Easter Baskets for Babies

My Mom and Dad got Natalie an amazing Easter basket, and Caleb and I got her one as well. We bought her a two stuffed animals from Target, a book, a pacifier, a sippy cup and an Easter bib. We kept it simple since we knew it was more for pictures, then for her. However, she loved playing with her new toys and books.

My mom got her a book, three stuffed animals, and a hat!




The bib came in handy too when she ate later that day, as did the pacifier during nap time! She still plays with her toys too. It is good we got her all those fun toys.

Giving her the baskets was very fun! She is quite adorable, and such a fun baby.

Surprise Saturday!

Our neighbors are incredible. We are very lucky to live where we live. We decided to start a new tradition. It is called Surprise Saturday. All of us decide on a dish and side dish to bring, without talking to each other, and the Surprise is whether all the dishes work together!

Our first Surprise Saturday actually worked really well! Some how they all meshed very well. We brought tacos, our across the street neighbors brought an applesauce pork, and guacamole, and our next door neighbors made a polenta shrimp. Oddly, it worked! And we had tons of left overs for the week - which was incredible. It was a fun experiment, that we will recreate!

Just Because

My daughter is quite the explorer. She also loves dogs! And just because I love this photo and find it hilarious, I wanted to share it.

I call it: What is Daddy doing in the Kitchen? 

Our Experiment in Compost Gardening

My husband is amazing. He bought a com-poster last year. We had an amazing garden the year prior by using seeds. This year we wanted to experiment. We put our plants at the end of the season in the com-poster as well as the seeds from our food, and food that could compost well.

We would stir the compost every month or so. Then in early spring, with a shovel, and wheel barrow we moved the compost to our garden area, and spread it out. along the garden area we used last year. 

After a week or so, we had plants budding! It was very exciting. We called it our Mystery Garden. Since we had no idea what would grow. We put a lot of seeds into the compost! 

Then, a few weeks later we had plants growing every where! It was crazy! My husband has thinned it out now, and it looks like we have a three different types of squash plants, and two tomato plants. We are quite proud of our Mystery Garden, and can't wait to eat our left over food! 

Explorers Project, 4th Grade

This was a group project that my students composed last year while I taught fourth grade. It was a fun project that they completed after CST's, and kept the students learning, while having fun!

The students were broken up into groups of 6 for the project, and they each had specific tasks.

Map Expert: This person drew the map for where the explorer sailed.

Timeline Expert: This person made the timeline of the person's life.

Early Life Expert: This person researched the early life of the person, and wrote the paragraph as well.

The Contributions Expert: This person researched and found information on what the explorers did, and where they explored. Then wrote the paragraph about it.

Later Life Expert: This person researched what they did after they were an explorer.

If there was a odd person out, they would write the final draft of the essay, and be the assistant to the researchers.

The students were allowed to research on the computers in the room, or use their social studies book.

The students researched: Vitus Bering, Sebastian Vizcaino, Juan Cabrillo, Gaspar De Portola, Sir Francis Drake, and Hernando Cortez.

After their projects were complete (what is pictured above). The students did a presentation on the person. Each person had to present on a different part of the person's life, so they had to learn from their experts. We invited another class to come watch the presentations, and it was a huge success! The absolutely loved showing off all their hard work!

Transition to the Common Core

Our district is slowly piloting the common core standard by standard. My first focus was this, Reading Standard for literature 5.1: 1. Quote accurately from a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text.


Something I have already created for my students as a tool to take notes is a playbook. The playbook consists of sentence frames, vocabulary notes, grammar notes, vocabulary/decoding/word work skills. It usually gives room for the students to write while we read our stories. 

What I have pictured to the right is a page from my playbook, that focuses on the comprehension strategy of questioning. The students I had worked in partner groups. After reading a page they were to write a question that could be answered from the story. Then, they would switch pages. They would then answer their partners question, but the catch was that they had to quote accurately the information from the story. 

The frame I gave them to start with was this: ________(answer the question)______, and I know this because on page _____ it says "____(where the answer is in the story)___." 

Now we are starting incorporate the quote into the answer to sound more sophisticated. It is tough at first, but once the students saw a few good examples they did a better answering questions. Now, they are truly getting it down, and we can quote accurately doing any comprehension strategy!

Also, my favorite part about this, is that I had students start doing this with a non-fiction science text automatically, which is the Reading Strategy Informational Text 5.1. And, these were EL students! It was cool to give them this power!

My Homemade Chili

My husband and I made a New Year's Resolution, and it was to cook all our meals on Sunday's rather than throughout the week, when we are tired and exhausted. It has been a huge success!

This week I made my chili.

What you need:
1 16 oz can of kidney beans
1 16 oz can of black beans
1 16 oz can of turkey chili mix
1 20 oz can of tomato sauce
1 4 oz can of tomato paste
1 package of ground turkey or ground beef
1 package of chili seasoning

Brown the turkey or beef, then add 1/2 the chili seasoning.
Drain the kidney beans and black beans of the extra juice, then pour them into the crock pot along with the turkey chili, sauce and tomato paste. Add the browned meat, and pour the other half of the chili seasoning into the crock pot. Stir the yummy goodness.

Cook for ~4-6 hours on low. Then consume! I will usually add cheese after it has been cooked. It is also delicious with corn bread!