$100, HELP, and a ????

what's a girl to do....
I was recently contacted by
School Outfitters....
SCHOOL OUTFITTERS y'all
and I am in shock....

School Outfitters is known for its educational furniture and equipment BUT now...School Outfitters’  has a new line ... This new line features reputable brands teachers recognize including Crayola®, Melissa & Doug® and Guidecraft.  School Outfitters is an online retailer that offers greater convenience than brick-and-mortar stores and exceptional customer service with live service specialists. It has been a trusted source for classroom furniture and other educational equipment since 1998.

aynwho....
they want to give me $100 to spend
O.N.E H.U.N.D.R.E.D DOLLARS....
holy cow...
so of course I said YES...
(of course)
and now I have spent seriously hours trying to figure out...
what to get...
I had no clue they had so much schtuff....
seriously
I can't make up my mind...
so I thought...
(i'm thinking)
Farley what are you gonna do...
School Outfitters is giving you free money...
what what (yes I talk like this to myself)
ask your readers what they would get...
(not thinking anymore)
so here I am....

it is $100 credit towards their store

SURPRISE....
they want to give one of you guys $100 too
YAY
but good luck picking something...
there is soooooo much to choose from...
thanks so much to School Outfitters for this opportunity...
I LOVE when I get to share with my friends.....
{puffy} heart love

so here is a link to their webpage.... you are gonna need it to enter...

https://www.schooloutfitters.com

The $100 credit is good for School Outfitters merchandise only and does not apply toward shipping. Some products however, do come with free shipping. Once a winner is selected  I will contact School Outfitters and they will email the winner a code directly. Codes will expire on December 31, 2013

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Disney, Space Mountain, and 2 toodles

sorry I have been MIA...
but I have a good excuse...

hubs got me a bass fishing excursion... LOVE HIM

we finished our trip with a few days in The Sipp...visiting my Gma and Aunt... so much fun

so as you can see we had a very very busy last few weeks
I seriously took over 800 pics
but didn't think you wanted to see ALL of them so these are a few of my faves...
and I am now
RECOVERING from all the fun...
hubs likes to call it
DISNEY depression
we had such a GRAND time and can't wait to go back again!!!
I promise I will get back to the blog in a few...
I have some things I have been working on BUT 1st I have a SPACE MOUNTAIN load of laundry to finish...
and SIGH put away
I hate putting laundry away
very much *pout*
alrighty
just wanted to do a super quick update
and now back to reality....
see you in a few days
toodles

oh one more thing....
bub had a photoshoot while we were in The Sipp...
here are some pics of that...
I couldn't go without showing you these :)

toodles again

CURRENTLY JULY

I'm early I know
please forgive me...

before I get to the sponsor for this month...
I wanted to thank each and every single one of you...
every single month I am WOWed by the number of entrants...
it is just simply AH-mazing... I do read each and every one of them
BUT it is too hard to comment on each one of them...
seriously I tried one time and I was doing it for HOURS
HOURS I tell ya
that is why it is SUPER important to do the rule of 3...
give a nice feedback to the peeps ahead of you and behind your link :)

I get to meet sooo many new blogs through this little ol linky partay
and so do you....
BUT I wanted to let you know that I have a place on my sidebar
--------------> over there
for you to link up in another party
it is THE TEACHER BLOCK PARTAY
find your grade or grades and link up...
it is a great place to find all the blogs in your grade level.
it is a year round partay so head on over there too...
super easy to do that!!!

thanks to my sponsor this month...

Mrs. Wilson
is an Arizona Teacher Blogger
who might be melting right now because I heard their temps are in the 100s right now...
wowzers
anywho... she is a fellow 4th grade teacher and is a mama to TWO teenagers
BLESS HER HEART
2 teenagers...
I ask all my sponsors to tell me their top 3 and here are Mrs. Wilson's picks

click on pic to see this item

with over 30 pages of comprehension and language skills activities 

you will surely love this newly prettied up lit study

her next pick is this bright and beautiful set

click on pic to go check this one out

and then we have these too....

click on the pic if you rrrrrrrrrr ready to see this

 Do you know what a pirate's favorite letter is????

RRRRRR

and that joke will go perfectly with this purty pirate themed classroom decor set

rrrrrrrrrrr

and one last thing....

Mrs. Wilson wanted me to share this blog post....

http://confessionsofateachingjunkie.blogspot.com/2013/06/im-back.html

in it you will find out about these games (see below)

and so much more

shhhhh she has a bonus in that post...  go check it out!!!

alrighty that about wraps up  the sponsor portion of this CURRENTLY...
thanks to


and be sure to head on over there and at least say HI!!!

and now............

lovin me some CC Fonts and KH art

 * Bub is obsessed with Ghostbusters right now...
maybe it might just be my hubs is a real vintage toy dork...
that is not mean I LOVE DORKS
I think this nerdiness is rubbing off on my 4 year old...
he is requesting all things Ghostbusters for his Bday party in a few months...
and that means I am rubbing off on him too...
PARTAY PLANNING is one of my things... LOVE IT and hate it...
but I have some really cool ideas for this so we will see...
* my house is almost completely purged, cleaned, and organized
a local charity contacted us to see if we had any donations and I gave them....
15 LARGE EXTRA LARGE garbage bags of clothes...
sad to say most were mine...
I was hanging on to my "bigger" clothes and I finally said NO
and sent them on their way!!!
I went through every closet, pantry, room. corner.... and purged...donated... dunno with that schtuff
I am sure the charity was like WHAT????
*disney is in my near future... ahhhhh i love d.i.s.n.e.y
* we have new back neighbors...
I have been spoiled... the house behind us has been vacant because it was / is / I have no clue...
anyways it was a second home for the couple that we thought lived there for years.... YEARS
and now we have new people in there... WHAT??
and they have 2 huge outside dogs
and we have 2 huge inside  dogs and one little inside dog who thinks she is HUGE
and well the fence is HORRIBLE...
and when inside meets outside... it is a barking war...
mostly their one BIG BROWN dog and our LITTLE snappy black and white dog...
and
AND
just the barking breaks the boards...
soooooo I need to get a fence guy over ASAP...
seriously I have been spoiled with no back neighbors...
they have a big pool so they are out there all the time and with our fence missing every other board
and then the ones that are left are barely hanging on...
so they can see all of me and I can see all of them...
GREAT (sarcasm)
and well now I have to put a bra and make-up on to go in my backyard... just to feed the birds
*tear*
calling fence guy NOW...
* my TIP for blogging is
do it from your heart...
if you are not feeling it... don't do it...
because it shows in your writing...
it does...
DO NOT BE A ROBOT BLOGGER...
beep bop boop... boring
do posts you are excited about or love...don't force it
which leads me to
don't let your blog take over...
last summer I probably spent more time blogging and blog hopping
don't judge some of you are doing it right now *wink*
but you have a life... outside of blogging...
get out and live
your butt will thank you...
and
because of last summer's BLOG addiction... I decided this summer is more about living
which leads me to another thing...
if you are blogging about things you LOVE
throw in some LIFE in there too...
we are teachers... and OMGEEWHIZ we have lives...
SHOW IT...
and get in front of the camera every now and then too...
show us your face...

Ok your turn...
in the tips, tricks, hints..... just leave a blogging, creating, selling, or whatever else seems right....
tip, trick, or hint
ok.....
let's do this...
oh and BTW my FB fans get hints to when I am posting... jus sayin *wink*
and this month they got big HELP... jus sayin again...

don't forget the rule of 3  and basically that is it...
if you don't know how to join my PARTAY head to this POST and scroll all the way to the bottom to find some how to guides
have a fun and safe 4th y'all



toodles

Camo, Hand Munchers, and pollen shooters

I am warning you now... this post has tons and tons of pictures...

most if not all are from my phone so I apologize up front if they are not "quality"

BUT they will provide you with the general idea of what we did...

okie dokie artichokie...

I promised a few posts ago that I would go into more detail about our 

Camouflage Scavenger Hunt

we have been doing this for years...

it is a GREAT activity to do the last few weeks or week of school

the kids LOVE it and it really hits home how important camo is

so anywho... each kid will trace their hand...

they then find a spot in the room to hide their hand....

IT HAS TO BE OUT IN THE OPEN

can't be all sneaky sneaky and hide it under a table or inside a book...

well after they pic their place they make their hand camouflage so it can hide in that spot...

here are some examples....

after the class has their hands in place

you trade classes with another teacher...

sorry I forgot to tell you earlier and I don't feel like scrolling back up....

but we do tell the kiddos that another class will come in to "EAT" their hands...

this makes them want to be the best....

they have been looking at this hand all year...

and I tell them... IF it is REALLY good 

its chances of survival are higher...

and if you survive your hand will stay up through next year....

for the next year's munchers to find

OK so after all hands are in place...

we let a whole class come in at one time...

and they only had ONE minute to find a hand...

Yes the person at the end of the line has a harder time MUNCHING 

BUT that is the real world right???

if you are late to the feeding you have to work harder...

they are only allowed to find one hand...

and then they leave...

NO WORDS are allowed...

Hand Munchers are SILENT...

after the minute is up... 

they go back to their original class...

they are eager to go back to the room to see if their hand survived the munchers....

and they like to see what everyone else collected...

here are some of the hands we munched...

when they get back they have to write about their experience being a Hand MUNCHER....

2 journals actually...

one from the point of veiw from the hand...

and then one as the Hand muncher....

they are pretty funny.... especially if the hand got eaten...

they have a word bank that must be used on both stories...

here are some pics of our survivors and they will hang around through next year....

WHAT WHAT...
yes I'm not done....
there is more
more more
more is better right???
ok....
after we finished studying adaptations....
the kids watched the beautiful movie...
Wings of Life....
it is a wonderful movie...
about plants
and lots of beautiful plants
and the pollinators
and the kids loved it...
and it is well worth the investment...
it is told from the plants' point of view which is so neat to hear...
can you tell I love it???



after the movie
then they had to randomly pick a card...
sorry no pic of those...
on the card was a problem...
or a situation...
for example...
your plant has to survive the brutal winter in the Arctic Tundra
or
your plant lives among a large population of rabbits...how will it survive to reproduce
or
your plant can only be pollinated by hummingbirds
or
design a plant that can survive living close to the ocean

there were many many more...
THEY LOVED THIS...
they had to name their plant and present to the class the card and the plant with its appropriate adaptations...
the kids were given lots of craft supplies to create their plants....
and here they are....

small tundra plant... the sponge represents the permafrost frozen ground

top view

this was a plant that could grow in small and slender spaces between tall buildings in a big city...
thin flower that produces big fruit that could roll out from between the buildings...
this one was hard and she did a good job... said the flower needed to be super big and bright to attract pollinators

flower of thorns... to keep the bunnies away

its large petal is sticky and will trap crawling insects

tiny thin spaces again

desert plant that traps insects...
green stems are water storage

love this one...
has a petal cup that holds the nectar 

goat flower...
bitter until the seeds are produced and then the seeds need to be digested by the goat
and the goat will deposit them

windy beach flower....
the green is a root
it can spin in the wind...
to survive the coastal winds....

had to survive competition in a meadow full of flowers....
so she came up with....... a pollen shooter
ha ha ha...
she was really serious about this 

this one is really cool.... it had to survive long periods of drought... but was also a carnivorous plant... so this plant stores the bugs in the big bubble part and eats them when needed
the pink stipe guides the crawling bugs to their death... MUHAHAHA... 

windy desert plant... that can produce fruit for crawling, walking, and flying dessert animals
love this one too because he made it hollow like so the wind will blow through it

this one was only for humming birds... the yellow pipe cleaners are the tubes to get the nectar...
cute idea

 suppose to provide camo for the colorful parrots found in the rain
forrest... can you see the bird... it is green with an orange beak

Ok that does it...

whew

that was a lot a lot a lot of pics

sorry this was put up now BUT....

I hope that it gave you some good ideas about some fun adaptation projects...

I think I am going to work on a HAND MUNCHER pack...

that could be my summer project...

alrighty... hope you are having a great summer... 

toodles