just for fun

I received The Versatile Blogger award from my friend, Andrea, at Reading Toward the Stars!  If you haven't already, check out her blog; she's a reading specialist and has a lot of great ideas to use in your classroom.  I know this personally, since we teach in the same building!

There are 7 rules to follow when receiving this award.

1. Thank the blogger who nominated you.

2. Include a link to their site.

3. Include the award image in your post.

4. Give 7 random facts about yourself.

5. Nominate 15 other bloggers for the award.

6. When nominating, include a link to their site.

7. Let other bloggers know they've been nominated.

Here's the random facts ...

1. Tomorrow is my ninth anniversary!  Josh and I met at church while in college (we were both students at Liberty University, but never met at school!).

2. I've only lived in Virginia.  I love this part of the country!

 

3.  I've only wanted to be a teacher.  I am fourth generation teacher in my family - my great-grandmother taught in a one-room schoolhouse in northeastern Ohio beginning in 1919.  My granddad was an elementary teacher and principal and my mom is nearing the end of her teaching career - she's a high school Spanish teacher.

4.  I love to visit museums, especially ones about history.  My mom and I took a trip to Philadelphia a few weeks ago to sight-see.  This is a tribute to my granddad, who was the forever teacher.

"with" George Washington at the Constitution Center in Philadelphia

5. Montvale is the only school where I've taught.  I got my job there because of being a long-term substitute just after finishing my student teaching.  Although it's a 70-mile round trip drive each day, we're like a family and I love it there!

6. I love to read!  Since moving to first grade (I was in fourth for eight years and had a TON of reading to do to keep up with my lesson preps and what the kids were reading), I have a little more time to read for me.  I carry my nook about everywhere I go!  Just added books to it for the rest of the summer!

reading with one of my nephews

7.  My family is originally from Cleveland and my husband's family from the Pittsburgh area.  It's very interesting in our house during football season!

I am passing on The Versatile Blogger and Liebster Blog Award to the following:

the 2 Crazy Texas Teachers

Heather at Kickin' It in Kinder

Lisa at Learning is Something to Treasure

Mrs. Lirette's Learning Detectives

Haley at Following Optimism

The rules for the Liebster Award are:

1. Copy and paste the award in your blog.

2. Thank the giver and link back to them.

3.  Nominate five other bloggers and let them know by commenting on their blogs.

I also received this award from ...

Andrea at Reading Toward the Stars!

I know that I broke the rules, but so many of you have already received these awards!

Until next time - I have some more ideas for summer school or when you return in August that I'll share later in the week!

Blessings,

Summer school is hard!

I forgot how hard (and exhausting!) summer school is ... until today.  I had to redo my math pretest, which changed what I had originally planned and after seeing the weakness my children have in beginning sounds, I stayed busy working on some activities last night.

This activity, pictured below, is using the Notebook software for a Smart Board.  If you have a Smart Board in your room, this is a freebie on my Tpt site.  There are 6 different sorting activities for beginning sounds.

This activity, pictured below, is also a freebie for all of my followers.  You can click on any of the images to get this for your classroom or here.  There are 20 pages of images (2 on a page), along with a recording page.  This activity would be useful in a small group or one-on-one.

Blessings,

New on scribd ...

I wanted to find a way to reward my followers with freebies, but still try to make some money on some activities ... it can be done using scribd!

Today was the first day of summer school in my county (thankfully it wasn't last week after our area suffered from the derecho, knocking power out for 6+ days).  I forget how much of a difference there is from the end of the school year for firsties, to where the next group of kiddos are when they come to me in the fall.  Today gave me a reality check!  For reading, my focus is going to be beginning sounds and sight words.

This beginning sound activity was created for such a time as this!  Click on any of the four pictures below or here to get a copy for yourself!  I have mine in page protectors and stored in a three ring binder.  I feel this is the easiest way to store and use my cards effectively in my classroom.

Happy Monday!  Find this activity on Manic Monday!  Click here to get to their site for many more ideas!

Blessings,

What a week!

Last weekend was wonderful.  My husband and I drove to Indianapolis to visit his family as a surprise for my mother-in-law's birthday.  It ended up being timing only from the Lord, as Friday evening an awful storm came through Virginia, taking out power all over.  We are extending our trip so that we can stay in the air conditioning as long as possible, and be sure that when we drive home through Ohio and West Virginia, we can stop for gas!

On to other things ... here are two math activities that I have used with my first graders.  The first is a set of money activities.  It includes:

• tree map sort of all 4 American coins
• Do I have enough money? activity (uses pennies, nickels, and dimes)
• count coins in a set and write the total (uses pennies, nickels, and dimes)
• a "shopping activity" using pennies, nickels, and dimes

 This freebie can be found at my TpT store.

The second activity is for a tree map of geometric shapes.  Use this geometry sort to check students' understanding of shapes in real life. Uses triangles, square, rectangles, and circles.  This freebie can also be found at my TpT store.

Hope that you can stay cool!


Blessings,