Summer Bucket List

By now I think most teachers are on summer break ~ I've been out since June 5th.  That was actually a little later than was originally scheduled. (Blame it on the snow...) So, whether you are just beginning your summer break, or have been out for a while, you probably have an overflowing Bucket List of things you want to do.  I know I do!  Here is a sampling of some of my Bucket List items. 

I have the best family in the world! Summer is gives us the chance to spend more time together. The picture on the right shows Hubby with his girls (daughters & granddaughters) on Father's Day.

Nothing is better than granddaughters!  I have so much fun with these little girls. (They LOVE to help Papa in the barn.)

The rain has kept us away from the beach so far this year, so I had to go online to get these shots of the Dunes.  Who would have thought that Northwest Indiana has white sandy beaches? 

Lucky for me I have a covered porch, so I can do lots of porch sitting! Porch Puppy, Macie, keeps me company.

 I just finished Julie & Julia today, and need to decide what to read next.  

I have August/September, October, November, and December done & uploaded to TpT.  Hopefully I'll get the rest of the year finished in July.

Nearly the entire teaching staff from my school got to attend the Smekens Literacy Retreat in Middlebury, IN (Amish country).  It was a combination of exciting learning and relaxing & shopping. My brain was a little bit on over-load when we left ~ so many great ideas!  I'll grab a glass of lemonade and sit on my front porch to review the materials & read the book I purchased.

Now it's YOUR TURN!  Tell me what's on your Bucket List for a chance to win my August/September Morning Work set!  I'll pick a winner using Random.org next week.

WIN ME!

Stay Book Blitz

As a parent there is nothing more gratifying than seeing your children succeed in doing what they love.  This post is part of a Book Blitz hosted by Contagious Reads.  Today they are promoting my daughter's book!  It is amazing to think that my "little Emily" has fans of her writing all around the world.  (She sold over 200 copies of this book yesterday!)  So, with that, I turn over this post to Lori...

 

 

 

“I felt like I was walking to the end of a plank precariously hanging over shark-infested water. When I jumped, sharp teeth would rip into me and the cold water would steal my breath away. The monsters would take everything from me, leaving me shivering and naked in the water. The only difference was that tonight I would be pulled from the icy darkness and forced to do it again. There would be no release from death, only pain.”

Home after her first year of college, Adeline Miller is looking forward to a stress free summer filled with reading, working on her blog, and spending time with friends. But all that changes in an instant when she is witness to something terrible, something she wasn't supposed to see.

Beaten, drugged, kidnapped.

Adeline Miller is ripped from her innocent and carefree life and thrust into darkness, into a world full of pain and horror. As a sex slave, she is forced to do horrible things, and have horrible things done to her. One of her captors has a past as dark as the world she is now living in. Will getting close to him mean freedom? Or will he pull her deeper into the shadows? GOODREADS | AMAZON      

Adeline’s summer TBR list.

Adeline Miller from STAY is a self-proclaimed book nerd. She runs a book blog called Contagious Reads (yes…I named it after the REAL Contagious Reads blog!) Before Adeline is kidnapped and her life is forever changed, her summer plans include relaxing with a good book and getting caught up on her summer To Be Read list.  

So what was Addie looking forward to reading? I stumbled upon her Summer TBR list and picked her top 10. (The list was long…very long!)  

1.)The Killing Woods, Lucy Christopher

2.)Midnight Thief, Livia Blackburne

3.)Dissonance, Erica O’Rourke

4.)A Castle Made of Sand, Daniel Cotton

5.)Little Dead Man, Jake Bible

6.)Mr. Mercedes, Stephen King

7.)The Hunt, C.J. Ellison

8.)Savage Possession, Belinda Boring

9.)City of Heavenly Fire, Cassandra Clare

10.) Dangerous Creatures, Kami Garcia        

About the Author:

 

Emily is my daughter!  She lives in Northwest Indiana with her husband, baby daughter, and German Shepherd Vader.  She has degrees in psychology and nursing, and works part time in healthcare.  Emily loves animals ~ big & small, and has been an avid equestrian for many years.  She still hops on her Arabian, Mystery, whenever she has a free moment.

GOODREADS | BLOG | FACEBOOK

a Rafflecopter giveaway Thank you so much for posting with us! Lori

 

 

 

http://contagiousreads.com/cover-reveal-beyond-the-sea-by-emily-goodwin/

Five for Friday

Once again, I'm linking up with Doodles Bugs for a Five for Friday linky party.  

1.  Yay!  No school today!  (Don't get me wrong... I love kindergarten, but an extra day off now & then sure is nice.)  We had today off because it was one of our built-in snow days.  We only had one snow day - which was made up yesterday - so today was a day off!  The really nice thing about today was that it was really nice outside!  Not that I did any yard work or anything,  (Some of you may have read in earlier posts that I really dislike gardening:  too much dirt, too many weeds, far too many creepy crawlie critters, etc.)  I did, however, take advantage of the beautiful weather to try out my new running shoes.

2.  Yes, I now own some running shoes!  It wasn't really that long ago that I didn't own any athletic shoes of any sort.  When I taught preschool I subbed for the local elementary schools on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  Once I got a call to fill in for a PE teacher, but had to turn down the opportunity because I didn't own gym shoes!  (I do, however, have a bunch of cute heels!)  Our school nurse has organized a 'couch to 5K" program for the staff.  Wish me luck!

3.  Here is my new Decomposing Dinos Number Sense game.  I made it to give my Kinders practice composing & decomposing numbers to 20 using five and ten frames.  We recently read If the Dinosaurs Came Back in our reading series, so I thought it would be fun to have a dinosaur game for our Math Station.  Of course, I had to give it a *clever* name.  (Feel free to groan!)

 PS  Be sure to have your kiddos roll a die on each turn or it will take forever to finish the game.  I forgot to mention this in the instructions.

4.  In addition to working on composing & decomposing numbers with five and ten frames, we spent time working with number bonds this week.  Here's a little freebie for you!

To help my Kinders understand "whole" we put students in Mrs. Teddy's class.  Part of them went to work with Mrs. L. and part of them went to work with Mrs. S.  This really happens - part of the kids leave to work with different people all throughout the day, but they are still included in our whole group.  We aren't done yet with the concept of part-part-whole, but they are understanding the concept!  What lil smarties I have!  :-)

5.  I just finished reading Bowled Over, a cute mystery in a new series.  The next two books I have in queue are Sleeping Arrangements  and Snow Flower and the Secret Fan.  I'm not sure which to start.  I love both authors!  All three books are real books.  I have both the nook & Kindle apps on my ipad, and sometimes purchase books to "e-read."  But, my sister and I often trade books, so I am more inclined to select the real deal.  Which type of book do you prefer?

Some Freebies for You!

It seems that I've been so busy making things for my Teachers pay Teachers store, that I haven't posted many freebies lately!  Sorry - I know how much fun it is to get a goodie for free!  These are both things I plan to use with my Kinders tomorrow, and I thought that you might like them.

The first freebie is a writing page to go with this book.  We read it earlier in the week as a part of our reading series, and will read it again tomorrow before writing.  Click here for the writing page.

  (Don't forget to visit my TpT store for more St. Patrick's Day activities.   

Everything is 20% off through 3/13/13!)

We are studying number comparisons in math this week, so I created this little partner game for a fun way to practice. See the pictures below to see some of what is included in the set. 

 

If you download either of these freebies, I would love to hear from you!  Leave a comment below to let me know how they worked for you and your students!  Enjoy!

Learning Stations, Solid Shapes & Initial Letter Cookies

Whew!  What a week we had...  On Tuesday we had a 2 hour delay because of the bitter cold, and then on Thursday we had another two hour delay because of snow!  On Tuesday I went in at the regular time and got lots of work done.  It was so nice and quiet.  I organized my Skill Tubs and straightened up the counter behind my teaching table.  I had hoped to take care of my "Bin of Shame" (you know the one - the little tub that sits on the floor behind my desk into which I toss things that "I'll take care of soon").  Well, I didn't even touch it.  Yesterday I went in at the two hour delay time because our country road wasn't cleaned early enough to go in any sooner.

Despite the shortened days, we did get a lot done this past week.  Here are some pictures of our Literacy and Math Centers, a writing prompt, plus a fun Cookie letter sound activity.

Word Work Station.  The kids sorted CVC words by initial letter, and then wrote some (those beginning with our most recently studied consonants) onto a record sheet.

Math Station.  For our math center activity this week, we are using my Snowman Ten Frame activity.

My Snowman Ten Frame pack includes ten frames and counters for practice making numbers to 20.

After completing the ten frame activities above, students did this page from Deanna Jump's Sneezy pack.  They loved using colored pencils!

Mrs. S.'s Station. This week the kids are working on rhyming words with this Learning Mat from The Mailbox.

I love how learning center activities from The Mailbox include a worksheet for extra practice.  These pages also let parents know what their kiddo does at school!

Flat or Solid Shapes?  This is something I whipped up on the fly.  The Kinders sorted solid shapes and flat shapes (left over Saxon calendar pieces) into two groups. They enjoyed identifying solid shapes in common objects such as a block and a pencil.  This tub is now in one of our Skill Spots for independent practice.

Literacy Small Group activity.  This week some of my small literacy groups practiced sight words using this spinner activity from The Mailbox.  I changed the provided words to some that we are currently studying.

Two Kinders writing words with colored pencils.

Baker, Baker!  My kids flipped for this activity - using a spatula, they lifted a "cookie" from the cookie sheet, read the letter, named the sound, and then placed the cookie on a pocket chart.  I purchased this cookie bulletin board kit (it has a big cookie jar cut out) a few years ago at Target, and never used it until this week.  It is laminated, so the letters I wrote in Sharpie will wipe right off with rubbing alchohol.

 The baker places the cookie on the pocket chart behind the matching initial sound picture cards.  (This pocket chart is part of a Skill Spot - the kids can rearrange the the mixed up sentence strips shown above.  Below you can see some poems in write on/wipe off protectors hanging on the side of the pocket chart stand.  The kids love to look for sight words an letters, circling them with dry erase markers - which are also hanging on the stand.)

This baker means business!  :-) Kinders love to pose for my camera!

This book is a favorite of mine, and my Kinders.  I had the great pleasure of meeting Mr. Laminack several times - he visited our school, and I attended two of his workshops at our local university.  I have an autographed copy of this book!

After reading Snow Day! by Lester Laminack, we wrote about what we would do if we had a snow day.  The kids used lots of strategies to do their writing - sounding out words, and writing the letters they heard, looking around the room for words, using our Idea Snowman, and asking a friend for help.  Here are a few examples.  I think they did a good job!  Get the writing page here.