January 2016 Pinterest Pick 3 Linky

 I am linking up with PAWSitively Teaching, Just Reed, and Inspired Owl's Corner for their Pinterest Pick 3 Linky.  

I love finding things on pinterest and being able to see what others have found as well.   Here are a few of my favorite pins for January:

This is a cute and fun writing activity for the kids to make up some New Year's Resolutions.  

This is a great Martin Luther King, Jr. Day activity:

This would be fun to do on a cold day-make a snow storm in a jar.

Make sure you link up and share your favorite pins for January!

Must Read Monday: Books About Compassion and Caring

I have linked up with:

I love this linky because I have gotten so many great ideas of new books that I want to use in the classroom this coming year.  Here are the books that I like to read to teach caring and compassion.

1.  

This is a great book about a boy who has a favorite Teddy Bear and one day he loses it.  In the end, it teaches a great lesson of compassion.

2.  

This is a cute book that has an elderly zoo keeper that gets sick and all the animals go see him and cheer him up.

3.  

This book is about a bird that wakes up and finds out that all of his friends and family are gone.  With the help of a friendly cat, he finds his way to his friends and family. 

4.  

In this book, Bear gets sick and all his friends come over to take care of him.

5.  

The boy in this book finds an injured pigeon.  With the help of his mom, he takes the pigeon home to nurse it back to health.  

Make sure you link up and share your favorite books about compassion and caring!

2015 Resolutions Linky

I have linked up with Second Grade Nest for their 2015 Resolutions Linky!

Use more technology in my classroom.  I am not a tech person, and need to learn more about and use more technology in the classroom.

Make sure that I strive to do my best at meeting each individuals needs in the classroom.

Organize and stay organized!  Key is to stay organized.  I can get organized, but staying that way is harder for me.

Relax and slow down.  I always feel like I have many things to do.  My husband even says that I am restless.  So, I want to slow down and relax some. 

Arizona.....I have always wanted to go there.  I love warm weather!

I can't think of any food that I would like to try.  :-(  I am wanting to try the Paleo diet.....so I guess I would say that I would like to try some of those foods. 

I want to learn about acupuncture.  I am wanting to try some acupuncture and would like to learn more about it. 

Worrying!  I worry about everything.....in fact I spend a lot of time worrying over the littlest things.  So, I would love to give up at least 1/2 of the worrying that I do daily.  

Pilates-I want to make sure that I go do pilates at least 2 times a week and continue to swim a couple days a week as well. 

I want to enjoy life more this year and focus more on the positive!

Make sure you head over to Second Grade Nest to do your Resolutions for 2015!

Have a great day!

Top 10 things I want to do this summer!

We have linked up with Mrs. Jump's cool link of top 10 things to do this summer.

I am officially off for the summer now and I am ready to start doing my top ten things for the summer!  :-)

1.  I am planning on having a garage sale (not that I want to but because I need to).  I have decided that my husband and I have way too much stuff so I'm getting rid of a lot of things and organizing.  So, my first big task is to get ready for a garage sale.  I'm doing it soon because if I don't do it right away, then I probably won't do it.  

2.  Sleep-I have to admit that this morning I laid in bed sleeping and resting until 11:00 (I can't remember the last time I did that).  I guess I must have been tired.

3.  Go visit some friends that I haven't seen for a year.  

4.  Make some owl stuff for my new classroom next year.  I am lucky to get a brand new room next year and our new school theme is owls.  I've used frogs for years but I'm excited about making and using some new stuff in the new room.  :-)

5.  Redo our living room and office floors.  We have a house that is almost 100 years old and it has the original wood floors.  When we moved in we pulled out the carpet and stained the floors a dark color (which I regretted).  The dark floors are pretty but you see everything on them and I can't stand my house to be dirty.  So I want to strip the floors and have them light.  

6.  Get caught up on my Rehab Addict TV Show (I think I have 22 of them on the DVR)

7.  Do some landscaping in our backyard-we have landscaped our front yard, but have had a hard time with our backyard since we have 2 Siberian husky dogs.  One dog that is still a puppy (about a year old).  She pulled out the last few items that I planted back there.  :-(  So, I'm going to try and be creative and figure something out for our backyard-Any ideas?

Love this, but I'm sure it would be strung all around the yard within a day with our little pup.  

8.  Basement-Tackle cleaning up our basement after the garage sale.  It isn't finished but we have painted the walls and ceiling and it looks  looked clean until it became our storage area. But all of it should be gone after the garage sale and should be back to clean and organized. 

9.  Spend time with my family.

10.  Exercise and De Stress-I have started to do yoga and I plan to do it throughout the summer, but hopefully a little more and a little more frequent. 

I can't wait to here about your top 10.  Make sure you link up.  Have a great day!

Five for Friday Fun!

I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs' Five for Friday! I finally remembered to take some pictures this week--my last days of freedom! I reported back today for new teacher orientation.

 

House guests! The last couple weeks I have let my kiddos have friends (the ones in this pic happen to also be their cousins) over. We are so busy during the school year that my answer is usually no... We had two friends Monday to Tuesday and these two Tuesday to Wednesday. I couldn't believe the dishes!!! Mental note: Buy paper plates next time!



Hair appointment! Of course, I had to get a last minute visit in to have my hair done. This pic was taken in my kitchen after the appointment - didn't want to be too weird taking pics at the salon. Hee hee!

I spent some time thinking about first day activities for my music classes. First I thought of musical chairs. Then I remembered horror stories of Kindergartners crying when they get out...and I don't have chairs--just benches--anyway. I decided to look for something else. I found a Hello song here. I then had my son write it to music for me. Yes, those are the fingering numbers above the notes. He was just horrified when I asked him to do that for me! Ha! Thankfully, the curriculum looks great and it came with CDs and fun Smart board files so I think I will do okay when I get going.
I also tried to make a deal with my principal that there would be no observations or walk-thrus during music for at least a couple months. He just laughed... :-)
***If you're just joining us, you can read about how I became a 2nd grade classroom teacher and the K-2 music teacher here.

I may have sent the above text to Kristi while she was at a 'work day' on Wednesday. ;-)
***Sorry it is blurry...I think I need an app to do a screenshot...
We have had a few weeks of rain and cooler weather...and I mean lots of rain! The lakes, ponds, and rivers have filled up--and so has my yard. It really has been crazy! I felt like I was losing my summer tan before summer was even over so I decided to brave the cooler weather and water to do one of my favorite summer activities - float on my raft in my pool.

I had new teacher orientation this morning. It was a quick meeting - small district - only 3 new teachers total. Then the administrators took us out for lunch. Afterwards we went back to our rooms and worked. This is a picture of one thing that I accomplished. I have no wall space! Two whole walls are whiteboards. One wall is windows. And the last wall is bookshelves. This was a challenge...it is a "bulletin board" attached with scotch tape because I don't want to damage the whiteboards!

That's my FIVE! Click the button below to go link up!

 Have a blessed weekend!

Schedule Spotlight Series - #4 PHONICS

Hello! We have linked up again with Kelli for her Schedule Spotlight Series. This linky is so great because it is helping me get new ideas on how to arrange my day better.  This week's topic is Phonics.

 

For the past years, I have always taught phonics sometime in the morning with the reading.  We have the Treasures Reading Program and I have adapted it a little to try and keep those little ones attention.  It takes me about 10-15 minutes to complete the phonics lesson. 

 

I have made up little characters (they are just printed off on paper).  For example, for the short o I use Mr. Olive the Ostrich.  This is just a picture of a Ostrich on it.  Before I introduce our visitor, I will give the students clues of what they like and what their favorite things are.  For example, I would tell them that this visitor likes to swim in a pond.  His favorite animal is a dog.  He sleeps on a cot.  He loves odd numbers.

 

After giving them several clues, the students try to guess the sound that our visitor makes.  After they guess, I introduce the visitor to them (even though it is just a piece a paper, they always seem to get so excited-like it is a real visitor LOL!).  We then discuss the different ways to spell the sound and I write it on the board. 

 

Once the visitor has been introduced and we have discussed all the ways to spell this sound.  I tell them that the visitor has brought his/her favorite song with them.  This song comes from the CD's Funky Phonics.  I tell them that they will hear a lot of our visitors favorite sound in the song.  We then listen one time to the song and then on the second time they can sing the song. 

 

 

During our transition times, I will often play the song again for them and by the end they are supposed to have followed all my directions.  This just helps them to learn the song better and practice the sound that we are working on for the week.

 

Later on in the mornings, we break up into reading pathways groups.  We are lucky because we have Title teachers that come and help us during this time.  It is a 30 minute period where we have groups of about 5-6 students and we do our pathways reading program.  Each title teacher takes a group as well as myself. 

 

The pathways program is a phonics program that uses more hands on materials and visuals to help the kids learn various phonics sounds.  It helps them to learn the rules for the sounds and also provides them with practice of sounding out and spelling words. 

 

Last year, we started doing Daily 5 and being the first year, I felt like I didn't spend as much time on our visitors as I have in the past.  The kids really like it and I plan to try and take the time to do more of it again this coming year. 

 

Make sure you head over to Castles and Crayons and link up so I can see what you are doing for phonics.  

 

 

http://castlesandcrayons.blogspot.com/2013/07/schedule-spotlight-series-4-phonics.html