Dear Spring, Where are you?

Well, here we are...another snow day. On March 25th. 5 days into this season where the weather supposedly warms up, plants grow, and the sun comes back out. Yeah, I'll believe it when I see it. Argh!

(That said, there is a very little amount of snow out there, and canceling school seems a bit unnecessary. But shhh, don't tell my principal I said that! I'm perfectly happy to stay in pajamas on the couch!)

We have one more day of school this week, and then we're off until next Tuesday. It's generally known as our Spring "Pause" since it's a mere 4 days, instead of the 6+ most schools around here have. But, no matter, I'll take it! When we get back, we're in the home stretch to summer vacation - crazy! 7.5 weeks left after this pause!

Speaking of the end of the year, I have an interview on Wednesday for a primary position at another Catholic school. Fingers crossed it goes well and/or more open positions pop up soon! I am planning to spend today preparing for the interview. (And I also have big plans to clean my apartment and spend money that I don't have at the mall near me...but I just want to buy summery clothes! It'll help spring realize that it's supposed to be here...right?) This school looks great, about 10 minutes closer to me (in the opposite direction) than my current school, but very similar demographics and feel. I love my current school, but there are no open teaching positions for next year, sadly. I need to get back to a full (true?) classroom position, as opposed to latchkey and After Care. So, job applying and interviews, it is!

Although it doesn't feel much like spring, we have been learning about the season and its holidays! We have been tracking lion and lamb days this month (grr...last year, this would have been a much more pleasant exercise...), we learned about and celebrated St. Patrick's Day, and currently, we have been learning about Easter and making Easter crafts.

We made pictures to depict the saying "March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb." (Although, I may have to explain again that this isn't always true. Refer to snow day on 3/25.)

Here is part of the class display. I love imperfect (non-cookie cutter) kid art! I also like having the kids cut out the sayings (We did a similar project at Christmas.) to reinforce word order and left-right/top-bottom orientation.

(Of course, I found this idea - and tweaked it a bit - on Pinterest.)

We also celebrated St. Patrick's Day this month. I read books about St. Patrick, his legends, and why we wear green and look for leprechauns and shamrocks on St. Patty's Day. (I highly recommend both of those books to teach young children the background of this holiday!)


We sponge painted shamrocks, after the kids mixed their own unique color of green, experimenting with different amounts of blue and yellow paints. These looked great on our windows!

We were also visited by a few pesky leprechauns, who turned over chairs and desks, spilled our dress-up clothes, and smeared frosting all over desks and the floor! We think they felt bad about the mess, though, because they did leave us some delicious shamrock cookies, green frosting, and green sprinkles!


(Also, hunting for leprechauns? Oh, my goodness, were these kids into it. In After Care, we had fourth graders sending clues and leading the hunt - without any prompting by us - it was really sweet to see them trying to get the little ones so excited.)

Found this through one of the teaching blogs I follow (Emily at I Love My Classroom) and here's a link to the printable. These were so easy (and cheap!) to make. It's nice to remind my students that I love teaching them and feel very lucky to know each and every one of them! I plan to do this next year, no matter what grade I'm teaching - I think older grades would love this little treat also.

And that about sums up March in my room! I'll be back soon to share the Easter project we've been working on. Looks like some of our other Easter crafts will either be skipped or postponed until after the big day.

I'm off to enjoy my snow day, prepare for the interview, clean, and shop! Happy Monday, all! If this is your last week before Spring Break, you can do it!!