To Dye For

This Sunday Funday we had some extra special guests in town (Big Sis and Adam) so we used our afternoon wisely and dyed Easter eggs. We had such a blast and came up with some pretty awesome creations.

In honor of the upcoming Easter week, we've added some fun facts about the history of Easter Eggs (thanks to wikipedia). Hope you enjoy them as much as we enjoyed making them.

• Easter eggs are special eggs that are often given to celebrate Easter or springtime. As such, Easter eggs are common during the season of Eastertide. In Christianity, they symbolize the empty tomb of Jesus. Though an egg appears to be like the stone of a tomb, a bird hatches from it with life; similarly, the Easter egg, for Christians, is a reminder that Jesus rose from the grave, and that those who believe will also experience eternal life.
• Eggs, in general, were a traditional symbol of fertility, and rebirth, pre-dating Christian traditions. The practice of decorating eggshell is ancient. Ostrich eggs with engraved decoration that are 60,000 years old have been found in Africa. Decorated ostrich eggs, and representations of ostrich eggs in gold and silver, were commonly placed in graves of the ancient Sumerians and Egyptians as early as 5,000 years ago.
• A sacred tradition among followers of Eastern Christianity says that Mary Magdalene was bringing cooked eggs to share with the other women at the tomb of Jesus, and the eggs in her basket miraculously turned brilliant red when she saw the risen Christ.
• In the Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Churches, Easter eggs are dyed red to represent the blood of Christ, shed on the Cross, and the hard shell of the egg symbolized the sealed Tomb of Christ — the cracking of which symbolized his resurrection from the dead.
• The Christian Church officially adopted the custom, regarding the eggs as a symbol of the resurrection; in A.D. 1610

naked eggs waiting to get pretty

 supplies and inspirations

 coloring eggs with sharpie pens

sprinkles are a must

Adam's egg (the other side is a deer head)

 pinterest project! starch soaked yarn wrapped a balloon. 

when the balloon is popped, you have a pretty Easter "Egg"

 started a yarn egg

 and finished the yarn egg (an hour later)

 lots of variety!

Hope you have a wonderful, beautiful, colorful week and Hoppy Easter!

School of...

ROCK!

When I made my students set goals for the second half I the year, I had to set a couple of my own. One of them was to incorporate more music into our learning. I enjoy teaching through music and the kiddos get pumped when I play a "jam" before a subject to get them pumped up. My selections range from classical songs during writing to current top 10 songs before math. Lately, our lessons had me thinking of melodies that would correlate with our standards. Here is a snap shot of what we've been rockin' out to while we learn. Most students get really into it and a few just roll their eyes at me. Either way, I am trying to include music and movement into our routines to make learning fun and meaningful. Enter our learning boom box... ha!

Disclaimer: all the music I play is either the instrumental, clean, or the kids bop version. I preview everything before I play it.

I paired this lesson with:

 1. A 4th grade teacher called my phone which I answered on speaker and she pretended to by my Aunt Sally. She was saying all sorts of funny things that an old lady would say. The kids loved it! When I hung up, I told my class to "please excuse my dear Aunt Sally" because she is old and didn't know I was in the middle of teaching. 

and

2) This video: 

                  

They really enjoyed this one.

We are also learning about the Solar System and Planets. I introduced the lesson by playing the clean version of "Day and Night" by Kid Cudi and the instrumental version of "Lean Back" by Fat Joe. With the "Lean Back" song, we made up our own lyrics. Hopefully this will help them to remember tilt vs revolution vs rotation.

Maybe all of my music incorpation is paying off. My favorite science fair project... throw back!

They sure do know how to make me smile!

I hope you have a ROCKIN' week! Maybe try to find ways to incorporate moves and grooves into your daily routine. :)