Character Education Books Linky

As I was surfing pinterest and teacher blogs, I found this awesome Linky Party over at First Grade and Fabulous and just had to join in the fun!  I love books and at the beginning of the year I am always looking for great picture books that reinforce character education lessons. 

 My favorite might be the book Have You Filled A Bucket Today by Carol McCloud.  If you have not read this book, you need to check it out for sure.  It is a wonderful book all about treating each other with kindness.  It shows kids (and adults) that we all have an invisible bucket that gets filled or "dipped" into by our actions.  There are some fantastic lessons to go along with bucket filling and I have even used it in my classroom as a behavior plan before!  Check out the book and my board on pinterest for more info.

Another great book for character education is My Mouth is a Volcano by Julia Cook.  This is a funny book about a boy who always interrupts his friends and teacher because he wants to share what is in his head.  It gives those students who have trouble with blurting out a tool to help them work on controlling that behavior so they can be better listeners.

The book, Ordinary Mary's Extraordinary Deed by Emily Pearson is a sweet story that would be wonderful for cause and effect as well as teaching about how kind deeds can have a reaching effect on many people.  Mary does one kind deed that causes another person to do something kind,  then that person decides to do something kind and it keeps on growing until the one deed is felt by many.  I think this book would also be great to use in a math lesson too! 

Last year I found the book, The Little White Owl, while I was searching Amazon and just had to buy it for the cute owls and the publishers description of the book.  What a find!!  Not only are the illustrations beautiful, the story is sweet and I was able to use it for a lesson about discrimination and then again as a writing lesson.  The owl lives all alone with no parents but is so happy and when he meets other owls that treat him differently because he is plain he is undaunted and shares his story telling skills with them and teaches them a powerful lesson about how being different is OK. Make sure to check this story out because it is a sweet book that I know your students will enjoy!

While I am sharing books that are good for exploring differences, I would be silly not to mention a teacher and student favorite; Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes.  This book is a great book to use at the beginning of the year to have students explore their names and is also great to introduce the topic of teasing and treating each other kindly.  Be sure to check out my Kevin Henkes author study unit in my TPT store for cute follow ups for this and many other Kevin Henkes stories.

This linky is so much fun!  I could go on and on with my favorite character education books but I will stop after this last cute book.  Enemy Pie is a funny story where the main character is upset because someone new moved to his neighborhood and he is convinced that the boy is his enemy.  His father takes a different approach and tricks his son into understanding why it is important to get to know people before judging them.  This book is available as a read aloud on the website Storylineonline, make sure to go and check it out before school starts!

Thanks for stopping by!  Make sure to go back to First Grade and Fabulous to see all the other cool blogs!  Amazon, here I come...

Summer Piles Linky

I found this cute linky party today over at Bunting, Books and Bainbridge and could not resist showing off my summer piles of teaching materials!  I have been enjoying seeing everyone's piles and reading all of their blogs!  It helps to know that my house is not the only one with piles of random teaching materials all over the place.  So here goes, check out my mess:

This may not technically count as a pile but it is definitely school stuff.  This little cabinet is a cool storage place for my kids school stuff and our arts and craft supplies.  As you can see they each have a drawer for their things with baskets for all the items that I find laying around the house.  This system works pretty well during the school year but now that it is summer, I have taken it over.  The plants and pets from my classroom live here for the summer.  Pancakes and Sprinkles (gerbils) also have taken over a shelf for their food and that big ugly bag is full of their bedding and other supplies!

 This pile of stuff is in my dining room and is a collection of empty containers that I am planning to find a use for this summer.  I love pringles cans for power towers and icing containers are great for holding dice, calling sticks pencils and other small items. 

The orange container is actually a drawer from my classroom that was a hot mess at the end of the year.  I brought it home and organized it one night while catching up on Grey's Anatomy!!


This pile is currently in my family room but moves between the family room and my office depending on where I am working at the time.  It is my plan books from last year, some laminating that still needs to be cut out, my ipad and my super important notebook where I keep all my different lists of things to do!  The best thing in this picture is my cute little kitten named Ollie!  We just adopted him from my teacher friend who found his litter abandoned in the woods behind her house. 

This pile is also in my kitchen.  In fact it is on top of the kitchen table.  It is my paint box and a few classroom crafts.  I already got the calling sticks painted so I can cross that off my summer list.  Next I will be painting the clothespins to use on my behavior chart next year. 

Make sure to check out the linky party and join in the fun!

Favorite Pins Friday

Yipee, it's Friday and I'm linking up with First Grade Parade and her fun Favorite Pin Friday linky!

While I have time this summer, I have been working on some fun classroom decorations.  Here are a few of my favoite pins from this week.  

This cute classroom picture is from Crafty Kinders.   She has so many cute pictures with great ideas about how to add color to your classroom.  She uses zip ties and colorful crates to create cubbies for her students. 

I love this cute guided reading table!  I found this over on Schoolgirl Style's blog and she has tons of other cute pictures showing off this beach themed classroom.  I tried to use an umbrella but could not get it just rights, so now I am on to plan B.   I am working on a tree that will hang over my guided table.  Hopefully I will be posting pictures of that soon, but be sure to hop over and check out Melanie's blog for some fun beachy ideas!

This little owl was my inspiration for creating a tree in my guided reading area.  Check out Dollar Store Crafts for this and other cute ideas!  I love this site!

Thank you pinterest for keeping us all collaborating and sharing these amazing ideas!!

Don't forget to hop over to First Grade Parade to see some more Favorite Pins! 

Time for me to jump on board as well...

Ok, I have been reading trying to learn all about the changes that are happening with the end of google reader.  As a newish blogger, I am not sure I completely understand it all, but I am happy with my new subscription to Bloglovin'!  Honestly, I didn't use google reader before so I don't know what I will be missing but so far I am enjoying Bloglovin'.  

I will be working on getting some cute buttons that I have found out there to add to my blog soon, but for today I think I will stick with the basic button and go with the program.  I hope you will all follow me and we can just get on with our blogging, sharing and collaborating!

<a href="http://www.bloglovin.com/blog/5294869/?claim=kpazfyfqags">Follow my blog with Bloglovin</a>

Thanks everyone!!

Kick off summer with a fun Giveaway!

Head on over to Mind Sparks for a fun give-away that runs until Saturday, June 29th!  Katie is celebrating getting 100 followers in her Teachers Pay Teacher store and the prizes she is giving away are AWESOME! 

There are prizes for clip art, K-2 teachers, 3-5 teachers, and middle and high school teachers!! 

Enter today for the K-2 Prize Pack to win 18 awesome products, including my Writing Center Daily Menus.

Congrats Katie and good luck all!! 

Last week of school = Camping and S'mores!

The last week of school is always crazy for me and the kids.  The weather is beautiful, the pools are open and keeping the kids focused can be a challenge.  This year my team planned a camp like activity for the last week of school.  We each planned an activity to do with a class and then created a schedule that rotated each class through to each teacher.  It was super fun.  In my rotation we used water colors to create murals, they worked in 4 teams per rotation created awesome murals!  After murals dried each teacher got 4 big murals that we used to help us cover empty bulletin boards which made our classrooms look bright and cheery instead of packed up!  

The other roations included Father's Day pet rock creations, volcano experiements, and stain "glass" creations

On the last full day of school we had kids bring in flashlights and we had a big camp out.  I had three tents set up in my classroom and kids created their own campfires using toilet paper tubes and construction paper. 

I found an awesome youtube video of a camp fire that I had playing on the board while they worked.  When they were finished we turned out the lights and they used thier flashlights to read by the campfires. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1nu_8IQd78

After they read we talked about smores!  They shared their experiences with making and eating smores and then I told then that we were going to make smores in our classroom.  They were beyond excited.  We watched a video on making smores in the microwave.  It is a great little youtube video that was perfect for my kids to watch and they write about making smores. 

After we made and ate our smores, the kids wrote the steps to making smores.  It was a perfect conclusion to all our camping fun!  I found this wonderful smores writing paper and some fun camping ideas at Rulin' the Roost!  Be sure the check them out!

Happy Summer to all my awesome teacher friends!!

Thanking volunteers

Hi there!  I can not believe it has been a month since I blogged!  I am so sorry but life just got in the way!  My son graduated high school, YAY, and we had tons of fun with prom, graduation and parties galore!

Anyway, it is the end of the year and for me that means time to thank those wonderful volunteers.  I feel very fortunate to have some wonderful parent volunteers each year.  I have no doubt that my first year teaching would have been hectic and filled with late nights at school if it were not for those amazing parents who came in faithfully each week and copied, laminated, cut and organized for me. 

As the school year is coming to a close it is time to put together a token of appreciate for all their hard work.  I thought I would share a few ideas with you with the different ways I have thanked them in the past. 

These insulated coffee mugs came from the Dollar Tree!  They had a color your own insert so I used the school mascot and wrote a little thank you note along the bottom and created my own custom mug for $1!  I filled the mugs with some candy just for fun!

Below is another fun idea.  Take a picture of the children who have parents that volunteer and make a card on the computer using that image.  That way the "thanks" is from you and the child because parents are really volunteering for their children and I think it is nice for the children to acknowledge that and thank their parents!

This quick and easy "Thank you" come from a cute pin I found on pinterest!  Just buy some 100 Grand bars and wrap them with a cute bow and either write a card or create a card like this creative person did. 

During the summer, my husband and I are swim team reps and we are always looking for ways to thank parents for their many volunteer hours.  Since our mascot is a dolphin, I used foam core to create this dolphin and took pictures of the kids holding the dolphin.  I snapped pictures all season long to make sure I got as many kids as I could and then we put all the pictures together in a slide show just for parents and they loved it!!

Thanks for stopping by!  I hope everyone is having a wonderful end of the school year!  I am looking forward to having some extra time to spend with my family and much neglected friends!