Summer Bucket List

Hi all!  So, I found the neatest little linky:  Summer Bucket List by Natalie from What the Teacher Wants.  How fun is that?  I'm a little late to the party, but summer is not over yet, right?  There are so many things on my list, and it seems that the list always keeps growing and growing.  But here are my main goals for the summer:

School:
I wish, just for a moment, that those people who claim that teachers are "off for 3 months" could just take a peek into our lives...just for a moment.  I'd be willing to bet that a GREAT majority of teachers A.  do not have 3 months off , but B. do a LOT of work for the classroom:  organizing, collecting, revamping, creating, etc. over the summer months to make life a little less chaotic during the school year.  Ok, I'm off my soap box but that really, really gets me!  So, for school, I want to gather, collect, organize areas that I feel need it most in my classroom.  For me, it is guided reading.  There are so many targeted skills you can incorporate with those groups and I would like to find a good way to organize it all.  
Also, it is bird theme this year!  I am keeping the same color scheme this year, but adding birds to the decor! I love this part.  I love to decorate the classroom and make decor items.  It's the HGTV in me I guess! :) ...and Pinterest helps me out quite a bit, too.  Look at this cute picture I found from SchoolgirlStyle--her stuff is soooooo stinkin' adorable!!  

Next, my class did really well with our new classroom management system we tried this year.  I am carrying it on to next year as well, but need to make new behavior calendars with the current years dates on them.  It is not done yet, but here is a sample:

Personal:  

There are so many times throughout the year when I come across a project I'd like to do at my house but think, "that's a summer project."  Well, now's the time.  On my list is organizing closets, and kitchen cabinets, and you name it, it's getting organized this summer!  :)  I also painted my son's room, and I'm doing little revamping projects throughout the house.  

This year, I feel like I took back the reins of my life a little bit and said "Ok, time to work on YOU a little bit".  It is so easy to give all you have to your kids, and then your job, but I realized I was neglecting working on me.  So in January, my friends, and my husband and I, made a pact that we would try and lose weight together, and just try and be healthier in general.  I am happy to report we were all successful.  Every single one of us are now at our desired weight, and more importantly, have changed our lives to a more active lifestyle.  My friend and I ran our first 5K together in May, (with our daughters), and are since both working on signing up for our first 1/2 marathon.  I am up to 8 miles.  This summer, I'd like to at least get to 10 before I sign myself up for a half.  I never thought I'd say "sign myself up for a half", it's crazy.  It's definitely been baby steps to get to this point, b/c I started out not being able to run 5 minutes straight.  I assure anyone out there thinking about running:  If I can do it, you can do it!!!!! :)

I like this blogging thing! :)  I would like to create a family blog that my friends and family can stop by to see what the Lowe's are up to.  My husband's family are from out of state, so it is nice to use modern day technology to keep in touch.  

FUN!

We have a couple trips planned this year and I am going to force myself (ha ha) to enjoy them both!

First, we have found a nice, little hideaway in Florida, called Navarre Beach.  It is very quiet, but in the middle of Destin, or Pensacola Beach on the other sides. We are going back in 11 days!! 

This little boy had no fear!

My little Gabe was our shell collector!

Grace is my fish!

We will also be going to visit my brother and his family in Myrtle Beach this summer!  We are bringing my mom with us so she can see them too.   We have been working hard at checking off as many things as we can on our family summer list.  So far, we have been to Six Flags, the waterpark, Grant's Farm, camped outside, etc.  

Whatever you do this summer, just make those lasting memories and ENJOY your break!!  

If you want to join this fin link up, go to What the Teacher Wants and add your link.  

Thankful for it Thursday: a weekly link up

Hi all! I am so excited to be hosting this link up! I have to tell you--last summer I started recording a daily account of what I was thankful for, basically a gratitude journal, and it is amazing the joy that opening your eyes to the blessings around you can bring! I firmly believe that you are the creator of your own joy. Go find it, own it, live it! So I created this linky as a fun little way to share the week's blessings bestowed upon you. It can be simple, profound, school related, or not school related. Snap a picture and share it with us! What made you smile?-- Family, friends, an event, a student, productivity, nature? I'd love to hear from all of you!!

First, it is so nice to have more family time!  I love these little goobers.  For those of you that don't know, I am a mom of 3 kids. Grace-8, Gabe-5, & Myles-almost 3.  It fills my mommy-heart to get to spend more time with them in the summer months.  The top picture is me and Myles demonstrating the "Myles airplane". :)  The bottom picture is one of our favorite places to go:  Six Flags.  We went a weeknight and this is me taking one for the team here.  I rode the Scrambler with them.  Yikes!  3 words:  too old and Dramamine!!  

Next, I am thankful I have caught some sort of running bug.  Here's my story in a nice fast-forward addition:  In January, I started a goal to live a more healthy lifestyle.  At first this just included losing some weight, but in March, I started training for my first 5K, and ran that in May.  My 8 yr old daughter ran it with me with  her best friend and mine!  How proud I am of her that she has a 5K under her belt already!  The second picture is my mileage I ran the other week.  I have since increased it to 8 miles!  This is huge for me.  In January, I could not run 5 minutes straight, and I'm so glad that my body is becoming conditioned to healthier ways.  When I hit the 9 mile mark, I am signing up for my first half marathon...I think...still super nervous about taking that leap!  Anyway, additionally I am thankful for all the support I have gotten from family and friends to keep me going on this journey.  

That's all I got for this week  (well, at least in pictures).  I have to up my game and be better about taking more pictures this upcoming week!  Thanks for stopping by! :)

Just click the link below but don't forget to copy the above image and paste it into your post. Have a great one and thanks for stopping by! An InLinkz Link-up

An InLinkz Link-up

aaaand....That's a Wrap

Well, school has been out for about 2 weeks. It has been a great year with a great class!!! I will definitely miss them! I am looking forward to getting a lot of things crossed off my 'to do' list and also will be going on some great vacations with my family!! I did want to let everyone know that this blog is multipurposed. I blog and have linky's with other teachers who also blog, and I also blog to inform parents what we do here in the classroom, and share pics, etc. So, keep this in mind especially during the summer months when I spend more time collaborating with other teacher-bloggers. Have a great week, and thanks for visiting.

Here a chick, there a chick...

Well, Friday we brought our chicks back to thier home. The chick's feathers had grown in on the wings and when that happens, they become a flight risk!  :)  Sure enough, as the student were lined up to go home Friday, "Brownie" jumped up on the top of his tub he was in--as if to say "good-bye" to all the kids.  

I meant to post pictures of our little chicks when they hatched, but didn't get around to it. We had 4 chicks hatch, 2 in our classroom and 2 in KA.  Brownie was the first to hatch.  You can see 2 other eggs cracked in the below picture.  One was our other chick, "Giraffey", and the other one we gave to KA so they could see one hatch too.  

The class actually got to see Giraffey hatch!  It was very educational and a great way for them to see what they had learned earlier that week.  

We kept the chicks for about 2 weeks.  Giraffey was named b/c in the above pictures, the kids kept on peeking at the other eggs--checking for cracks, and Giraffey, would stretch his little head/neck up at them in a very curious way.  

In other news, we found a new favorite....for our Quiet Time songs we found a top 10 Disney Song compilation.  The girls are thrilled that Frozen's "Let It Go", made the list!  I love this picture so much, I just had to post it!

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!  Thanks for visiting.  

Last week we celebrated St. Patty's Day. On our reading groups we discovered just how fun "sticky hands" can be. Here we are using them, as I would say, "find the word ______" in your books.

Then, we focused on sight word shamrocks mixed in with some St. Patrick's Day words.

In one group, the book they were reading focused on opposites, so we made opposite pairs:

Meanwhile, some other kids in a center were working on Shamrock digraphs.  

We also wrote stories:  "How to catch a leprechaun".  I LOVE how creative these kids are, and love to watch their writing just take off!!

We worked on some weather art projects with the March theme:  "In like a lion, out like a lamb".  

Here are some of the pictures:

Thanks for visiting!!

Spring is Near!

Has it really been a month since I last blogged?  My New Year's resolution there is not going so well. Let me start by saying, I am so over this snow and cold weather.  Bring on the sunshine and warmth!!  Bring on Spring.  Speaking of Spring, I was planning ahead in my lesson plans, and I saw that all the "Spring stuff" starts in about a week!!  This excites me!  We really are getting there, and the time change this weekend only helps things along.

So this is what we have been up to in the classroom for the past month:

We love our QR codes, so I made more:  Scan and write, scan and write, they just can't get enough:

We also have been working in some of the reading groups with inflection and how to change your voice while reading a sentence ending in an exclamation point or ending in a question mark.

They were cracking me up because they were ever so sneakily trying to pick out exclamation points because "we like to yell!" :)  

To get my spirit (and classroom), all ready for Spring, I made some Spring-themed name plates. I am hoping (fingers crossed), I get these printed this weekend with their names on them.  

They are free in my TPT shop, so go help yourself, fellow teachers.  

This past week was Dr. Seuss's birthday on Monday, and the lower grades at our school celebrated "Reading Week", with a whole bunch of reading activities.  Monday was wear your Dr. Seuss hat.  I was fresh out of those, but we did have some "hats" in our literacy centers focusing on, what else?  Rhyming!

Tuesday was dress as your favorite book character day.  Teachers also switched classes for 20 minutes to read their favorite books to a different class.  

We had "Jack" from Magic Tree House, Harry Potter, the Tortoise from "The Tortoise and the Hare", Pete the Cat, and many more.  Here are some pictures from that day.

The two Pete's!

Wednesday was dress in PJ's and have 3rd graders read bedtime stories to our Kinders.  It was so cute!  They loved it!  Thursday we made time school wide for some silent reading.  Friday we held a book swap for those who wanted to participate.

This week we read one of my favorite books:  Horton Hatches an Egg.  The class cracked up when an elephant-bird hatched out the shell, so we decided to morph two animals together to make a fun animal creation.

We also wrote postcards to a loved one after reading "The Cat in the Hat".

As I look forward to Spring, I start getting excited about chicks, and Easter.  Easter is not super early this year, but I know it is going to be here before I know it.  

I wanted my own kids, as well as my classroom,  to be aware of what we are recalling on Holy Week.  So this weekend, I finished up a packet I have been working on for awhile.  

The above are some examples of what we will be working on as we come closer to Easter.  As I had said, I create not only for my classroom, but also for my own kids.  I think these activities are simple enough for young children of faith to understand, and reinforces the true meaning of Easter.  I'm excited to use them.  

Thanks for visiting!