Ten on Ten

Hi All,

I'm excited to link up with Rachel Parlett over at The Classroom Game Nook for Ten on Ten Linky Party! A big shout out to Rachel for hosting! Now I get to share with you 10 fun things that I have been doing over the summer or looking forward too.

First I should let you know that this summer is very different from the past 12 summers. For the 12 years I have been the Summer Camp director at our school. I started the program with the idea that I could help students by giving them a safe place to play with friends and learn at the same time. I wanted to help them avoid the "summer slide" by doing fun simple review through games and activities. The idea was that they would be reviewing, without realizing that we were already doing it.

In the beginning I had only my daughter (a middle school student) helping me, but as the program grew one of my best friends and coworker decided to come on board and help me out. We had so much fun and loved spending our days with these kiddos. 

Well, after 12 years, this year I decided to take the summer off. I had a very busy year and really felt that it was important to take my summer off and recharge. I really miss my campers but I am enjoying lots of new summer activities.

First thing that I did when school got out was to clean my classroom. It was a mess! I was sick on the last day of school, so as soon as it ended I went to the doctor and then went home and rested for about 4 days. As soon as I was feeling better my mom and aunt joined me at school and helped me clean out my big walk in closet, my cabinets, and my shelves. We threw lots of junk away and organized the rest. I even got rid of a lot of my big pieces of furniture. We hauled the rest of the furniture out and it is ready to have the floors painted. Our school does not have the staff to do any of the painting or cleaning so it becomes a family, friend, and parent volunteer affair. So thankful I have lots of those! I will be doing a post as my room slowly gets put back together so you can see the before pictures and what it looks like when it's done.

 We got out of school so late this year that it seemed I just got my room wrapped up and 4th of July was upon us. We had a wonderful day with a family bbq and lots of badminton. 

Check out this big guy!!!! He spent one whole day in the yard looking for food under the bird feeder. 

One of the best parts of having the summer off is getting to spend time with great friends. 

 Of course I'm spending lots more time with these two guys too!

I now have time to work on new products.

I met up with a couple of friends and we had a picnic of Chinese food while overlooking one of the oldest lighthouses in America, Portland Head Light

Next up on the Summer agenda is a vacation to the Berkshires with these two 4th of July cuties!! We are already planning a stop at the American Girl Store!

Should be lots of fun!

Click below to check out some other Ten on Ten from other bloggers.

Pool Party Blog Hop

Summer time is so close for me! We are on the countdown with just 9 days of school left! I'm looking forward to reading, spending time at the pool, going to camp, yummy BBQ's, and ice cream! If you are looking for some fun ideas to keep your little ones busy this summer then you have come to the right place. This blog hop is full of ideas, freebies, sales and giveaways.

One of my favorite summer ideas is making a water blob. My summer campers loved this and it was a great way to keep cool.

Another fun way to keep cool is by making water bombs. The kids will love it and it will keep them busy on a hot afternoon. Check out the video below.

One of my families favorite summertime recipes is Watergate Salad. It's a yummy salad that you can have as part of your meal or as a dessert. The bet part is that it is easy to make and you don't have to turn the oven on when it's hot outside.

A FREEBIE just for you!

Don't Spill the Beans is a great way to review addition over the summer. Click on the picture above to download from my TPT Store!

For this week only I have put one of my most popular products on sale. It is my Vacation Journal. It's perfect to document a family vacation. It also includes fun car games, and lots of journaling pages. This is a great activity for teachers to send with their students, homeschoolers, or families that just want to add a little education to your family vacation. When I do this at school I use a class bear but I have included pages without the bear too. It will be discounted from June 8th-June 14th. Click on the picture below to purchase it from my TPT's Store. Get it now while you can!

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An InLinkz Link-up

Splish-Splash It's a Summer Time Blog Bash!

Join me and 40+ other bloggers in a Splish Splash Summer Time Blog Bash! These bloggers have generously agreed to blog hop and offer up a freebie, and a giveaway as well!!! 

The way this works is you will hop from blog to blog to get each freebie! Then you can click the rafflecopter on ANY blog. Feel free to leave us a comment, share and leave us feedback! We would love for you to get to know us a little better!

I don't know about you but I have started the countdown to summer vacation. I have 24 days left and I can't wait!!! Normally in the summer I direct and teach at a summer camp. This camp was my baby. I started the program over 11 years ago with about 5-10 kids. I had the pleasure of teaching with one of my best friends and we loved it! Together we expanded our program into something much bigger. Some were students we had taught at our school and many others were children from surrounding communities. 

As much as I loved summer camp and doing all of the fun projects that there never seemed to be enough time for during the school year, I have decided not to do summer camp this year. Even though I will miss all my campers I am so excited to have this summer OFF!!!! I am looking forward to sooo many things! I love to read! I read a book by Lisa Harris over April vacation and I can't wait to read the next one in the series. I love reading Christian suspense.

                                                                                                   

I'm looking forward to spending time with great friends!

You can't beat hanging out on the rocky coast of Maine and eating seafood!

I'm so excited to share my freebie for this blog hop! This is something I made for my kiddos in my classroom. 

We will be planting seeds and watching them grow.

 

I made this cute journal for my kiddos to write their observations. 

This cute Plant Journal will ONLY be free during the Blog Hop so make sure you grab it for free while you can. Once the hop is over, you can still purchase it at my TPT Store.

My kiddos have also started working on their Plant Lapbooks. They love working on these and showing what they have learned. I love them because they are hands on and even my reluctant learners love to do them. 

This lapbook is filled with vocabulary cards, a living and nonliving sort, parts of a plant, life cycle of a plant, and a graphing activity of favorite plant parts. It's a great activity to do throughout your plant unit or as an end of a unit project. 

You could win a copy of this Plant Lapbook!

Want to win?? Enter below

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2 More Days!!!!

Hi All! I'm excited to announce a huge event that is happening in 2 days! I'm joining up with over 40 bloggers to kick off the summer with a HUGE blog hop. We will be sharing lots of freebies and hosting some fantastic give-aways. Starting on Monday, May 25th you can start here and download my new freebie at my TPT Store. It will only be free while the blog is going on so make sure you grab it while it's free. Then while you are here enter my giveaway to win an exciting new product from my store. Then hop on over to the next blog to get some more freebies. 

It's going to be a week long freebie and giveaway event! We are excited to get this Splish Splash Summer Time Blog Bash started!!!!!!

TeachersPayTeachers flock Together

It's hard to believe it has been almost a month since 60+ teacher pay teachers got together in Binghamton, NY! 

Our theme for the day was

I was so excited about this get together and I was not disappointed. It went beyond anything I could have imagined. I am still amazed at how much work these ladies put into this day!

Susan Kalkman of The Math Spot, Selma Dawani, Sherri Tyler of Literary Sherri, Ellen Weber of Brain Based Tasks for Upper Grades, Front Row: Mary Beth Brain Waves Instruction, Donna Tyler of Worth A Thousand Words, and Robyn McMaster of Brain Based Tasks for Upper Grades. 

The day started with a yummy breakfast donated by TPT's. We also got these cute bags filled with lots of goodies.

Jen Jones from Hello Literacy was gracious enough to come to our meet up and share some great tips. 

We did several roundtables sharing ideas and tips to improve our stores. My favorite one was when we shared our best seller. As we passed them around the table of 5-6 sellers, we talked about what made a great product. I loved hearing everyone's ideas. 

Names were drawn throughout the day for giveaway prizes. There were enough prizes so that everyone got one. These were not just your ordinary prizes either.  The table was filled.

I won the cutest tote bag and t-shirt donated by Lauri Wolfe at The Class Clown! I started using the bag as soon as I got back home. I love it!

 I also participated in the Teacher Tool Exchange. To be a part of it, all you needed to do was purchase one of your favorite teacher tools. Then put it in a gift bag and tell what you love about it.

Out of all of these gift bags I chose the one from Michele at Triple the Love in Grade 1. The tag on my bag said the gift "will make you smile" Michele, you were so right!

My kiddos love SCENTED MARKERS!!!! Thank you Michele!!!

Overall, it was a fabulous day with fabulous people! I met 60+ new friends that have already shared so much with me!

Thank You!!!!!    Thank You!!!!!    Thank You!!!!

Teacher Appreciation Dollar Deal!!!!!

Welcome to Day 2 of Teacher Appreciation Week!  If you missed out yesterday, you can check out some great teaching secrets for your classroom HERE.   Also, you don't want to miss out on the two giveaways we are hosting this week.  If you didn't enter yesterday, you can do so now.  Make sure you enter for both prize bundles so you have double the change to win!

Enter to Win Prize Bundle #2 Here

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Enter to Win Prize Bundle #1 Here

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Today, we are offering a collection of high quality classroom resources at a huge discount.  Below is a list of Best Selling Resources that have been discounted by 20%.  You can receive an additional 10% off at checkout by using the code THANKYOU.

An InLinkz Link-up

We have also put together a collection of $1.00 Deals to help stock up your classroom for the rest of the year and next year.  I know I have added several of these deals to my cart.  Don't forget to use the code THANKYOU at checkout for maximum savings!

An InLinkz Link-up