Favorite Pin Friday

I'm borrowing this idea from Mrs. Carroll from First Grade Parade; a super cute blog that has some super amazing and creative ideas for elementary education!

Like her, I pin, pin, pin all the freaking day, but never really have time to go through and look at them. Until summer and creating new lessons for my brand new curriculum! Here are my favorite teaching (and non-teaching) pins from this week:

Teaching:

This adorable lowercase upper case whale matching sheet  from Mrs Home Ec. I'm always looking for different types of these things for the beginning of the year and intervention activities. 

Also for word work: I love the HECK out of these ideas from Mrs. Ricca's Kindergarten, she's one of my favorite mentors!

Foodie:

STRAWBERRY SHORT CAKE RICE KRISPY TREATS? Yes please! Find 'em here: Sweet Treats and More

Quotable: 

It's not a secret that I love gossip girl (team chuck). I found this on a fabulous blog: Pawleys Island Posh. Check her out! :-)

Funny:

Saying NO is not my strength and here are some funny ways to say no... and possibly get fired other options for saying now can be found here :-)

Product:

These look AWESOME for kids who need to be moving.  I used to give 2ndary kids silly putty and play dough to fidget. This may be the elementary option, pencil fidgets. 

Now that summer is half way over (and a giant road trip)

Hi Readers! (aka mom and kelly)

Now that summer is practically over I'd LOVE to let you know what I have been doing since adventuring downtown DC with 8th graders. 

Rest of May:

As I continued to apply for jobs I was FINALLY offered one I am truly excited about! I will be teaching Kindergarden in a teeeenny tinnnyyy mountain town in Colorado, and holy smokes I can't wait! Like, summer this has been great, where are my adorable kiddos excited. Once I was offered the job the boxes were out and I was ready to pack (and if you know me, packing is one of my least favorite activities)!

It's not good bye, it's a see you later!

That was a ROUGH few months of applying and interviewing  and it is really, really hard being rejected from schools (even schools you don't really want to teach at). I applied for over 100 positions, online and the good ole fashion way.  If you're looking for a job, keep trying and use all your options! You'll get the perfect job eventually! 

June:

School ended so stinkin' quickly and I feel like we were all ready to get out and enjoy some Maryland summer (or not).  I was very sad to say bye to many wonderful fellow coworkers but had a partner in crime moving to Colorado with me, which made the goodbyes a little easier.  

Seriously, Missouri. 

Knee high by the 4th of July!

On 22nd we packed up my apartment and started the three day road trip. Which wasn't bad... minus Kansas (9 hours of ....). Luckily for me a friend and former coworker (whose girlfriend is NOT a teacher) really enjoyed road tripping and we had an excellent adventure. Teacher style.

Side note: if you're gunna do a road trip across America do it with a US History teacher. It. was. awesome. minus my anxiety, that was a little less awesome. We read about cities and states we drove through, stopped at "historical landmarks." But most importantly, we did our version of the beer trail, stopping at 11 breweries on our adventure and one distillery, in 4 days. #doitright We enjoyed sampler upon sampler of beer. My favorite? LEMON ALE from LB Brewery regrettably in Hase, Kansas. Seriously so upsetting it is freaking far away.  

"amber waves of grain" aka not colorado

"purple mountain majesty" one of those is mt massive

Finally we made it to Colorado, unpacked my things into a garage and adventured through the awesome town of Minturn were my dear friend lives. I was able to check out my new school and spend some time with my new principal, again (is summer over yet!??! i LOVE the first day of school). School is great, I mean how can you have a bad day when mt. massive is in your window? 

And with a brief stop in Salida, Colorado
with Bestest and Nephew Zero (the dog) we were off to DIA (barux hashem) trailer-less.  After spending the night at around DIA it was back on the road for me to Minnesota to spend the 4th and remainder of July in the only state that does summer right. 

July:

The Holmes' spent the beginning of July at Bay Lake in central MN and I remembered what relaxing feels like and how weird my family is. It was a great week of sunshine and lake time. I read two books in that week and started a third.  I've also been reading my teacher books and finding corresponding PINS from pintrest and drinking more iced coffee that is probably healthy for a human. 

I will do a posting about my summer reading soon and my favorite things!

Sweet home Minneapolis 

Judy the Jeep was a champ at pulling all my junk!