Five for Friday

Five For Friday time...again!?! Wow! Let's get right to it.

1. This first one is important. My sweet friend, Danielle, is raising money to build a school in Nicaragua using Pencils of Promise.

I am truly impressed that she is doing this and can't express what a sweet and kind soul Danielle is. Like me, she LOVES to travel. She has combined that passion with her love to help others!!

She plans to go there and help build it herself. Wait... did you read that sentence? She wants to help build the school herself.

She actually just got back from Central America in December where she was volunteering in schools for several months.

Here is a video one of our other friend's made to help Danielle:



And just for fun...here is me and sweet Danielle about a year ago at the Color Run.

So please consider helping Danielle at Pencils of Promise! You will really be helping a whole bunch of little ones who may otherwise not have a chance at an education.

2. This week my little ones made finished some cute little caterpillars with an Eric Carle flair to them. {Spoiler Alert: The template and directions for  this is a freebie on my Facebook page!}

Last week I showed you some action shots of us marble painting and "gadget" painting

{Here they are again in case you missed it}

Gadget painting is taking any toy and putting paint on it... the possibilities are endless. We used one of those bristle builder blocks this year...try toy cars.... it is a fun mess!

We also did string painting {my fave} and this Valentine post has a few more directions on how to do it.

I wrote a whole post about this last year HERE

But this year you don't even get a picture of them cute on a bulletin board...no we aren't to that stage yet...these are hot off the press!! aka.... on the ground drying still!

As you can tell... this project is time consuming.... but look at them! It's worth it. I'm just noticing that one caterpillar has seven legs and each should have only had 6..not based on science... based on how many legs each of them painted...so now I can't wait to see whose creation that 7-legged friend is.

Here is one of my little ones putting his together {that is my sample on the top and you can see how some of the painting is different because I change it up a bit each year}

 You can grab all the parts and directions for free to make this little caterpillar yourself

Just hop on over to my Facebook Page and click the yellow tab "Freebies for Fans"

3. So as you may have guessed we are learning about insects right now! The kids are so excited about this whole unit!

These painted fluttering friends prove that we have been painting machines lately with this and that caterpillar. There have been many a paintbrush washed in my classroom lately.

We have caterpillars in class we are observing and keeping a science journal on using materials from my Butterfly Mini Unit

4. I went to Malibu Wines with some friends last weekend. Um, it was a beautiful place and it didn't hurt that the sun was out!

And although my report cards were calling my name and causing me stress- I am so glad I still went.

And that is actually why it made my Five for Friday. The point is... Life goes on when we are stressed even though sometimes it seems like there is too much on my plate.

Sometimes when I have deadlines and work is on overload I say no to things like a girls' day...or I don't exercise... or skip out on whatever. And it isn't worth it.... and yes, I am sharing this with you, but more so, I am telling it to ME because I forget it way too often.

And in case you were wondering...yes, still finished the cards in time and life is just fine.

5. Did you hear about the Product Swap? A bunch of us bloggers swapped some of our products AND not only are we sharing all the fun new stuff we got to try out and use we are also giving them away too! 

Hurry it ends at midnight TONIGHT!! So click HERE and go enter!!

That wraps it up for me! Thank you as always to Doodle Bugs Teaching for this Friday linky! 

Enjoy your weekend.