Lovin' It and Over It - Blogiversary Style!

I am linking up with Ali at Teaching Powered by Caffeine for her Lovin' It and Over It Linky Party.

As I am finally on summer holidays along with the rest of you, there is a lot of Lovin' It going on.

Lovin' It:
Guess what today is?

Yep!  There it is!  One year ago today I started this little old blog and it has been one of the best things I have done for my teaching career.  Thank you to all of you for your encouragement and support.
I love that the super awesome Claire helped me pack up my room on Friday.  Look what she did to my clipboards:

I am also loving that it is finally summer vacation!

Now don't get me wrong... There are a couple of things I am over.

Over It:
I am totally over the weeds this year!  I have weeded for hours every single Sunday.  The next time I look there are a million weeds again!  Grrr.  (I am not going to show you a picture of the weeds.  They make me to angry!)  I am also over not having a barbecue.  Our house has no A/C and it is already too hot to use the stove or oven.  Our BBQ broke last summer and we need a new one.  Luckily, my hubby went investigating them yesterday.  He found one he really liked but the place couldn't deliver it then.  Fingers crossed for a barbecue soon...

Have a great Sunday!  I'm going to go for a run, weed the garden AGAIN, and enjoy my first Sunday of summer vacation!
 

Canada Day Blog Hop and Sale

Reading with Mrs. D is hosting a blog hop to celebrate Canada Day!  There are several awesome bloggers participating!

In honour of this, my store is on sale through to July 2nd.  I created some maple leaf digital paper.  I have just recently been learning how to use Photoshop Elements 12.  I figured my American, Australian, European... friends could use the leaves at some time in the year.  Please click on the picture to download it and then be sure to visit my friends in the hop.

Have a great weekend!

Canada Day Blog Hop

Hello my friends! I am participating in my first ever blog hop. It is hosted by Reading with Mrs. D

 and will be held from Saturday, June 28, until Wednesday, July 2.

There will be many fantastic Canadian bloggers participating.  So please stop by and scoop up some Canadian products and lesson ideas.
 

Monday Made It - Digital Paper Style

Happy Monday! This is my last Monday of the school year! Today I am linking up with Tara at 4th Grade Frolics for her Monday Made It linky party.

Over the past two weekends I have spent more hours than I would like to tell you learning how to use Photoshop Elements 12.  I really wanted to make my own digital paper.  So after a wee bit of time (lol!) playing and watching youtube videos I finally figured it out.  Here is a link to the video I successfully used in case you have a spare moment - How to Make Striped and Plaid Patterns in Photoshop Tutorial.  (For some reason it wouldn't show up in the 'insert youtube video' option.)

What do you think about these babies?

Let me know if you would like one (or all) and I will happily send them to you.  Imagine how much fun I can have once school is over...  :-)

Student Vote and End of Year Freebie

Look at me! Two days in a row! Whoot whoot! In Ontario we recently had an election, and my class and I were fortunate enough to participate in Student Vote.  This was an incredible program to show children under the age of 18 how the voting process works.  My students absolutely loved it!  There were well-laid out powerpoints discussing such topics as:  the different types of government in the world, rights and responsibilities of citizens, levels of government...  They also sent us actual voting booths, voting boxes and ballots.  My class loved it!

Our ballots were counted, data was submitted, and results were provided to us.  Fantastic!  If you are in Canada, consider participating in this fabulous program.

I am linking up with Jennifer at Mrs. Laffin's Laughings for my last week of school!!!

 Our last week is only four days long.  Friday is a P.A. Day to get our rooms ready for the summer, meet with new staff, tidy up, etc.  Tomorrow and Tuesday we are going to be working on these memory books.  They are free in my TpT shop.  I have created two different versions - one for those who like the word 'favorite', and one for those who prefer 'favourite'.  I hope you can find it useful!  (Click on the picture to get it.)

We might have to eat some popsicles one day.  The third floor can get pretty hot in June!!!  On our last day we will enjoy Board Game Day.  Children are bringing their favourite board games and using mine.  It seems like they spend so much time on computer games, so it's nice to see them enjoying a board game.  A treat might appear as well.  I'm off to enjoy the rest of my Sunday!  Take care everyone!
 

One More to Go - Board Games and a Trip

Can you believe how busy the end of school is? I really wanted to participate in all the great book studies that are going on. Many of those books are on my summer reading list but I just can't seem to get to them for one more week. Maybe I will be able to catch up... For the last few weeks we have been working on creating a board game. Our plan looked like this:

(The clip art and border came from Creative Clips and Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah.)  We found some excellent game board templates here.  After we planned out our games, we made them, tested them out, and reflected on them.  Was your game successful?  What do you need to change to make your game even better?

This was taken when they were still in progress.  I'm very proud of what they accomplished!

Yesterday we went on a trip with all of the grade 4's in our school.  The weather was absolutely perfect - sunny and cool!  We went to 'Blades of Glory'.  It is a program that teaches the children about the Medieval Times.  This was my second time going and the students loved it!  It is very well organized.  They rotate through centres:  learning about/petting a falcon, making chain mail, watching a horse practise jousting, trying on armour, learning about/holding instruments from that era, learning about/holding weapons/trying out a trebuchet (I got to do that), and learning about methods of torture/punishment.  Here's a photo of one of my little darlings in the stocks.

Here's a link to a slideshow from 'Blades of Glory' if you'd like to find out more.
Blades of Glory: Medieval Educational Realm

Have a great Saturday night!

Monday Meet Me

Well I'm a wee bit envious of those of you on holidays already. I still have thirteen more days with the children and then one P.A. Day. It was a hot one today!

I am linking up with The Teaching Tribune for their Summer Bloggin' Week 2 "Monday Meet Me".

A selfy of my Honey and me - from my cousin's wedding

A lot of kitties

My favourite TV shows are NCIS, Motive, Dateline, Modern Family, Parenthood... and the list goes on and on and on.  :)

My favourite books for fun are chick lit (Sophie Kinsella, Janet Evanovich, Emily Giffin) and mysteries (James Patterson, J.A. Jance, Tess Gerritsen - Rizzoli and Isles series). 

My professional reading list includes:  Notice and Note, Falling in Love with Close Reading, the new Daily Five, and so on.  I always aim high in the summer but don't always get it all done.

Have a great night!

The Fam-Jam

June-Currently

I am linking up with Farley of Oh Boy 4th Grade for her awesome Currently linky party.

Listening: - we love those news/magazine shows (48 hours, Dateline, Primetime).  We have three waiting on the DVR and are working through them tonight.
Loving:  We had such a great time at my cousin's wedding yesterday.  I kind of need one more day to rest up from my super fun and busy weekend.

Thinking:  19 more school days with the kidlets and then one P.A. Day to tidy up.
Wanting:  Our BBQ broke over a year ago.  We do not have air conditioning in our house.  Therefore we do not like to use the stove or oven in the hot hot summer.  We have already gone without for all of last summer.  Hence, one BBQ is required this summer.  Right?
Needing:  Everyone relates to this one - no explanation required!
Bucket List:  I have not seen my BFF for 15 months.  That is not OK.  She lives in Virginia and we usually see her (and her sweet husband) in March when we drive home from Florida but this year we flew.  We also see them most summers.  We missed both of those but something fun is in the works.  Stay tuned.