Teacher Goes to Court! Valentine Freebies!

Today I had to officially testify in court about a SPED case. It was the most nerve wracking hour of my life! For almost a whole hour I was being questioned, cross examined, and redirected. I felt like I was on a boring episode of Law & Order. My case really wasn't exciting, but it was still such a weird experience!

It made me so anxious to have the student's family right there and knowing every word I say can hurt or help them. I answered every question honestly, but it was still SO stressful to know my every word was being recorded. Plus every paper, report card, and document I ever wrote about the student was called into question. It really made me think twice about all my future report card comments I ever write!

They took my resume and put an evidence sticker on it, which was kinda funny actually! The judge was super nice thankfully and told me not to be nervous and nothing was going to happen to me. It didn't really help, but it was nice of him. I had to laugh on my way driving to the hearing because I realized I still have purple fingernails from my trip to Colorado this weekend! Ooops! Haha! At least my clothes were professional!

After this crazy day and being pulled out of my class, it was hard to get my class to act normally after I'd been gone for the whole first half of the day. I made myself go to the gym to cheer up/calm down my nerves. Then a trip to Lululemon...oh boy that store is dangerous for a girl in serious need of retail therapy! My logic- It's gym clothes that motivate me to keep working out, so shopping is good for me! haha!

Okay, here are my silly Valentine things:
 
We made critters out of hearts today. They are far from perfect, but the kids get to be creative. They use a heart as the body/head/ears etc. We read the book The Night Before Valentine's Day and you can look at the illustrations to see examples. I didn't make any samples because I wanted the kids to use their own brains. Here are the pics of today's creations:

A Frog

A Pig

A Mouse (I think)

A Frog (the scribble at the bottom is the feet I'm told)

On Valentine's Day we'll be doing some conversation heart graphing. Feel free to download this little freebie!

We're also working on Valentine letters. I made some stationary and one of my kindergarten boys blew my mind with the amount of words he wrote! He filled the entire page!!! This is a freebie too!

My favorite new creation is my addition and subtraction puzzles. These kept my kids busy for soooo long this past week. They are working on common core math skills and loving every minute. Awesome!

Last but not least- Alphabet matching freebie!