summer vacation and a freebie

Happy Summer! I am officially on break as of yesterday and let me tell ya, it feels GOOD. My summer is going to be shorter this year than normal so I plan on soaking up every sweet drop of summery goodness! This summer my goal is to have a balanced summer as possible and to be intentional about spending my time on things that rejuvenate me. (And spend lots and lots of quality time with Little Miss!) And in case that sounds too hippy dippy and New Age...today those things happened to be free doughnuts at Krispy Kreme (today is National Doughnut Day, in case you didn't know) and a shopping trip to Target. Priorities.

Although...to be honest...a good bit of my summer always revolves around prepping my classroom materials (and classroom) for back to school time. I don't know why it is, but there's something so nice about pinning cute things for the classroom on Pinterest and shopping for fun back-to-school items! Before we left for the break, my team and I started to map out our year for next year. We're almost done (we're meeting next week for coffee to add the finishing touches) and were even talking about Open House before we left on Tuesday. Are we crazy or what?! (In our defense, our school already had "Save the Date" fliers for Open House printed and posted before school let out. Our front office is amazing and ahead of the game at all times.) Last year, I posted about the Open House goodies we had out for our sweet families and kiddos. Our team did the "ready confetti" envelopes and they were a huge hit! (If you don't know what I'm talking about, pop over to Sunny Days in Second Grade and read all about it.) We used the printables from her blog last year and the kids loved getting a special surprise the night before first grade. I decided, though, that I wanted to change it up a little for next year (a little birdie may have told me that another grade decided to copy us, which is fine, but I like to be different!). I wrote my own poem just for first grade and we will attach them to the ready confetti. Here's what it looks like:

The teeny tiny bag holds the magical confetti, which is actually sequins (you could do glitter, but we just happened to have sequins last year). The confetti and the poem go inside an envelope with the cover sheet stapled on top. As a precaution, I also told the kids that they couldn't take the confetti out because it would make the magic go away. We actually had a parent volunteer last year put these together so it was low prep on my part!

If you would like your OWN copy, click on either picture above!

Our plans for the rest of the day include a little bit of lounging around and heading out to the lake. Don't you just love summer?!

June 2015 Currently

It's the first of June and that means it's time for a new Currently hosted by Oh Boy 4th Grade!

1.) Listening to...Little Miss practicing her VBS songs! Somehow I ended up agreeing to lead the preschool music for our church's Vacation Bible School. I have the DVD that I'm supposed to be watching to learn the songs from...but so far Little Miss has watched it more than me. Thinking seriously about letting her lead and teach everyone the choreography. She's totally got this. (At three and a half.)

2.) I bought some vanilla syrup for our coffee and sodas and I have made myself a vanilla Coke Zero every night this week. Almost as good as Sonic and I don't have to leave the house.

3.) Tomorrow is my last day of post-planning! We've had three whole days this year to take care of end-of-the-year business and it's been nice...and much needed. Our school is getting new HVAC units this summer AND new ceilings so our entire classrooms had to be boxed up. If you remember, I just did this last summer. Luckily that means I don't have that much stuff-but it's still a major job. I have no idea what happened to the beautifully-arranged closet I had at the beginning of the year. It basically looked like a junk heap.

4.) Due to spending the day interviewing candidates for an open position, going out for a district meeting, and spending the afternoon packing as much as possible, I am one tired teacher. I know if I lay down on the couch I'll be out for the count...and then wide awake at 9 PM....so I'm trying to power through.

5.) See #3. Still soo much to do. I have a load of things to take to the media center, a pile of stuff that's coming home with me, and furniture stacking ahead of me.

6.) So excited about this summer! I've been in grad school for the last two summers so I haven't had a relaxing summer in a while. We are going to the beach in June and I am going to a conference in St. Louis in July. Plus, we're going to squeeze in as much lake time as we possibly can around all our other summer fun! Little Miss is at a fun age and I think we're going to have a good summer.

And as always, summer is the time when I catch up on reading! So excited about reading some good books this summer!