Look what came in the mail today!! It was my Mother's Day gift...just a little late :) Isn't everyday Mother's Day??? Well, it should be! 




I am in CLEANING MODE!!  With it being the end of school...I'm cleaning EVERYTHING!!!  This system worked really well for me this year.  I have a small crate on my desk and I have a TO FILE folder.  On Friday, the last thing I do is file everything where it needs to go.
The last thing I did today was move my files on my computer to Google Drive.  For the most part, all of my file folders on my computers match my binder files.


 This week I had one super late night.  My daughter got fitted for pointe shoes.  The nearest shop was 71 miles away!! Afterwards all the girls, their moms, and the dance teachers went out to eat.  This was our view!

Here she is trying on her new pointe shoes!  Workshop starts on Monday!  She is dedicated!


I received the best gift today! Twenty sets of chapter books (all in sets of 6)!!!


I hope everyone is having a great last month of school!!!  I know I need a little time to recover!  Considering that the next two weekends are recital weekends, I might get to recover on June 7!  Enjoy the weekend!!!!




What a fun Linky Party!  I'm linking up with I Heart Grade 3 to share my summer goals!

1.  Have fun!  

My children made Summer Bucket Lists!!  They include easy stuff like....go to the pool and go to Orange Leaf!  Then they have some fun things that we can't find around our town:  play laser tag, find snow, and go to a MLB game!

2.  Get Ready for the 2015-2016 School Year!
I have lots of projects and ideas planned!!  I'm going to start adding math to my schedule next year.
Two books I want to read this summer are:


3.  Travel
We always travel lots during the summer.  This summer we are headed to Colorado for 10 days. We planning on hiking (lots)!  It is my goal to hike my first 14er!   I'm also going to Las Vegas in July!  I cannot wait to meet new people :)  
This picture was taken on one of our hikes last year.  We plan to go back!! Nothing like snow in the mountains at the end of July!






I shared these with the Pre-K teacher and her students did GREAT!!!


One last practice of dinosaur nonsense words!




Drama Club!  My daughter was in a play this week.  She played a teacher and my favorite line was the following:
Bernard, how many times do I have to remind you not to bring your imaginary friend to school?  We don't have enough chairs.


Everyone student I know loves kook-aid packets.  I have to get over the fact that they are full of sugar, and they are a treat :)   These were the end-of-school treats I sent home.  Click here to download!




These are the packets I made to send home with students over the summer.  Click here to download the cover for free!




I'm a huge planner!! I have an EC Planner, but I wanted something devoted just to all my summer projects. It seems like I'm always finding something to clean and organized over the summer.  I also have craft projects and TPT projects!

This works great for organizing Teacher Pay Teacher projects, home projects, and things that need to get done.

These pages are what is going to keep me organized this summer!  You can download it here!!!

I used a 1 inch binder (a 1/2 binder would probably be better).  I copied the pages on cardstock so they were more durable.  This is the cover page.


This is the first page in my planner.  It is an overview of everything I want to do.

This is the weekly planning page.  I copied these front-to-back to save paper.  Since they are on cardstock, they won't bleed through. 




We did some fairy tales in 1st grade.  We've been reviewing story elements and character traits.  This packet also has Goldilocks and The Three Bears and The Princess and the Pea.


I've really been enjoying following She Reads Truth.  I try and read each days reflection before I start getting ready in the morning.  If your house is like my house, once my children are up....it is chaos!!  I'm just happy to make it out of the door with everyone wearing shoes and carrying a backpack.


I decorated my table for summer!! I'm loving the aqua/teal chevron!



This weekend I'll be busy making these for my students!  I'll attach Kool Aid packets (the individual ones) to the tags.  I'll have pictures to post next week!  Click here to download!



If you are looking to send home packets with students, this is the cover I will be using this year.  I've got the cover made...next week I will glue this on a giant envelope, laminate it, and then fill it with literacy games and Reading A to Z books.  Click here to download it for free!



I gave up shopping over Lent.  It was difficult but I really, really liked how I stopped focusing on material things.  I did buy groceries, and my children needed a few things for our spring break trip, but otherwise I avoided stores.  It also saved a ton of money (which my husband loved)!

I heard about the Project 333 challenge on Facebook and thought I could never do it!  Essentially, you  buy less, but create a great wardrobe.   Last week, I got to thinking about how much better I felt during Lent when I wasn't focused on material things.  I get about 25 emails every morning from Nordstrom, Lands End, Old Navy, Charming Charlie, Bath and Body Works, Target, Coach, Kohls, etc.  During Lent, I deleted them all.  I was never tempted by extra percentages off or additional coupons.  I decided I should try Project 333!  My goal is to make this round last until Aug 30th!

You can kind of make up your own rules :)  My first rule was that I wasn't buying anything new to supplement this project!!! 

Here were my rules:
1)  Workout clothes do not count (because they are just worn working out)
2)  For me, scarfs do not count (although I separated my winter and summer scarfs)
3)  Accessories do not count (I really only wear bracelets and earrings)
4) swimsuits/coverups/pool flip flops do not count
5) Teacher t-shirts do not count (we can wear them on Friday's)
6)  I didn't count sweatshirts/coats  I have 2 college sweatshirts that I love, 1 professional spring coat and two sporty jackets.

This is what I ended up with
5 pairs of shoes
13 tops
4 skirts
3 capris
2 skorts
1 pants
2 leggings
6 dresses*

Total:  36 items (Dresses are primarily for school)

Disclaimer...we are headed to the mountains for about 10 days this summer, and I left out 4 long sleeve shirts and 2 pairs of jeans that I'll need then.  The last couple summers, I've been in the mountains at high elevations, it was about 60 for a high and 35 for a low!!

After one week of getting ready with my new closet, I couldn't be happier!  I thought it would be way more difficult.  I love what I'm wearing.  I think the fact that I have a ton of scarfs helps dress up outfits.

I also downloaded the app Stylebook.  It is fun to use and I love creating outfits with it.  For me, I could spend WAY TOO MUCH TIME playing with this app!  I find it easier for me to "save images" right from the online stores or from Google Images.  However, I did take some pictures myself, and was easily able to "white out" the background.

Here are some outfits I created this week :)

What did I do with all my other clothes?

I donated two very large bags to Goodwill.  Those were clothes that I had not worn at all in the past year.  Then the rest are down in my guest bedroom closet.  Some are more winter/fall and a few things I thought would be perfect for the next round that I do this.




We were totally spoiled over teacher appreciation week!  We got treats and gifts everyday!  Our theme was a circus :)  Some days, with all the craziness, it seems like we are running a Three Ring Circus :)  We even got a Keurig :)



For my children's school, we did these two gifts.  


My son made this for his biography on Langston Hughes.  



Last weekend I CLEANED out my closet.  BIG TIME!!! This weekend I will blog about the "extreme" I went to :)  I will say that it was totally worth it!

I hit the book jackpot at the bookmobile this week!  


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