Wild Things Poster Sets and Crafty Fun

Wow! I cannot believe we are almost a fourth of the way through the school year! Doesn't time fly?! This kinder business is kickin' me in the rear end, but I am loving every bit of it! Now that I have finally caught my breath...I hope...I had time to complete the color and shape poster sets that I hung in my classroom this year. They are fun and wild and definitely "scream the theme"! You can find them at my TPT store.

Other than school, school, and more school, I have been trying to keep myself busy with DIY crafts! The two on the right were gifts for my friend who recently had a baby girl! I made the table runner with all the extra burlap I have from our wedding. So fun! Here are a few pictures...

I also ordered these super cute dog tags off of Esty from Happy Thoughts. Our pups are as crazy as always!

         

Keep calm and craft on!

My Classroom and Units I Love

Wow! What a wild couple of weeks it has been! I definitely didn't know what I was getting into when I signed up to move to Kindergarten, but I absolutely love it! I am have a blast getting to know my little Chimpanzees and there is never a dull moment in our classroom.

I just wanted to share with you my favorite units that I bought from TPT this year so far. Thanks to all these Teacher-Authors for making my year run a little bit more smoothly!

Hope King's Wild Things Classroom Decor unit has truly helped turn my classroom into a Kindergarten Wonderland! When people walk into my room I have noticed that the adorable decor is the first thing they comment on. I love it all so much and it makes my classroom feel like home for me and the kids! Oh and of course all the wonderful resources that came with it such as the word wall letters, number line, and classroom management chart! Here's a few pictures of how my classroom turned out this year!

Deanna Jump's All Set You Bet unit is amazing! I don't know what I would have done without it! I use her little song and chant booklet all day long every day to get the students attention, settle them down, or even to give them directions. If you don't have it yet, it is a must! I am planning to start using Whooo's a Smartie?? (questions for when you have a little time to spare)  and Brain Breaks (activities to give our hard working brains a break) more this week!

I just discovered DeeDee Wills' Make It Neat: Handwriting Instruction Fluency this week and I can't wait to start using it with my students. I have noticed that my kiddos have some funny ways of writing their letters and I am hoping that this unit will help solve that problem and help to make handwriting fun to practice!

Okay, now that I am settled into the school year, my goal is to post once a week until I get the hang of it! Maybe Five for Friday linky party to start...? We'll see! Have a great week teaching and remember you are wonderful at what you do!

Sweet, Sweet Summertime!

Hey y'all,

I know I know! It has been entirely too long since I have written a post on my new little blog, but I have had a very relaxing and busy couple of months! So here goes on catching you up on some of my summer dos!

First of all, my new blog design is up and running and I absolutely love it! Didn't McKenna from Project 3 Designs do an amazing job?!?! =)

In June, I went on a beautiful vacation to Maine with the Chapman girls in our family. We had an absolute blast traveling around all the perfect little coastal towns and of course eating tons of lobster.

My parents birthdays and anniversary are during these summer months, so these events really allowed me to put my new little toy to use! I am pretty much obsessed with my Silhouette Cameo and here are some of my creations! So fun! I can't wait to really start using it to decorate and label my classroom! 

In the beginning of July, I went on another girls trip with some of my best friends to Orange Beach, Alabama! We had an extremely relaxing and amazing time hanging out on the beach and eating at yummy restaurants all week!

When I got back from the beach I spoiled myself with a beginner's sewing class at The Stitch Lab downtown. I received a sewing machine from my parents for my birthday and really wanted to get a good understanding and gain confidence on how to use my machine and learn the sewing lingo and this was the perfect class to do so! I ended up making two pillows that had piping and zippers and a maxi skirt! I wore it yesterday and got so many compliments on it! I really loved learning to sew and I think this will be a hobby that sticks with me forever. My next project is cushions for our window seats!

                     

These last few weeks I have been finishing up my staff development days. I went to a Phonics Dance conference, which I absolutely loved! If you haven't heard of it you definitely need to watch this YouTube video! It is an amazing and fun way to teach K-2 phonics and see results! I also have been preparing for teaching Kindergarten (ahhhh!) by creating centers for the first few weeks of school, making classroom decor, and checking TPT often for new products and units by my favorite teachers. Here are a few of my favorites I have bought so far...

Classroom Decor Mega Bundle - Wild Things by Hope King

Organization Station Guide to Organizing Your Classroom by Deanna Jump












Back to School Early Finisher's Tub for August-September by Kreative in Kinder 














I am hoping to get started creating my own products to post on TPT once I get in the swing of the school year so be on the lookout for that.

I hope you all have had an amazing summer as well! I have 3 more weeks until I officially go back to school and I am going to enjoy every minute of it! Both my sisters and their families are coming in from out of state/country to visit and all 12 of us are going to the beach! We cannot wait for this fun adventure, but other than that I will just be preparing for the school year and counting down my last few weeks of precious summer! I hope you enjoy yours!

May Madness

Well I have officially neglected this little blog for way too long now! We have been extremely busy the last few weeks with traveling and work, but it is finally starting to slow down because it is officially summertime!

Here is a little recap:

The Mr. had a conference in Vegas for our family business so I got to tag along on this fabulous trip. We stayed at the Wynn, which was beautiful! This was our first time to Vegas so we tried to go in as many hotels as possible, enjoy the pool, see some shows, and of course do a little gambling. I will definitely be asking to tag along on this same business trip next year!

The next weekend we had our annual Chapman Family Reunion out at our ranch in Holt, Texas. It was so nice to visit family and get away from civilization for a few days. We had fun messing around with sparklers!

On May 30th we celebrated Brad's birthday by having some good ol' BBQ at The County Line! I love me some ribs and sweet tea!

We got a new iMac last weekend that I am extremely excited about! My macbook from college finally decided to rest in peace and we have been wanting a desktop. I absolutely love the big screen and being able to quickly sit down and check emails or surf the web!

Lastly, the school year came to an end. I said goodbye to my little chimpanzees yesterday, which was actually a lot more difficult than I imagined. We had a great last week together though full of fun events including a read-a-thon, game day, talent show, and movie day to name a few! We also used Hope King's End of the Year Writing Bundle to create Time Capsules and a 2nd Grade Memory Book! We ended our day with this little treat to get us ready for summer.

I hope to be back within the next few days to show you my first Silhouette Cameo creation (I am dying to see my newest toy on my doorstep) and a new blog design by Project 3 Designs!

Happy Friday y'all and don't forget to link up and share your Five for Friday with Doodle Bugs Teaching!

Blessings,

Jeana

Plants, Moms, and Kindergarten...!

Well another week has gone by and I can't believe it! We are going on 4 more weeks of school and it is already time to start turning in textbooks and begin checking off todos on our end of the year checklist...where has the time gone?!

This weekend was a blast! The Mr. and I threw a housewarming fiesta to celebrate our new home....I was having so much fun chatting with friends and family that I didn't even take one picture!! =( Although I do have some remaining decor left up (it was so cute I just had to leave it up a few more days).

We also received some adorable and very thoughtful gifts. We are so blessed to have such wonderful people surrounding us each and every day!

Now on to school...This week has been crazy and it is only day 2! We began our plant unit, which will consist of a lot of hands on activities that I know my chimps will absolutely love. Today we compared living and nonliving things and discussed what living things need to survive. To test our conclusions we took 3 plants, put one in the sun, one in the dark, and one in the freezer. On Friday we will observe what happens to our living plants!

We started our Mother's Day crafts as well. We are reading the story Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney this week so to go along with making the world more beautiful we painted lupines to give to our special moms on Sunday.

We also started Amy Lemon's A Mommy - A Mother's Day Booklet Craftivity, which is turning out super adorable and will hopefully pull at our mom's heartstrings.

And at last...yesterday I made the decision to move to Kindergarten next year because we will only need 5 second grade teachers and I am the 6th. I am so so sad to leave 2nd grade, but I am excited for this new adventure. Growing up I always wanted to teach the littles so I figured I'd give it a shot! In light of the exciting news, I began digging into some Kinder blogs to start getting ideas for next year and I came across some really great ones. I got caught up on Deanna Jump's blog after hearing so much about her on the news and decided to splurge and buy a few of her super cute lessons and activities from TPT (also there's no way I could pass up a sale!!) Here's a few things I bought!

Back to School Math and Literacy Fun....

and

Guided Reading 101: Printables, Strategies, and Word Work

Until next time....

Blessings,
Jeana Chapman

Sneak peek! Lions and Tigers and Bears! Oh my!

Here is a little snippet of our day today! We are still working through our animal unit by writing animal reports. The kids have worked really hard researching, drafting, editing, and now publishing their reports. The chimps used this outline to help them organize their writing. We will wrap up this project tomorrow and begin presenting...finishing just in time for our field trip to the Exotic Zoo!

Instateach!

Okay everyone...so I totally missed last Five for Friday! We had an extremely busy weekend full of fun though! I guess the real world trumps the virtual world at times. =)

Anyways I read about this new linky party that What the Teacher Wants and Apples and ABCs started that gives bloggers an excuse to post more pictures through Instagram (like we really need an excuse!) It's called #teachertalktuesday. So I'm going to use this party to get started using Instagram...I know I know I should have started a year ago!

Follow me by clicking the snapshot of my pup after Barre3 class or simply type jeanachapman in the user's search bar. Be on the lookout for snapshots of what's going on in our classroom tomorrow!

If your a blogger, don't forget to join up for a little Insta action and share your pics with #teachertalktuesday!