Monday, December 31, 2012

Suggestions for journal resources?

Yay for time off!! The movie Grease is on, I'm making my favorite healthy granola, and my husband is on his way home!


I have time to assemble one more journal pack before I go back to work... so for those of you that enjoy my journal printables:

WHICH PACK SHOULD I PUT TOGETHER NEXT?

I've got some money resources, time and word problems. Or would you rather have a literacy pack?

Many thanks for your suggestions and Happy New Year!!

Kelli xx    

Looking Ahead!


Well, I've seen this everywhere and just had to jump in. Since I'm behind (no surprise there!), I'll do all 5 now!

TECHNOLOGY:
I would like to give some attention to my blog. The blog thing has been completely learn as I go along (tech things are not my strength) and I started pinning tutorials that have helped a lot. I still have a lot of questions like: what happened to the 'followers' thing and what does subscribe in Google reader mean? Also I would love to be able to create lots of columns on my pages like Ashley Hughes at School Supply Addict has done (how do you do that?)--

Ashley's awesome pages

ORGANIZATION:
I am trying to combat this by doing my lesson plans for the next half term during the winter break and by reading about some of my new topics for the next term now (The Stuarts, Rivers, Recycling, Buddhism, and I need to read the book Holes). 

That is the main focus for me as far as organization with this current job. Just lots of new topics to learn. Luckily they do most of their work into journals/notebooks (so random papers are never an issue), bulletin boards are done/created by them as homework, and the room is soooo small (I should take a picture) that there is not really anything else to organize!

history bulletin board




PROFESSIONAL GROWTH:
There are so many things I would like to do in this area. 

-Read books that Tammy at Forever in First and others have recommended
-Complete a TEFL or CELTA course for teaching others English
-take on a teaching position in a new environment when this job finishes


DOWNTIME:
More research on cooking from scratch/healthy eating!

Very happy we got a crockpot recently and very excited about the Vitamix we are getting with gift certificates!

can't wait for those smoothies!!
 I am also hoping to read more, worry less, and work on 'being in the moment'!

FITNESS:
Something has to change. As we are trying to watch our money (upcoming changes to employment for my husband and I means we gotta be extra careful!)...we have opted not to have things with monthly costs if possible for the moment (a gym membership or a car because of insurance)...no car is fine since England has buses and trains everywhere BUT----

with the dreary winter weather...I need a gym!! I do not feel like myself at all when I don't go to the gym. I'm investigating whether I can do something from home on youtube...any thoughts? I'm not as discipined at home though ; )

Hope to read about your upcoming goals! 

Kelli xx 

Monday, December 24, 2012

K-2 Center freebies

Merry Christmas!! I hope you're all enjoying your break and time off from school! I am thoroughly relaxed and l-o-v-i-n-g it!

Cleaning out the laptop, cameras and files brought me to this: center freebies I hope you can use! Click on picture to download : )










Kelli xx

Friday, December 14, 2012

4/5th grade history journals

Thank goodness for Christmas break! In my 11 years of teaching, I have not been as sick and tired as I have this year. Sorry to complain, I just hate not feeling like myself. Does anyone understand? I went to the doctor today (again), and am hoping to switch to private healthcare (I'm in the UK) in the hope of getting immediate solutions so I can get my life back on track.

Anyway, enough of that!

It snowed last week! It melted quickly, but for this desert girl, snow is always a bit exciting. 


I feel very blessed to spend Christmas with my husband this year, as that hasn't happened since 2008 (visas and deployments)! I love our little tree and he helped me make ornaments for my students.


I've seen a linky party going around the blogs and one of the questions was a good movie you've seen recently. This made me think of the best movie I've seen all year-ARGO. So good.


OK, to end the randomness of this post-I've cleaned out my camera with some 4th/5th grade history journal activities. Hope you find them useful and can adapt the ideas to your classroom.


they did these as homework...they had many options and choices of what to do. I am very happy with it! I HATE cookie-cutter bulletin boards when students all do the same thing!








Have a good day!
Kelli xx