Organization...A Valentine's Craft and A LOOOONNNNNNGGGG Weekend to get some things done!

Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day!  100th Day of School!  Half-Way Through the Year....
 
It has been an incredibly busy last few weeks...report cards completed for the 2nd quarter, back into the swing of things with school, and SICKNESS!  UGGHHHHH-I am ready for spring to say the least!

Both my son and daughter were blasted with the flu last week.  My son is the inevitable "thrower-upper," while my daughter just gets the fever and the cough.  My son was able to wrap up his bout with the flu with a noisy case of Croup.  He had it at 6 months, but I had no idea that 6-year olds could even get that!  Needless to say, we are on the mend and back to school as usual l tomorrow.  I HOPE!

I needed this 3-day weekend more than I ever could have imagined!  With Baby #3 arriving in about 6-7 weeks, I needed time to sit down and plan the remainder of my school year.  I am about 80 pages of lessons, planning, procedures, and other information into my "SUB INFO BINDER" to prepare for my long-term sub.  Only a few last things to add, and I can say that I am confident Mrs. R will be ready to go!  Ten weeks is a LOOOONNGGGG time to prepare someone for coming in to take your place in a hopefully seamless fashion.

This was a HUGE organizational weekend on the home front as well.  Since we have no idea what gender baby we are having, all bins were pulled, loads of laundry was tackled, bags of unneeded items were dropped off at Goodwill, and I can say with as much confidence as one can have welcoming a THIRD baby, that we are as ready as we will ever be...

Lastly, with impending Valentine's parties coming, I thought I might as well tackle the task of finding a craft and working on it with my son, so he is ready to teach his classmates on Valentine's Day.  Since I am often lying awake at 3AM, I did some late-night Pinteresting and found an adorable Valentine butterfly craft.  After a trip to Walmart today to grab: colored craft sticks, pipe cleaners, googly-eyes, felt heart stickers, and bags of M&Ms, here is what we made:

Brennan happy to show off our fun work!

Some inexpensive supplies!

We will be using Valentine M&M bags to make them more festive.

While I often say this, my 6th graders love crafts!  We will begin our work with 26 Random Acts of Kindness in 28 Days in February, so I am thinking of teaming up with my friend, Maria of Curious Firsties curiousfirsties.blogspot.com/ and having a 6th grade/1st grade buddy time to make this craft close to Valentine's Day as well.  Combining this with a reading activity will be better than any party we could ever have.  I will happily post pics of this fun event in a few short weeks.

In the meantime, stay warm and know that spring will be here before we know it!