It's beginning to look a lot like....

well, I can finally say that this week is OVER! WHAT. A. WEEK. But today was awesome - my kids were awesome and we got so much finished today!

I haven't done HALF of what I wanted to with my kiddos - and I SURELY haven't taken any pictures for y'all! bummer....BUT today we did our first visit from our ELF! They came up with the name Trigger for him - I like it :) We started using Kerri's Magic Elf unit - and my kids are LOVING it so far!

This is where he made his first appearance...

AND today I decided to attempt the impossible - ART skills....now, on a previous post, I've explained how we don't really have art in our school...I feel like I teach my kids more art (and art is SO important - art AND music!). SOOOO.....Since I have been stressed all week, I decided - Hey, why not see how much more I can stress myself out - ha!! We made these BEAUTIFUL  winter snowflake stars....And I'm tellin' ya - it was easier than I thought it was going to be - with them, not me - it took me like 10 practice tries to FINALLY cut the darn paper the right way - and I was even looking at the directions right in front of me! lol

One little girl even got checked out early when we had JUST started doing it - she didn't even know what it was going to be, and when she got up to the front office, she told her mom, "Why did you check me out early?!?! Can we go back so I can do the project??" ha! See???? Art is SOO important - in so many ways! And in this case, we even got in a little geometry :) Hey - I can make ANYthing go along with standards. lol. I love art - and I'm loving all the ideas I am finding from y'all :)

 Aren't they cool??? I found the idea from Christie over at Teaching in Flip Flops.  She has 2 posts that explain the steps...First step is {HERE} and second step is {HERE}

I was so proud of how they came out, I even went home and did one with the hubster....

I think this is probably one of my favorite pictures ever....baby girl is trying to grab at the star and my husband is annoyed at me for wanting to take a picture..lol...yep - that's my life! And I love it :)

And I leave you with this cute little guy! It's from one of our 1st grade teachers...they did a Gingerbread family, and how stinkin' cute is this!?! I may be a little biased since my husband is a firefighter - lol...I'm totally calling dibs on this kid next year! ha!

Happy Teaching!

P.S. - it feels good to be back! :)