Never Say Never

In the immortal words of one Justin Beiber, never say never.

Never say you'll never put up your Christmas decorations before Thanksgiving. Because, you may contradict yourself. 

That's just what I did. But, y'all? I feel like it's flying by this year. And, if I don't get all my decorations out now, I'm afraid I won't get to enjoy them. 

So, today, I just put it all out. Why not, ya know? I'm pretty sure that this year is my favorite in terms of decorating. I tried some new things and I loveeee how it all turned out! 

So, welcome to my Winter Wonderland! 

The Living Room

The Den

The Kitchen

Outside

I maaaaay have gone a little overboard this year. But, it makes me happy :) 

Oh, and what was Finley doing during all of this? Sleeping in her cage. She had her fun yesterday...

Happy (almost) Holidays! 

Poseidon: A God with a Posse

That's the joke a kid told me today. Which god has a posse? He said "Poseidon" and then died laughing. I'm just glad he knows what a posse is, really. Ha!

We've spent the last two weeks studying the Greek gods. This is my first experience with teaching this and I had my doubts. I didn't think the kids would be too into it, but ohmyword. I couldn't possibly have been more wrong! My kids were obsessed. Totally obsessed. 

I posted yesterday about our field trip to the Parthenon. That's what prompted the unit. And, myths of course. 

We started off just researching Ancient Greece. We made some bubble maps to write facts that we learned. This got the kiddos all excited.

Then, the next few days, we researched individual gods and goddesses. We made flip books to record all the information we learned. Simple, easy, fun. 

Please don't look too close to all that writing. It was just pure, unadulterated furious writing while I was reading information to them. And, truthfully, even on our best days, writing is a struggle this year. We're working on it! 

As they were filling these flip books out, I also read them a bunch of myths. They were just in awe of every little bit of it! 

Starting early this week, my kids did some research on their favorite god or goddess. I just let them completely pick their favorite, so we had a ton of repeats. They had a little grid with some research questions they had to find the answer to. I even let them use the Google to find information! Ha! 

Yesterday, I gave then another template with a place for a topic sentence, detail sentences and a closing sentence. After they were the sentences in the template, they had to transfer it to paper.

I bought a pack of giant paper people at the teacher store for $6. After they finished their writing, I let them get one and make their god or goddess. They looooved this! 

Honestly, we don't do too many "craftivities" because we don't have time. But, we do do them sometimes. Because I think kids need to be kids. And, because I used to be a first grade teacher, so it's in my blood. Oh, and because I've never seen my kids more engaged. Sometimes you need to just make a big mess and take an hour and let them create something. And I truly believe that. 

So, anyways, here's what they made:

This one cracks me up with the 10,000 pound weight! 

Check out Poseidon's little fish!

A sad Pandora after she opened the box.

They worked so hard! I think they did a great job. 

As always, thanks for stopping by!

Field Trip!

We had the best field trip today! We took our kids to the Parthenon. Obviously, not the one in Athens. But, since Nashville is the Athens of the South, we have our very own replica! And, it's pretty awesome.

Since we had three classes going and we needed two groups, I had to split my classes up. It was fine, but it felt weird for half my kiddos to be missing all day!

Which was a little sad, because these kids were soooo excited! 

One little girl wore an owl necklace in honor of Athena. That's one of her symbols. And, another little girl wore a green shirt to represent Poseidon's hair and blue pants to represent his eyes. I mean, if that's not obsession, I don't know what is! 

And, it's really cute how certain kids just develop a love for a certain god/goddess.   One little girl in my class looooves Pandora and she would squeal every time she was mentioned. Ha!

When we got there, my group started off outside in Centennial Park. We walked around the Parthenon, looked at the statues and plane/train replicas and then spent about 30 minutes at the duck pond. 

Look how little they are next to such a big building! 

I love Centennial Park. I've been going there since I was a little kid!

This is a random plane. The kids kept trying to jump up and grab it. Ha! There was also a train, but I didn't get any pictures of it. Mostly, because I was pulling kids off it and pointing out the "No Climbing" signs. 

Look at all the ducks, geese, pigeons, whatever. There were about a million and they were all different. I remember going to feed these ducks as a kid. The kiddos had a BLAST. A random family was there feeding them bread and they shared some of it with my kids and it seriously made their day :) 

This is me and Jennifer, the other teacher in my group. We may or may not have screamed about twenty times as pigeons dived at our heads and our kids. So scary!!

These three little guys spent the whole trip taking pictures with their hands. They are three little boys who always try to be "cool" so it kinda warmed my heart that they were doing this.

I let a kid take this picture as we were standing in line to go inside. I kinda love it! 

Here is the lady, herself. Athena!! She was soooo big!

Little kiddos in front of a biggggg statue!

They also had these remnants. The scenes are the same ones as the the ones on the front of the Parthenon.

All in all, it was a great trip. The only downside was getting back to school about 15 minutes before the kids had to be at specials. Sooooo, we ate lunch in 10 minutes. Or probably less. Ha. 

But, you can tell third graders that anything is fun, and they'll believe you ;) 

Thanks for reading!