Ohio's Amish Country Guide

Well this week I went with the fam to Ohio's Amish Country. If you know me, you know I love cheese! So, I fit right in with the Amish (other than their lack of technology use, lol.) Anyways, I thought what better way to describe the places we went than by making a link list. So here it goes!

Chalet in the Valley
This is an AWESOME restaurant that serves Swiss and Austrian cuisine (Although, I would categorize it as German food, LOL). Things such as schnitzel and sauerkraut with sausage are on the menu here. They also have a buffet, but I believe it is only on Sundays. We did not go here this trip, but last time, we sampled their Polka Punch, very tasty! And now they have chocolate fondue which I have yet to try, but assume that it's amazing.

The Farmstead Restaurant
Here is where we ate this time for my mom's birthday. They have an excellent buffet every day of the week, not just weekends. Also, they have a little bakery where I found some cheese bread for the best price.

Heini's Cheese Chalet 

Not sure which cheese to choose? Stop by Heini's. They have tons of samples of cheese and their cream cheese fudge. Dee-lish!!!

Kauffman's Country Bakery
This place has lots of samples of their breads and pastries. They have some unusual items as well such as purple grain bread. They also have cookies, candy, and cheese. Located right across the street from Heini's Cheese Chalet.






Walnut Creek Cheese
Everything you could possibly want AND the cheese, this place includes a grocery store and kitchenware section as well as a clearance loft. Oh, and don't forget the the little cafe and ice cream shop.

Guggisberg Cheese

The cutest little cheese factory ever!

Sol's
Lots of homemade crafts, foods, furniture, and much more.

Ashery Country Store
So far, THE lowest prices on bulk foods I have come across in Amish Country, it's a little out of the way, buy definitely worth it!


Walnut Creek Antique Mall (no website)

4872 Mckinley Place Dr.
Walnut Creek, OH 44687

I got a great coffee table there for $12 that I sanded and finished for about the same price!


Troyer's Country Market

In addition to their signature trail bologna, Troyer's has lots of other food and snacks including some great produce from their local farm. They always have many samples as well.

Here is an interesting little fact I have recently learned: 

Troyer's Trail Bolonga is actually made in a little town not far from Berlin, in between Walnut Creek & Winesburg on SR 557 in a little town named Trail Ohio where the same family has been making it since 1912... Troyer's Country Store is a fabulous store but they don't make Troyer's Trail Bolonga. 

Click here to see their Facebook page.

Berlin Village Antique Mall

Lots and lots of great antiques here, as well a cute little diner.

Share and Care Thrift Store

I also cannot find a website for this thrift store, but they have LOW LOW prices on everything. One time we were there, everything was 50% off! It's not a big place, but they have toys, kids and adult clothing, and housewares items as well as some tools and hardware. Also a little bit of furniture.

4663 US 62

Berlin, OH 44610

(330) 893-3890

For many, many more places to check out in Ohio's Amish Country, visit Holmes County's Chamber of Commerce and Tourism Bureau's website.

Storytime Sunday: Farm Animals

Hello all! Ok, you caught me, I didn't actually have anything to post about for Storytime Sunday this week because we are about to wrap up our study and go to spring break (yay!).  So... I decided to see if there were any Amazon Widgets I haven't tried yet. And lo and behold, here is what I came up with. 

DEALS!  I don't know about you, but I love me some good deals. I just chose a random category of children's books, Farm Animals. 

Enjoy! I hope you find a great deal you can't resist. I think I will be using this Widget quite a bit more in the future.

Happy Reading!

CLICK HERE TO SEE WHERE I LINK UP

New Addition to our Classroom

So, in case you didn't know, we have a class pet, Cutie the hermit crab. He used to have a friend who isn't with us anymore. Well, I finally got around to getting Cutie a new friend. Although Cutie is quite a bit bigger than the new guy and I wasn't sure if how he was going to react when I introduced the two. Cute did do a bit of bullying at first (or at least that's what it looked like to me, though I am not an expert in hermit crab behavior), but seems to leave the other crab alone for the most part now. The new little guy is a bit timid when you hold him. He will come out of the shell right away, but get scared back in easily.

 Although there are 4 shells in there, there are only 2 crabs, Cutie is the greenish shell and the new one (he doesn't have a name yet as I will let the kids name him) is the pearly looking one on the far left. 

 Cutie and the new guy feeling each other out.

Our newest friend in Head Start!

Also, I will share a few deals I found at the back to school sale at Office Max. I originally went to pick up 10 of the 1 cent spiral notebooks (the limit is 5, but you can get double if you're a teacher) and some of the 15 cent glue bottles. But I ended up finding these $.99 deals as well.

 Awesome for writing area and Kindergarten Readiness! 

Normally I would buy play money from the dollar store, but I have noticed it seems like you are getting less and less in the pack for a dollar, so while this one didn't come with coins, it seemed like a good deal because we all know just how long it takes for play money to get torn up with 3 and 4 year olds. (Especially with my class being primarily 3's this year)

Also, stayed tuned for my first contest announcement coming soon!

So many ideas, so little time!

Teachers, it's Target time again! And a little Dollar Tree thrown in for good measure :) Here are some of my finds:

SIGNS! (Target- $1.00 for 2 pack) I thought the line up and clean up ones would be good for jobs to let the kids hold up. The other 2 I will probably use at circle time. I might try to find a rhyme or chant to go with it and write it out on chart paper for them to learn.

These next 2 items ($1.00 ea @ Target) will be excellent for my writing area.

 Front

 Back

Number Stamps (Target $1.00) These will be great to help the children trace their numbers.

ABC banner and puzzle piece jumbo border ($2.50 ea @ Target)- The caterpillar ABC's will most likely be used as my word wall. I just love the jumbo border, especially for those times when you just can't find enough to fill up your bulletin board- LOL.

Weather chart (Target $1.00) Circle time wall. I like that it has 3 arrows. My kids are always coming up with multiple answers for the question "What's the weather today?" Now they can document them all!

Number Tape (Dollar Tree- $1.00) Though we don't have desks, I like to put these in various places around the room where children will be counting and/or measuring. For example, the math or science table and the toys and games or manipulative table.

Last but not least, my trading card protectors ($1.00 @ Dollar Tree). Now, you might ask, what can you do with those? Well, scroll down and see...

Here are some matching activities I made using them. You could also use these for a tactile activity and fill the pockets with things that have different textures such as sandpaper, a feather, a piece of felt.

Found anything good at Target? Head on over to Target Treasures to link up for Fab Finds Fridays:

Organization

Well, Summer is winding down. Time to start thinking about organizing your classroom for another wonderful school year! Which means, back-to-school shopping with all those crazy deals that a teacher just cannot pass up. Well in the last month or so, there have been a couple new hobbies I have taken up, Pinterest.com and Target dollar shopping. Both of which are GREAT resources to use for organizing.

First of all, I stocked up on Target's plastic crates (not in the dollar section, but caught them on sale for $3.00, so a bargain nonetheless). I have used them just for storage so far. They are great because you can use hanging file folders in them. But also, they fit perfectly in the shelving unit I already had and I use them to store craft items mostly. They would be great to use in the classroom for books, etc.

Here is a wonderful example I ran across on Pinterest of how a teacher turned crates into seats, so they can be used for storage as well as seating.

Also, I found some dollar deals including a mini pocket chart and some lined dry-erase board strips. I am going to use them for circle time or small groups to have the children write something on their board and then they can come up and display it in the pocket chart.

Some other uses for the mini-pocket chart I found lying around...

Dr. Suess was well-represented in the dollar section of target, from erasers to markers to silly bands to pins. None of which I bought, but I did think the vinyl bags were a great value for a dollar, so I have picked up one of each, The Cat in the Hat, Horton Hears a Who, Red Fish, Blue Fish, and Green Eggs and Ham. These I will use to make activity bags that will include the book itself and some activities that go along with it. For additional ideas about Dr. Suess, go to Obsuessed.com.

Pinterest has given me soooo many ideas that I wanna do them all, but I know there is no possible way I can. At least not this year...  One thing I really like about it too is that the things I repin almost always lead me to new blogs. I would like to share a blog called Target Treasures, which relates back to my other newest hobby. This is a blog all about things a teacher buys at Target and uses for the classroom. Great!

Another Pinterest find I came across is Printable Labels for Book Bins. Pretty self-explanatory, but click the link to see photos and to print out the labels!