I am so fortunate that French Lick is only 1 1/2 hours away from my town. I left on Saturday morning and was there in no time! I have never been to French Lick and it is an adorable little town. (Once you get there...a little sketchy on the drive in...not gonna lie.) I'm gonna be honest. I was seriously star struck. I'm about as talkative as they get...but I clammed up something crazy when I saw some of these bloggers/sellers. Look at this crowd!!!
We began the day with 5 tickets to enter the sponsor giveaways. You could choose to place you tickets in whichever giveaway you wanted. It was SUPER hard to pick just 5. These were all of the sponsors of our retreat:
The following sponsors LOVE to support educators!
I entered to win:
$100 giftcard to Tieks
And an entry to win registration to the I Teach K conference in Vegas. (I REALLY wanted that one!)
Sadly, I didn't win any of these but you HAVE to check out what we got in our swag bags. These sponsors are unreal!!
***You can win a swag bag! Keep reading!!!
Then sweet Holly from Mrs. Ehle's Kindergarten gave the sweetest speech on why she began this retreat. Y'all...they don't make them much sweeter than Holly. I feel so overwhelmed 90% of the time and I cannot even imagine planning something this huge. I know she is way busier than me (she has more kids than I do and is a big TPT seller) and she managed with her friends to pull off this amazing weekend!!!
The decorations were adorable! We played a little icebreaker game where we were given a letter and had to write all of our names on it and our tables letter. We were given K and we were all kindergarten teachers. I'll let you guess our word! We then presented our letters and look what we spelled:
That was our weekend theme!!! So fun!
After lunch we did our teacher tool swap! So fun! The Kindergarten group was HUGE!!!! I got this cute gift. (I forgot to take a picture once it was unwrapped.) It was FULL of awesome art supplies! We've already used them in the classroom!!!
I sadly didn't take a picture of what I gave but Greg from Kindergarten Smorgasboard received it!
One of my favorite parts of the retreat were the round table discussions. We got to choose 4 tables to visit and learn more about what pertained to us. I wanted to go to 15 but had to pick 4!!!
That night was our 80's party. If you know me...you know I LOVE me some 80's. Eek! I was so excited. Here is me and my roomie Breanna from A Pinch of Primary. Super sweet girl!!!
It's so funny to talk with Kindergarten Teachers from other schools/states and how different they are. Like how she doesn't have an assistant. Y'all. I can't even.
Here I am with Elizabeth from Kickin' It in Kindergarten. I met Elizabeth and Greg at the I Teach K in Nashville a few years ago. I was so excited to see her again. Let me tell you about the adorableness of her little girl. I mean. Seriously? Look at those legwarmers and headband. #idie
And the outfits. The BEST. Look at Greg. I mean. HELLO??? Too funny!
And check out the shoes from Chad at Male Kindergarten Teacher. The suit?? Yup. That was a whole suit!
The next morning we all gathered from breakfast in our FABULOUS t-shirts with our theme!
I had so so so much fun! It was so amazing and refreshing. It made me want to be a better teacher and blogger. If you have the opportunity to go next year, you should!!! Thank you so much Holly (and friends) for organizing this. I truly appreciate it!
Do you want to win a swag bag? You can! Enter here:
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Do you want to win a swag bag? You can! Enter here:
a Rafflecopter giveaway