Seuss Stuff at Target

My daughter and I had a fun girl's day this week.

Complete with pedicures, haircuts, lunch, shopping, and many, many laughs. 

Our last stop was at our favorite store:

I am 99% Target has hired a retired teacher to choose items to display in their Dollar Spot. 

There are always so many things that are cute, practical and $1!!!

Just thought I would share my great finds this week:

(silly bands, stickers, erasers, cute bags, number cards to play memory)

Seuss in July, yes indeed! 

Click the picture below to check out some of the Seussical things I have done with my class:

and below to see some my great Seuss finds on Pinterest:

Congratulations Scott!!!

Congratulations to my son, Scott, who ran his first 5K today!

He finished Cincinnati's Flying Pig 5K today, with a huge smile on his face. 

I am really proud of him for running...

and for many, many other reasons!

What a blessing to have such an amazing kid-o in our lives!!!

Scott ran with his running club from school, which included friends...

 and two teachers that he adores:

Mrs. Wolf (his Kindergarten teacher) running in yellow.

and Mrs. Shaw (his current teacher in 4th grade).

He chose to celebrate at Skyline afterwards. 

Way to go, Scott!! We are proud of you! 

Spring Break Fun!

 My Spring Break has been wonderful!

The weather was beautiful and I shared many fun adventures with my hysterical children! 

We went to the Cincinnati Zoo and saw this cutie:

We traveled to Columbus to explore for a couple of days.

SO FUN!! 

Our trip included stops at...

 COSI:

The Columbus Zoo:

and my son's favorite... 

the Buckeyes' Stadium:

We also made several trips to the Cincinnati Nature Center to hike

and we celebrated Moo's 2nd birthday!

I shared my students' owl work with several blog posts:

Hosted a Library Linky Party:

and pinned a little:

click on the pictures above to check out the blog posts and my boards : )

Feeling rested, happy, and ready to take on the last 8 weeks of school. 


Hope you all had a wonderful break!


Looking forward to seeing all of my kindergarten friends tomorrow and hearing about their Spring Break adventures. 

Thanksgiving Celebration

Parents,

Thank you for sharing your amazing children with me. They inspire me often. I am thankful for all of their hard work, laughter, and passion for learning! 

Hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Love,

Mrs. Rider

Enjoy this Smilebox of our

 Thanksgiving Celebration:

Make your own free scrapbooking design

Meet the Teacher

First Grade Parade is having a Meet the Teacher linky party and I've decided to join the fun!

Check out the Party on Cara Carroll's blog: FIRST GRADE PARADE

My name is Amy Rider.

I am going to turn 30 (WHAT!?!!) next Saturday. : )

This is my 7^th year in Education. I went to UC for my Bachelor’s in Early Childhood Education and to NKU for my Master’s in Literacy.

I am teaching All Day Kindergarten this year and I ABSOLUTELY LOVE IT.

Love my class, love my team, love my school!!!

This is me with two of my kindergarten friends: Emma and Makenna. They drew a very flattering picture of me on the white board today- “beautiful dress and a tiara for being a great teacher”. Love them!

My husband, Mike, and I just celebrated our 11^th wedding anniversary. We are kind of nuts about each other…. We met on March 22^nd, 1999 and haven’t spent a day apart since! Yes, it’s true- 4336 consecutive days of seeing each other. Ummm I am not counting, I just found a nifty date calculator online. Mike is an amazing husband and dad- so lucky I found him. We spend a lot of time LAUGHING. : )

We have 2 children, Scott and Madilynn, and that we absolutely ADORE!!!!

We also have an adorable puggle named Molly. She is so sweet and lets me dress her up in ridiculous things.

Scott is in 3^rd grade. He is super smart, kind, helpful, funny, and amazing at math. Scott is known for loving non-fiction, hating vegetables, spiking his hair, playing baseball, and being an amazing big brother.

Madilynn is a 3 ½ year old spunky preschooler. She is hysterical, creative, sweet, and curious. Maddy is known for loving all things PINK, hating bugs, eating olives, making people laugh, and being a dance machine.

{Q & A}

Q: What would you be doing if you weren’t a teacher?

A: I love teaching so much, but if I had to choose I would have to keep my two favorites: children and literature…. So I would open a quaint little children’s bookstore.

Q: What are your hobbies?

A: Being with my AMAZING family- Mike, Scott, Madilynn and I are all weirdos who just LOVE spending time together. We love laughing, playing games, going on fun adventures to the zoo, park, King’s Island, etc., or having awesome dance parties that involve music from the Black Eyed Peas, James Brown, Britney Spears, and Poison, HAHA funny, but true…

I also enjoy: blogging, finding GREAT children’s literature, exercising at Boot Camp, reading professional development books, getting together with friends, trying out new recipes, playing games, cheering on the Bengals and Ohio State Buckeyes, and photography.

Q: When you were little, what did you want to be when you grew up?

A: T-E-A-C-H-E-R for sure!!!

Q: What are your guilty pleasures?

A: Watching reality TV (so bad, yet so good!) and Food Network, spending ridiculous amounts of money on books, shopping at Target, pretzel M&Ms, and my mom’s Chex mix.

Q: What is your biggest fear?!

A: FLYING!!! OMG, get me down!

Q: When you’re on vacation, where do you like to go?

A: We are definitely beach bums.

Relaxing on the beach = PARADISE. Our favorite place to visit is Naples, Florida, but our trip to Disney World last summer was AMAZING too!!

Q: What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?

A: BE YOURSELF. I have the MOST FUN when I am around people who appreciate all of my funny quirks.

Q: What do you value most in others?

A: Loyalty, being genuine.

Q: If you could choose one of your personality traits to pass down to your kids, what would it be?

A: My positive attitude!!! If you want to be happy, be! : )

Q: If you could have lunch with anyone in the world….living or dead…who would it be?

A: Oh my… I want to have to lunch with so many people:

My dad would be number 1…. I miss him soooooo much. I’d want him to meet Mike, Scott, and Madilynn.

#2 The Pioneer Woman, Ree Drummond. Enough said.

#3 Ann Marie Corgill. My team is going to think I am a complete stalker for this one.

Now tell us one random thing about yourself:

I love contests!! I have won funny things like a hammock, and awesome things like a trip to Hawaii and a trip to NYC to see Michael Jackson’s 30^th Anniversary Concert. WOOHOOO!!!

Enter the contest on my blog here: BOOK GIVEAWAY

I love helping my mom with her salt and pepper shaker collection. She has over 3,000 pairs!

Thanksgiving Celebration

I am so thankful for the wonderful children in my class this year. They amaze and inspire me daily. We hosted a fun Thanksgiving Celebration on Monday. All of the kindergarten children sang and played xylophones and then we welcomed families back to the classroom to make a craft and eat special snacks together. It was such a special time for all!

A few highlights from the celebration:

This scrapbooking design generated with Smilebox

Summer Vacation

My family and I have had a wonderful summer together. We've enjoyed Scott's baseball games, trips to Kings Island, riding on the bike trail, a special trip to Disney World, grilling out, extra time with family and friends, picnics at the park, time at the zoo, celebrating Maddy's 3rd birthday, and so much more! The highlight of our summer, though, has to be our trip to Naples Beach. Check out the scrapbook of our favorite memories below:

Another free scrapbook by Smilebox

I am excited to hear from last year's class as well as my new students... What did you do on your summer break?