March Blogger Match Up

Y'all, I am sooo excited to team up with some amazing bloggers for a March Madness style Blogger Match Up!

Ashlyn over at The Creative Classroom had this fun idea to help us cheer on our favorite teams and teacher bloggers at the same time!  There are 64 competitors and I can't wait to see who wins!! 

Each time a team loses that blogger will be giving away a product on his/her blog!  Be sure to follow the blogs below so that you can have a chance to win!!!

Learning with Mrs. Langley cheering on Belmont

Second Grade Stories cheering on Indiana

The Neat and Tidy Classroom cheering on UC Irvine

Live, Laugh, I LOVE Kindergarten cheering on Coastal Car.

Miss Johnston's Journey cheering on Maryland

The Creative Classroom cheering on San Diego State

Fifth in the Middle cheering on Wichita State

Lessons with Coffee cheering on Arkansas

The Kinder Garden cheering on Notre Dame

Exploring Elementary cheering on NC State

Inspired Owl's Corner cheering on Oregon

Frampton's Fundamentals cheering on New Mexico State

Learning in the Little Apple cheering on Michigan State

NC Teacher Chick cheering on Utah State

A Tall Drink of Water cheering on Baylor

Sara J Creations cheering on Oklahoma

ELA Everyday cheering on Duke

The Blessed Teacher cheering on Lafayette

Mrs. 3rd Grade cheering on VCU

Rock & Teach cheering on Albany

Create Teach Share cheering on North Dakota State

One Happy Teacher cheering on Gonzaga

Fern Smith's Classroom Ideas! cheering on Iowa State

First Grade Roars! cheering on SF Austin

The Learning Chambers cheering on Hampton

Teaching is Sweet cheering on Eastern Washington

Sounds Like Fun cheering on Louisville

Confessions of a Teaching Junkie cheering on Cincinnati

Year2tastic cheering on Kansas

Sparkling in Second cheering on Wyoming

Making Meaning with Melissa cheering on Purdue

One Sassy Teacher cheering on Villanova

Brittany Kiser cheering on Texas

Coach and Teach 24/7 cheering on St. John's

Hardcore Teacher Resources cheering on LSU

The Whole Wheat Class cheering on Oklahoma

Mixing It Up In The Middle! cheering on Mississippi

Teaching Maddeness cheering on UAB

Its Elementary My Dear cheering on Ohio State

Live Love Serve Teach cheering on Providence

 Education Kingdom cheering on North Carolina

A Dab of Glue Will Do cheering on Dayton

Learning to be Awesome cheering on Kentucky

Technology Timeout cheering on Harvard

Kovescence on the Mind cheering on Butler

Blossoms of Blue in 2 cheering on North Eastern

Mrs. D's Corner cheering on Robert Morris

Where the Wild Things Learn cheering on Buffalo

Bright Concepts 4 Teachers cheering on North Iowa (UNI)

A Trendy Teacher cheering on Valparasio

Lucky to Be In First cheering on Wisconsin

O-H So Blessed! cheering on Virginia

Tales of Teaching with Tech cheering on Woffard

Very Perry Classroom cheering on Arizona

A Kindergarten Life for Me cheering on Georgia

First Grade Buddies cheering on Iowa

Miss Case's Classroom cheering on Georgetown

A Grace-Filled Classroom cheering on West Virginia

Third Grade Cupcakes cheering on SMU

The Class Couple cheering on Xavier

More Time 2 Teach cheering on Georgia State

Owl-ways Learning cheering on UCLA

I'm rooting for Gonzaga (and side note, I mistakenly said Gorgonzola last night to my husband and he was in stitches, lol) and they play tonight!  Check back tomorrow to see if I'm still in the running or not!

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Five for Friday

It's FRIDAY {insert happy dance here}!  We've had a busy week in homeschool so I'm linking up with Kacey again for her Five for Friday linky!

What boy doesn't love dinosaurs?  My oldest's recent birthday party was totally dino-mite!  Here are a few pictures of his fun day.
                             
These dino balloons were a simple, cute (and cheap) decoration.  They did take a little time to take but the kids loved them.                                           






When each kiddo arrived, they grabbed a dinosaur hat (that I found at Dollar Tree) and some foam feet (that I made for the kids).  Then picture on the left is just a T-Rex bean bag toss I painted.  The bean bags looked like steaks but I forgot to take a pic, lol!


Here's my birthday boy in his hat!  Isn't he the sweetest??

Here's a pic of our table set up.  By the way, I have to brag for a minute...my hubby made my table and bench, isn't it amazing??  I painted and recovered our chairs.  Anyways, I usually keep things simple and pick a few theme colors to run with and that's what I did here.

Here's the last pic, my fellas both helped me make paper mache eggs.  We used flour, water, and newspaper to cover balloons.  After they dried, I poked a small hole in them and stuffed them with some small plastic dinosaurs.  I spray painted the eggs and then at the party the kids got to hunt for and open an egg!

So one of my birthday boy's gifts was a Dinosaur Sticker Encyclopedia (love whoever thought of these!) and it has been the inspiration for our recent unit.  We are knee deep in learning about dinosaurs and loving it! My oldest is reading the book, putting on the stickers (instant motivation to stay focused when reading), and then is writing facts about the dinosaurs he's read about.

One fun project we did this week was to make salt dough dinosaur imprints.  The dough was so easy to make, just mix up 1 cup of flour, 1/2 cup of salt, and 1/2 cup of water.  We rolled it out onto wax paper.
             

And used these plastic dinos from the Target dollar section to make imprints.

                                                   

 

After microwaving the dough in twenty second increments (microwave then cool and repeat) until hardened, then we painted our dough imprints.  We used a bright green on ours.

Then of course, we had to make a dinosaur inspired snack!  We made Rice Krispie treats and threw in some chocolate chips to make them look a little speckled.

 We didn't have an egg mold or anything so we just greased up our hands a tiny bit and then molded them into eggs (or you'll have a super sticky mess...trust me...I forgot this step at first!!)  These were a super yummy treat!

Finally, something that's not dinosaur related...although I do plan to share lots more about what we are learning later.  I got some of my spring decorations up and they are making me feel so cheery!!

My kiddos keep informing me that bunnies do not lay eggs, lol!  They think I should change this decoration, haha!

Love this banner that I printed for free from Whimsicle Design Studio!

And this adorable printable was free from Sandy Toes and Popsicles!

This last one came from Yellow Bliss Road and I am in LOVE with it!

Well that's all for now friends, I hope you have a terrific weekend!!

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Five for Friday

Happy Friday y'all!  I hope that you've had an awesome week and have enjoyed your time with your kiddos!  We had so much fun in homeschool and I thought I'd link up with Kacey's Five for Friday to show you a bit of what we've been up to lately!

 We went on a little field trip and saw the circus!  It was our first time (I can't believe I never went as a kid.)  Here's a pre circus selfie with my sweeties!

Here's a view of the stage from our AMAZING seats!  We were on the front row to the left of the stage.  We had such a great view of the acts.

There are certainly some talented folks who are a part of the circus and my boys and I had a blast!  I did comment to my friend afterward that I felt like the elephants looked sad and I really didn't enjoy that part of the show.  Then a few days later, I saw that the Ringling Bros. are planning to phase out the elephants from their act.  I think this is a super smart choice!

 Early in the week, we read two of our Dr. Seuss favorites, The Cat in the Hat and the Cat in the Hat Comes Back.  Here are my fellas as the Cat-cutest Cats ever!!!  (And yes, we wear jammies a lot in homeschool as you'll see in later pics...who needs extra laundry?? LOL)

 To go along with The Cat in the Hat my oldest fella wrote about what would happen if Thing 1 and Thing 2 came to our house.  He said he and his brother would have a Nerf War with the Things!  Then we made these adorable Things!!!

Here's a close up, we couldn't stop giggling at them!!!

And of course, we had to read Bartholomew and the Oobleck and made oobleck!!!  They LOVED it and thought it was so cool how it had the properties of both a liquid and a solid.

After we experimented with it (and got it all over my new table), we made some observations, discussed adjectives that could be used to describe it, and talked about colloids!

Finally, we had some fun exploring some awesome free websites that are out there!  These may not be new to you but I wanted to share because my boys have been loving these!

My three year old adores the Curious George Games on PBS Kid and his number sense is amazing me!

He's also been loving this app called My First Alphabet Phonics.

My kindergartner has been working addition facts and he's really enjoyed these two games!

First up is Marble Math Addition!

He really loved Space Lunchtime too and it is helping build fluency!

Well that's a peek at what we've been doing lately!  I'll be back soon to share!  My boys want to tackle dinosaurs so I'm planning lots of fun stuff!

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