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Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Michael's 10 drawer rainbow cart sale!

Hi all,
I am soo excited to share with you Michael's 10 drawer rainbow cart!


I picked up two of them (after seeing them on soo many blogs) this past Sunday. All this week they are on sale 40% off and then with your teacher discount (15%) you can get an even better deal on them! There was a special 20% off coupon on Sunday from 3:30-7:30 pm on your entire purchase including sale items so I was able to pick up both carts for $60! Amazing!

I can't wait to use these for Math and Literacy Work stations. One cart will be for Literacy Stations (Debbie Diller) and one will be for math work stations (also Debbie Diller).

Peace, Love and Kinder uses her Rainbow carts as cubbies for her kids since the drawers can be taken completely out!

Sunday, July 22, 2012

Summer to-do list!

Sorry for the missing in action. It was a bit stressful and very busy Spring. I'm hoping to get into blogging with more frequency!

Life: Does anyone else get overwhelmed during the Summer with all of the things they want to accomplish and get done? I have been trying to keep up with all of the reading I wanted to get done but it's been challenging with teaching at an awesome Summer Science camp! I am seriously learning more than the kids and they teach me soo much everyday. The most interesting learning for me has been that my Summer students are from a higher economical status from the students I have been working with the past two years. I have read books on working with students in poverty but I really had never experienced teaching students who were more affluent and did not know how different this Summer would be for me. My eyes have been opened!

On to the to-do list:
1. Finish reading and planning for Literacy workstations (Debbie Diller)
2. Finish reading and planning for Math stations
3. Re-read (read it last Summer) Daily 5 and Cafe and figure out how I am going to combine or plan to incorporate Literacy Stations and Daily 5.
4. Read: Children's Mathematics: Cognitively Guided Instruction <CGI> (a teacher friend read it and told me about it. There are some videos on youtube for more information if you're interested.)
5. Figure out how to incorporate Math Stations with Guided Math with CGI
6. Go through brain breaks on pinterest and create my own popsicle sticks.
&#8220;Brain Break&#8221; sticks! Each popsicle stick has an activity on it {like  spin 3x, jump rope, macarena, seat swap, etc&#8230;}.  When I see that the  kids are starting to fade away, I stop and say &#8220;man, our brains need to  take a break&#8230;lets do a brain break.   The kids absolutely go  NUTS for these fun little activities.  None last longer than a minute  and it&#8217;s a great way to get them focused!&#8221;  
7. Go through my Transition Magician book and create popsicle sticks for quick transition ideas.
Front Cover

8. Get into my new classroom at a new school and start setting everything up! And also get the 30+ boxes we have in our house out of here and into my new room!

To help with my dilemma on how to incorporate both Literacy Stations and Daily 5 I found this awesome Linky Party:
http://seusstastic.blogspot.com/2011/11/daily-5-stationliteracy-station.html

I found this awesome linky party on Math work stations:
http://time4kindergarten.blogspot.com/2012/06/math-work-stations-again.html

There is also a Kindergarten Daily 5 study going on this Summer:
http://livelovelaughkindergarten.blogspot.com/2012/06/kindergarten-daily-5-book-study.html

And there is also a Guided Math book study going on this Summer:
http://primaryinspired.blogspot.com/p/guided-math-book-study.html

Hope you enjoy all the blog stalking as much as I am!