Halloween Week

Aloha and Happy Halloween Week!  I love getting ready for Halloween.  I am a little obsessed with it actually!  My girls and I start planning out costumes in September.  Ever since they were babies I have made their costumes.  I always try to have a theme, but now that they are older, they have their own ideas.

Here is a little collage of previous costumes.


Here is a picture of my girls and I last year.


This year my daughter wanted to be The Bride of Frankenstein after seeing those crazy foam headpieces at Target!  I get really excited when I have a project.  So we scoured Goodwill and Savers for everything we needed.  


We found a white dress for a few dollars, some clunky boots and we wrapped her arms in gauze (not wrapped yet in this picture).  I loved doing her hair and makeup.



I have always wanted to dress 60's mod.  I was born in the summer of love and I really enjoy looking at pictures of how my mom was dressed.   I picked up this fun dress at Ross for $8 and just cut it.  I bought a beret and some glasses for my husband who was my beatnik poet boyfriend. I posted some pictures on Instagram as well.


I wish you could see how high I got my hair after all the teasing and hairspray!  And finally my daughter who was taking the pictures.


Do you see a trend in her outfits?  I think this is the 4th time she has been a leopard!  She is obsessed with leopard print.  I have to scan her outfits daily for school or she tends to look like Peg Bundy! 

Anyway we headed out and my youngest was so excited about entering the costume contest, because last year her friend won.  She is very competitive, much like her mother.


Well our hard work paid off, she won!  She won a horse riding package for two at Turtle Bay Resort.  She was so excited, and so was I.

Well now that I have bored you to tears.  I will return to prepping for my classroom.  This week is Halloween/Pumpkin week and I have tons of activities lined up, but we will see how many of them I get to.  I have some fun writing prompts about costumes, spiders and Halloween.  If you would like a copy of those click {HERE}.




In math we will be starting 2 digit addition, and in science we will continue with nocturnal animals and throw in some fun pumpkin activities.

For Halloween I plan to give my students a pencil and a new tag for their award necklace.  I made up these cute tags.


Just click on the picture to grab them in Google Docs.  We are also going to be watching the Magic School Bus Going Batty episode on Netflix.


It should be an exciting week!  I have a feeling on Friday I will definitely ready for a break!  Hope you have a fabulous week as well.  I would love to hear what you have planned!






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Five For Friday-End of Conference Week!

Aloha everyone. It has been one of those crazy weeks trying to balance teaching with parent conferences, along with running my daughters around to all of their extra-curricular activities. You know what I'm talking about! 

Now that I have some down time I am linking up with Kasey for her fabulous Five For Friday post.


I am not complaining about conferences at all.  The students are released an hour early each day so that we can fit everyone in.  But, that hour a day adds up quickly and I feel like we missed out on so much, especially with Halloween around the corner.  On top of all that, the SPED teacher was out all week with no sub plans!  I had a string of different subs throughout the week that I had to explain everything to.   Needless to say this about sums it up!


Between the rushing around we did manage to get some things accomplished this week.


We have been having tons of fun learning about nocturnal animals.  I think we have checked out every book from our library and the students have even brought in their own. 


We made these great positive/negative pictures.  We discussed symmetry and then I let the students choose what animal they wanted to create.  When they were finished they had to wrote three facts about their animal.



We also had some time to tell some Halloween riddles.  The kids love them, and we talked about the double meaning of some of the answers.  They chose their favorite riddle and made their own little pumpkin riddle craft from my Ghostly Giggles pack.



We ended the week with mosaic pumpkins.  I gave each student a black piece of paper and a small sheet of colored paper.  I told them to draw an outline of a pumpkin with a white crayon.  Then I showed them how to cut small squares to create their picture.



I gave the kids a choice of 5 different colors.  I love this one.



These pumpkins were donated to our class and I am looking forward to doing some fun activities next week using Nicole's Pumpkin Unit. 


I am thrilled it is the weekend!  My daughters and I are going to decorate our yard tomorrow for Halloween, carve our pumpkins and then we are going to Turtle Bay Resort for a fun Halloween bash and Haunted House.  What exciting things do you have planned?





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My Truth Monday-Fitness

Aloha friends and happy Monday.  Today I am happy to join in on a new linky with Denise over at Sunny Days In Second Grade.


This weeks truth is all about Fitness.  This is a topic that I am passionate about, because it is something that I firmly believe in.  I love being athletic, strong and in shape.  I love that people don't believe I am 45 years young.   

I have been running and competing in physical challenges for many years.  I ran my first half-marathon when I was 16.

In 2000 I did the AIDS Ride.  I rode my bicycle from San Francisco to L.A. with several other teachers.  If you don't know how far that is, it's 545 miles.


I loved it so much I become a ride leader and helped others train for it.  In 2002 I had my first daughter. I ran The US Half Marathon when she was 6 months old.

Since moving to Hawaii I have taught myself to surf and have participated in tons of fun 5 and 10K runs.



Swamp Romp 2011


Warriors Dash 2012


Color Run 2012

Let's just say this girl loves a challenge, especially a physical one!  I plan to be active and fit for as long as my body will allow it.

What's your Fitness Truth?  Head on over and link up with Sunny Days In Second Grade.






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October Treats

Aloha friends!  I have had a very restful week and am actually looking forward to heading back to school tomorrow.  I have so many fun things planned for the remainder of the month that I can't wait to get started!!  Okay, maybe I'm not that excited, but I know my students will be once we start rolling with our nocturnal animals and our Halloween activities.

Our school loves Halloween and we have a big parade every year.  I try to have the kids do some sort of artsy cooking project for our party instead of bringing in lots of sugary treats.  Last year we made these cute little treats.


The year before we did dirt cups.


Well last week I saw the cutest picture in a Good Housekeeping magazine of some Marshmallow treats on a stick.  They used fondant to decorate and I didn't think that would be ideal to use with 2nd graders. So I gathered up my taste testers and we decided to make them with what we thought would be fun.






















I think there are tons of possibilities with this one!  They are a bit sugary, but so is Halloween.  My daughters loved making them and didn't have any complaints about eating them.  I usually send home a letter a week before Halloween asking for donations.  If each child brings in one item to decorate with I avoid the onslaught of random sugary treats that show up on Halloween day.

What do you think?  
Some sweet food for thought.





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