At last....

 No Etta James is not in town.... no at last I have my new blog up and on the run! For anyone interested my new blog is about our school library and how I make connections to the classroom through technology and books!

Techbrary

... and a shocking twist....

Sorry forgive me.. I just spent the last hour watching some trashy reality TV. You know how they are- always the drama and the cliff hangers before commercial breaks. But I do have news ya'll!

  Starting a few months back my principal asked me to sit in on some meetings to help plan and design a renovation project for our library. The challenge - to update the space to be a 21st century media center! WOooooOOoo! If you know me then you know this task combined almost all things dear to me: designing, organizing, technology, and children! Throw in some family, a fiance, friends, and maybe a little Chipotle and I'd be in Heaven!

  Okay... I digress! From those meetings sprang an interview... then a second interview... oh did I mention our fantastic Media Specialist was retiring? Well starting in the fall I am now the official new Media Specialist for my elementary school :)

  Let's review my craziness...

 1) Getting married this summer
 2) Enrolling in grad school since I do not have an endorsement in library sciences
 3) Starting a new job in the fall
 4) Being involved in a large renovation job that leaves many timelines up in the air

    So in short... I'll be taking a break from blogging until I can figure out what I have to bring to the table.. or maybeeee more of like what I'll be begging ya'll for help with :) Obviously I'll be changing the blogspot title and address, but I promise to update you when I do. Thanks for all the kind words you have left, inspiring ideas, and the motivation to share what I have.


 Happy Summer Bloggy-blog-blog-blog friends!

Summer Packet part 5

 Little by little I am getting my summer packet together! Today's entry is giving my little darling some extra practice on coin recognition and skip counting. Even though we drill and practice and play with coins, it is one of those skills that during the summer they seem to forget about. Each page is pretty self explanatory with coloring only one coin and skip counting it at the bottom, and then a page where they color all the coins according to their value.

   I hope this is helpful for anyone else besides me!


Coin Coloring Pages

Long Vowel Flippers

 Yes, taking a quick break from my summer packet sharing to bring you another Dakota request (have I mentioned I love requests... seriously)! Okay so the resource I am sharing below is nothing crazy new or super creative, but it will be handy not having to pay $$ to buy them! They are long vowel (and a Y) flip cards. You know how you show your little sweethearts how to change man into mane, or pan into pane, well if constructed right, that is what these little flip cards do:


Long Vowel and Y Flip Cards


The first page is good to go, but the second page needs to be glued to the first, then laminated together (same for the 3rd and 4th). Then go ahead and perforate a fold so that the e (or y) can easily flip back and forth. Here is the word list:

 cap - cape
spin - spin
not - note
cut - cute
arm - army

 The longest part about making these was finding compatible words, so if you want more I can make many... just provide the words. The words have to be a word before the silent e, be easy to come up with a picture for it (aka "fine" not easy to do a picture kinds will understand), and that the word before and after the silent e are distinctly different not like bit and bite.

Hope you enjoy (and yes I am aware that most people will not use this until next year now haha)

Summer Packet part 4

Writing Prompts!!! Have to find a way to keep those kids writing over the summer so I made a couple writing prompts.

1) Make a list of things they want to do over the summer
2) What they think they will do in first grade (you could do this now as the year is wrapping up)
3) Writing about their favorite food (also reviews 5 senses... well 4 of them at least haha)
4) Writing about their home
5) Play date- where they write about a day they played with a friend

I also made a personalized one just for my class and you could do the same.... all year I have shared stories about my horrible terrible cat named Creature, so the personal prompt I made for them asks them "What do you think Creature is doing this summer?".... I hope some of them come back and share this piece with me next year!

Writing Prompts

Summer Packet part 3

Here are the last of the 100's board puzzles! Enjoy :)


Butterfly

Question Mark

Make a Sailboat

Make a cone

Summer Post part 2

  Today I found myself surfing the web for other ideas of what to include in my summer work packet and of courseeeee I landed on Jessica Meacham's website! She went through and made fun designs on 100's boards for children to practice number recognition. So I borrowed her number sequences and put them on a page with a hundreds board instead of separate... and viola... some fun math practice for the summer!

Here is a smile face one:


Make a Smile Face


And a cat


make a cat



  She has many more and I plan to convert them over to this format in the next day or so... they'll be on Scribd so check them out!