribbon on top! Voila! 

As I mentioned before, I love to use icing pens (you can find them at any grocery store) they add color and texture to your baking and are easy to use. 

These thanksgiving turkeys were made by my former students! We made chocolate cupcakes and added some oreo cookies and candy corn! They absolutely loved making these...

There you have it! 

Some artistic, mathematical ideas that can be used in the classroom :) 

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