Turkey Time

Hello All!! I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving Holiday with your family and friends!! The break just went by WAY to fast for me! How about you? Anybody do anything exciting? Now just 4 weeks until Christmas break, but hey who's counting huh? ;) Here is a couple of things from my classroom for thanksgiving! Hope you like!

My Classroom door with all the kids pictures on the leaves! 

The other door! The saying is from this really cute Youtube video that my kids just fell in love with! :)

Our class thankful tree made from a real tree branch! Each kid put 2 things on there and the ones who cant write picked a visual. 

We also had a feast and all of my 15 kids families came, there was 50 people in my room it was so awesome! All the food turned out so well! Hope everyone has a great week back at school! Please follow me and feel free to comment, I love comments! :)

Happy Late Halloween

Hey everyone!! I have been SO busy and just a really bad blogger and I AM SORRY!!! I promise to do better!! I am almost done with my masters in Special Education (May 2013)  and I just applied for the doctoral program at the University of Texas in Austin where I live... so fingers crossed I get in!! But here are some pictures from Halloween in my classroom! We had a blast!!

One of my doors! The kids pictures were under the windows!!

The other door!! The kids pictures were under the ghosts! :)

Some decorations around the word wall!! 

We did the book The Little Old Lady Who Wasn't Afraid Of Anything and I made this and the kids put it together, we used lots of language and acted the book out! 

I also made this for the book Go Away Big Green Monster and all the parts of the face are put on using velcro so they could easily be taken off and put back on to act out the story! My kids LOVED this! 

This is the principals door that I decorated for her! :)

Hope everyone had a great Halloween and are ready for fall and the holidays I know I am!! :)

Thanks for stopping by! Please follow me!! 

Boo- Linky Party

BOO!

I am so very excited to do my first ever Linky Party thanks to my good friend  Sarah at Yee Haw Teaching In Texas! and Cynthia at 2nd Grade Pad!

Heres how to play:

  1. Choose a fellow blogger that has MORE followers, another that has about the SAME number of followers, and last, someone that has LESS followers.
2. Highlight their blogs with links to encourage others to check them out.  Don't forget to let your fellow bloggers know that you shared about them. 

3. Lastly, leave them some love by offering them a goody from your store as their "treat."



Erin at Creating & Teaching!


Erin is amazing! She also has another blog called Creating & Designing! She designs blogs for people and she did mine! I highly recommend her!!



Heather from Heather's Heart!

Heather is my newest follower and WOW I have fallen in LOVE with her blog!! I know you all will to! I hope to get as good at blogging as she is one day!

Amanda at A Special Kind of Class

Amanda has an amazing blog for teaching special needs students just like me! She was my inspiration in doing this blog in the first place! Check her out she has great Ideas!

Now, it's your turn! Pass on the BOO to a few of your favorite bloggers and link up! Have a great week!!

 

Thanks fo looking at my page and following! I really appreciate it!!

First week of school

WOW what a crazy first week of school! I got sick on the 3rd day! Thank goodness for the long holiday weekend so I can recover! How was everyone else's first week of school?  

Please follow me and thanks so much for stopping by! I love comments! :)

Happy Labor Day!!

Love always, 

Holly Phinney 

New classroom, Its a jungle in here

HELLO EVERYONE!!!

SO sorry its been SO long since I have posted! But as you can see my blog got a major face lift!! I LOVE it!! All the thanks goes to Erin at Creating and designing!! SHES AWESOME!!! So as you all know I moved schools and cities and wow it was a busy end of summer and now were almost finished with the first week of school!!! I am in LOVE with my new kids, their parents, my coworkers and the school!!! Its going to be a fabulous year!! So for my first post back I wanted to post pictures of my new classroom! Its a jungle theme! It took a long time but everyone really likes it so it was so worth it and all the money! :) Hope you enjoy! Please follow me!

Front door!!

Inside of front door!!

My Desk!!

Reading Center!!

Word Wall!!

Big carpet in front and in the middle of the room! 

Front board! 

Computer center! 

My amazing hand painted stool!!

Environmental print board! 

Writing center using the air conditioner and zebra duck tape! 

I am using this behavioral management system this year!!

My big bathroom wall!

My tissue paper balls and banner made inspired from Pinterest! 

Welcome banner with tissue paper flowers!!

Other side of my reading center!!

This is right when you walk in the room on the bathroom door! 

Front board with our jobs! 

Well this is all the pictures for now!! Hope you like it all and get some ideas for your own classroom!! I will be back to blogging all the time now so please comment I love it!! :) Thanks so much!!

Love always,

Holly Phinney 

Easter Egg Hunt

Hello Everyone!! Hope you all have had a great weekend! I haven't posted in a few days sorry I have been so busy moving out of my apartment and moving out of my old classroom and finishing up summer school! Here are some pictures of this past school year when we did an easter egg hunt and the easter bunny came to see us at school! Have any questions or comments please feel free to comment or email me at: Hollyphinney@gmail.com or Specialsmartspecialhearts@gmail.com   Thanks!

Our great easter basket's the kids made and decorated! 

So many eggs!!

She wanted to eat the whole egg!! ;)

Group picture of everyone after our hunt! :)

Everyone had so much fun! I decided for my higher students they had to find the eggs # 1-12 before they could go get any other ones. It worked great! It also gave my other students who have a more difficult time getting the eggs enough time! :) 

Thanks for stopping by! Please follow me I would really appreciate it! 

Love Always,

Holly Phinney

Shaving Cream Fun/ Sensory

Hello, Everyone! Hope your all enjoying your summer, I have 3 more days of summer school left I am so excited to have some free time! A lot of my students have sensory problems and really hate different things on them or just different feelings that are not normal. I let my kids play in shaving cream quite a bit! They love it and the more advanced kids can write their name, numbers, letters, and words etc. in the shaving cream and its fun interactive learning! If you haven't tried this in your class or with special needs students you should try it hopefully it works as well as it did with my kiddos! I also like using color or just plain san and salt! Here are some pictures hope your enjoy! Thanks for stopping by! Please follow me!

:) 

Have any questions or comments please feel free to email me at Hollyphinney@gmail.com or at Specialsmartspecialhearts@gmail.com! Thanks!

Love Always,

Holly Phinney

Community Helpers

One of my favorite units I taught this past school years was about all the different community helps and different professions people have as well as what the kids could grow up to be! Here are some pictures of the construction worker tool belts and hats we made as well as the chef hats we made and wore while cooking! Thanks for stopping by! Please follow me!

Hope you enjoy! If you have any questions or comments please feel free to comment or email me at Hollyphinney@gmail.com or Specialsmartspecialhearts@gmail.com!

Love Always,

Holly Phinney