You Know It's Summer Vacation When...

Okay, I'm not there yet but it's almost summer vacation!  I'm dreaming of it already!

In the meantime, Kindergarten Lifestyle is having a fun summer linky party.

Seriously, my non-teacher friends make fun of me when I am yawning over dinner at 8:00 on a Friday night.

Sunday nights are the worst during the winter, but in the summer they are no big deal!

How do you know when summer has officially arrived??

5 and 1/2 more days - I can do it!

Extra! Extra! Read All About It!

Your newsletters that is - did you read them??  My products were in BOTH the TpT and TN newsletters this weekend - oh my goodness!  I am beyond excited!  Just ask my husband, I think I scared him when I jumped on the couch Tom Cruise-style!

The Teachers Notebook newsletter featured my Summer Fun Activities and Centers.

And the TpT newsletter featured my Elements of a Friendly Letter Poster freebie!

I especially wanted to share how I use this poster in my classroom because we refer to it all. the. time. in my room.  My students practice writing letters throughout the year.  Every Friday we write in our Friday Journals to our parents (read more about that here).  My aunt also teaches second grade in California, so our students are pen-pals with each other.  They love it!  And I work really hard with my students on writing thank-you notes throughout the year for adults or students in the building who have helped us in some way.

Here is a picture of my writing anchor charts hanging in the back of my classroom.  The letter one is smack dab in the middle!

Some of my other posters are also available in my TpT store as well.

I'm also sharing my linking up with Classroom Freebies Manic Mondays

Go check out all the other freebies that are there and maybe even link up your own! 

Summer Reading

As a student, I hated, HATED summer reading.    I'm sure most students do, but, here's the thing.  I love to read!  I've always been an avid reader.  I just want to be able to choose my own books!  And now that I am an adult, I can choose my own summer reading!  I'm linking up with Clutter-Free Classroom to tell you about what I plan to have in my beach bag this summer.

I plan to re-visit these two bad boys:

I've read them both and I use pieces of both in my classroom but I want to re-read them so that I can incorporate more!

One of my biggest challenges in my class is guided reading groups.  I'm hoping to check this one out to see if it can help me in this area:

And I've heard lots of great things about The Book Whisperer so I plan to read this one as well!

And for my girly-side:

I actually just finished this one and really enjoyed it.  I want to read some of her other books!  

What are you reading this summer?  Link up with Clutter-Free Classroom to share!

Summer Fun!

Raise your hand if you are still in school.  Yep, my hand is up.  Only 12 more days though!  

I just won a gift certificate to Scrappin Doodles from Today In First Grade - yippee!  And I went ca-razzy!  I definitely have beach on the mind so I got all sorts of summer stuff!  So colorful and fun.  To celebrate the summer, I created a packet of activities and centers for students to do during these last few days.

There is a packet of word work activities as well as three different centers, which all come with cover pages and directions.

It's on sale in my TpT store right now!  It will only be on sale till tomorrow (or until I get to my computer!) so grab it quick!  

TGI {almost} F!

My Summer Bucket List

I'm ready for summer!  Unfortunately, I still have 20 more days (although one is a half day and one is a school-wide field trip...).  Since I'm dreaming of the beach, I'm going to link up with Hadar, Teri, and April to share My Summer Bucket List.

Work on lots of stuff for TpT!  I've had so many good ideas the past few weeks - but no time to do them!

 Head to Hawaii with my husband for our honeymoon!  I've always wanted to go to Hawaii and I am beyond excited!

Spend lots of time at both of my grandmothers' beach houses with friends and family!  

 Go through my wedding pictures and create a scrapbook (I've barely looked at them!)

And make some things for my classroom:

Source: lauriecoledesigns.com via Sara on Pinterest

Source: mrseolson.blogspot.com via Sara on Pinterest

Source: web.me.com via Sara on Pinterest

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