MPM: Aug 20 - Sept 4

 Here's this week!

Cheeseburger Macaroni Hamburger Helper
Chicken Carbonnara
Grilled Cheese & Tomato Soup
Chicken Fried Rice
Sausage & Mushroom Risotto
Coconut - Curry Beef

Find these recipes and others on my Recipes page!

Back to School: Crayon Wreath

I've seen this idea floating around Pinterest and teaching blogs and I was excited to try it out for my classroom door. New crayons are one of my favorite parts of back to school so I knew this would be perfect for my room.

Here's what you need:
The inside half of a knitting hoop
Crayons
Glue

The bigger the hoop, the more crayons you will need. I think my hoops was 10" and I used just shy of 3 boxes of crayons.

To make sure I spaced the crayons evenly I first spaced them out around the hoop. I used a colored hoop, but you could also paint a wood one if you had an extra one laying around.

To make sure they were even I lined up the start of the crayola label with the hoop.

When I was happy with my anchor crayons I started filling in the rest working my way around.

When I had all the crayons filled in I tweaked them a little to get as close as possible to a perfect circle.

Then I CAREFULLY removed the hoop and coated one side with glue. I used elmers because it was all I had on hand, but hot glue would work much better. When I get to school I will try to reinforce mine with hot glue.

Then I lightly pressed it back down on to the crayons to make sure all the crayons stuck, and left it alone to dry.

When it was completely dry I tied on a ribbon loop to hang it from and Voila! Ready for my classroom door!

OR SO I THOUGHT!!

I took my wreath to school and while juggling a bunch of supplies to bring in accidentally dropped it in the parking lot. The entire thing broke into pieces! A word of advice - do NOT use elmers glue for this! I took all the pieces to my classroom and put it back together using a hot glue gun this time. The hot glue holds much better. My wreath is now hanging proudly on my door ready to greet students!

MPM: Aug 22- 28

Can you believe I forgot a menu plan last week? I can, it's been crazy hectic getting ready for a new school year. Which starts tomorrow, by the way. Lucky for me Hubbys been doin most of the cooking. Here's What we're eating this week.

Deli Sandwiches
BBQ Chicken, Corn and Spinach Quesadillas
Pork Lo Mein
Burgers and Fries
Parmesan Crusted Chicken
Chicken and Cheese Enchiladas
Chicken Lo Mein (from a box :))

Most of these recipes came from my recent All You Magazines.

This Week..

This week I will attempt to teach 17-18 5-year-olds how to:
* Walk in a straight line without running into a pole
* sit in their chair without falling over
* recognize their own name
* remember my name
* navigate the ever confusing lunch line
* make it through the day without nap time

PRAY FOR ME!!

Also, say a prayer TS Irene doesn't decide to disrupt our first week of school. If she does, and we miss part of the week, I will have to do all this training over again.

Taking Attendence

Clutter free classroom has some great ideas on taking attendence - question of the day kit!

What a great idea, lets everyone get talking! I silently take mine, but let the kids "take" it by removing their name tags from a pocket chart and clipping them on!

A Farewell to Summer

Well, it's here at last. The end of summer. Some people like to celebrate the coming of fall. They do this on the ridiculously still summer like day of September first. To each their own right? I however, dread the coming of fall because it means the end of summer. To me summer represents all things beautiful - fireworks, lazy days by the pool, lots of hot sunshine, smores over the fire, picnics, BBQs, chasing fireflies and how about 2 MONTHS of VACATION!! I loathe the end of summer. But it always comes. Sooner for me than others. Somewhere around the middle of August I head back to my classroom for orientations, trainings, and getting my room ready for 16-18 kindergarten kiddos. Last year we decided to celebrate the end of summer by taking a little trip the weekend before I went back to school. This year I've decided it needs to be a tradition and we've decided to keep it going. Letting summer go out with a bang ya know?

Last year we took a mini trip up to Titusville.

Only about three hours away, we drove up one afternoon and checked into a cheap Best Western and then ordered a pizza for dinner. That night we went on a Bioluminescent Kayak tour with A Day Away Kayak Tours. It's quite possibly the coolest thing we've ever done.

We paddled out into the Indian River and surrounding Harbors in complete darkness (it was a new moon). Every movement made the water glow. I mean, really GLOW. Bright green. Every stroke made the paddle glow green. Dip in your hand - it glowed green. Every fish, manatee and dolphin that swam by was covered in glowing green water. Just picture it - you're out in the middle of a river in pitch black, all of a sudden a green streak starts swimming towards you - faster, faster, till a fish emerges and jumps up over (or if you're not lucky into) your kayak. It was amazing and we would do it again in a heartbeat.

This year we decided to stay a little closer to home. The day before I had to report back to work we started with breakfast in our home town at Benny's on the Beach.

 Amazing food. Amazing ocean view. Enough Said.

I had the Tropical Stuffed French Toast - I highly recommend it.

From there we headed down to Miami to the Seaquarium with our Adults pay Kid prices coupons in our hands. The trip took about an hour, so a little closer than last years trip.

We spent the day watching dolphins do this:

 And whales do this:

This girl, by the way, is crazy. Notice her ponytail? She apparently learned nothing from the trainer killed at Sea World last year when she was dragged under by her ponytail.

Killer Whale Trick from Rachelle Rosenblit on Vimeo.

Here's the grand finale (all 5 minutes of it) if you like dolphins and whales flipping. And little campers getting soaked.

Dolphin and Whale Grand Finale from Rachelle Rosenblit on Vimeo.

We fed some seals and sea lions:

And we also saw lobsters, sea turtles, sharks, stingrays, alligators and manatees!

And then chose to end our day back in our hometown at our favorite Greek place, Chris's Taverna.

They mean it when they say best Gyro's in town.

So there you have it. Our end of summer celebration. Bennys, the aquarium and some delicious Greek food. From Lake Worth to Miami  and back. By the time you read this I will be back at work, dreaming of next summer!

oShelly

Cat Nappin'

The past 48 hours have been a blur of kleenex tissue, vicks vapor rub, long naps, and cold medicine. And this cat  (my normally allusive, moody, cat) has not left my side for one second of it.

He really can be sweet ... when he wants to be.