It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? 6/27

IMWAYR 2015

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? –From Picture Books to YA is a weekly meme hosted by Jen at Teach Mentor Texts and Kellee at Unleashing Readers. This is a chance for bloggers to recap their week of reading and share their plans for the next reading adventures they will take. Visit the host blogs for a list of great blogs participating in this meme and a whole bunch of titles to add to your to-read lists.

Books I Finished This Week:

I have the immense pleasure of knowing Liza Weimer in person. She is a local author and is very supportive of all things YA literature. I don’t know why it took me so long to read her debut novel. It is a case of too many books, too little time for me. Hello? was a novel that I devoured. There are so many heavy hitting issues in this book, yet it manages to be a book that made me feel uplifted and hopeful. I was immediately drawn into Tricia’s struggle to keep her head above water as she grieved the loss of her grandma.  I got goosebumps with the hints at the supernatural and a grand plan for life. This is a must read for anyone who enjoys YA literature. It would be a fabulous addition to a high school library.

I also finished Bunnicula. I hadn’t read that one since third grade. It is definitely a fun one to bring out next year in a book talk.

 

Books I am currently reading:

I am still listening to Winter by Marissa Meyer, but I should be finished this week. I also am reading a book about business practices and The Power of Habit.  I started The Magician’s Elephant by Kate DiCamillo. I am sure I will love it as I love all her other books.

What’s Next?

I have been really going with the flow and choosing what feels right so far this summer. I think that will apply to my book choices too. I will probably not try to start anything really involved since I want to do more writing and am participating in Teachers Write.

What are you reading this week? I would love to hear from you in the comments!

Signature

 

Celebrate This Week 6/25: Celebrating Summer

celebrate-image

It’s Saturday and that means it is time to reflect on the week and celebrate things both big and small. Join our community and celebrate this week by linking up or just stopping by the host Ruth Ayres’ blog to read others’ celebrations.

This week I am celebrating SUMMER

  • The weather has been fantastic in Wisconsin. So many nice, sunny days with warmth but not too much humidity.
  • Time with family and friends: I have had the chance to spend time going to the park and enjoying the outdoors with both my mother and my husband. We also are enjoying the beer garden in our local park with friends
  • Euro 2016: Since my hubby is from Spain, we get really into watching the tournaments in the years that they happen. (It is especially cool that we are home for the summer and can watch the majority of the games) This year, Spain is playing well which is always a good thing…after they were ridiculously bad in the last world cup, they needed to come in strong this time.
  • My summer school classroom is set up and I have the curriculum. I have a small class list of 15 kiddos and I know 10 of them because I am teaching at my school for the summer. It will be a fun summer job!
  • Our CSA box has been arriving every other week. I am loving eating the farm fresh vegetables and fruit. What better way to celebrate summer than to eat amazing food that is good for you too?
  • I am coming out of my shell and sharing more with people about essential oils and how they have helped me reach my health goals. It is empowering to share and to see how they are helping my friends too. Being an introvert, it is daunting to take on the idea of building a business around sharing oils, but I am slowly but surely getting there.
  • More time for reading all kinds of books is amazing! I have been enjoying reading some personal development books as well as fiction books that have been on my shelves for a while. I love lazy summer days.

 

What do you have to celebrate this week? I would love to hear from you in the comments!

Signature

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? 6/20

IMWAYR 2015

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? –From Picture Books to YA is a weekly meme hosted by Jen at Teach Mentor Texts and Kellee at Unleashing Readers. This is a chance for bloggers to recap their week of reading and share their plans for the next reading adventures they will take. Visit the host blogs for a list of great blogs participating in this meme and a whole bunch of titles to add to your to-read lists.

Books I Finished This Week:

Alistair Grim’s Odditorium by Gregory Funaro was a fun read. It is an adventure mixed with fantasy. I loved the little bit of mystery throughout the book. I was not a big fan of the ending, but I still enjoyed the book. It is definitely one I will recommend to students.

Comics Squad: Recess is a fun little book that I know my students will love. It is a collection of short stories from a number of authors of graphic novels for kids. I will absolutely recommend this one to my students also.

I have had The Five Love Languages on my shelf for years. I didn’t really think that I wanted to read it until I started reading more self-help books and seeing some more references to the idea of love languages. It is really an interesting theory about how we communicate our love to each other. I can see a lot of applications for this knowledge. I particularly thought a lot about the incredibly needy kiddos in our classrooms. It would be a good idea to try to figure out what love language is their primary language so that you can help them feel appreciated and loved. It was definitely worth the read and sparked a lot of discussion with my husband.

 

Books I am currently reading:

I am still listening to Winter by Marissa Meyer. I also am reading a book about business practices and The Power of Habit. I started Bunnicula as well and will be finished with that one tonight.

What’s Next?

I have a nice stack of self-help books from the library so I will definitely get into at least one more of those. I also have The Magician’s Elephant by Kate DiCamillo on my night table and will probably start that one tonight. I am not sure what else I will read, but I am likely to pick up a few more middle grade titles to catch up with #bookaday.

What are you reading this week? I would love to hear from you in the comments!

Signature

 

Celebrate This Week 6/11

celebrate-image

It’s Saturday and that means it is time to reflect on the week and celebrate things both big and small. Join our community and celebrate this week by linking up or just stopping by the host Ruth Ayres’ blog to read others’ celebrations.

 

 

Family time:

We had a great time on Sunday with the whole family together for a BBQ. My sister and brother-in-law were in town for the weekend. It was so nice to have everyone together. It was also my mother’s birthday and it was great to spend some time with her on her special day.

13346597_10153532631320896_4862088344473660545_n

School Days:

This week was sort of our last week of school. The last day of school for my students is next Monday. Yes, we are ending on a Monday. Not well thought out, but there you go. I am sad to be sending these kiddos on to the next teacher. We have created an awesome place this year in our classroom and I am sad to see them go. I love that my students love it in our classroom too. One student told me that his dad was telling him he wouldn’t be coming to school on Monday, but he was begging to come to school. Another student’s mom came to pick him up in the middle of the day yesterday. He got so upset that he was having to leave that she decided to let him stay. I am celebrating the fact that we created a space that is so comfortable for them that they don’t want to leave.

We finished reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. This was an amazing read aloud. I am so glad I decided to share this book with these students.

What do you have to celebrate this week? I would love to hear from you in the comments!

Signature

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? 6/6

IMWAYR 2015

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? –From Picture Books to YA is a weekly meme hosted by Jen at Teach Mentor Texts and Kellee at Unleashing Readers. This is a chance for bloggers to recap their week of reading and share their plans for the next reading adventures they will take. Visit the host blogs for a list of great blogs participating in this meme and a whole bunch of titles to add to your to-read lists.

Books I Finished This Week:

Finding Your Element by Ken Robinson is a companion to his book The Element. I enjoyed reading the book and there were some good exercises throughout. I did not find the book to be immensely helpful to me, but I realized at the beginning of reading that I really didn’t need to do the exercises because I am already in my element daily. This could be a good book for people who really have no clue what they would like to be doing or for people who are unhappy in their current job and want to find something else that will help them be happier daily.

 I received a copy of And I Darken by Kiersten White from NetGalley. This book, which comes out later this month, is a sweeping novel with political intrigue, a love story, and a tough (brutal) female character. It took me a little while to get into this book, mostly because I have a hard time as a reader when I don’t like the characters. However, once I was hooked, this book was one I didn’t want to put down. I can’t wait to see how the saga continues. I recommend this one for grades 8 and up.

InGenius: A Crash Course in Creativity by Tina Seelig was a quick read. There are some good ideas about how to encourage creativity and she introduces a tool called the innovation engine that helps one to think about the conditions that are necessary for creativity to thrive. Overall, I enjoyed reading the anecdotes and learning about people who are creative and the environments that foster that creativity, but I was not completely blown away by this book.

 

Books I am currently reading:

I am still listening to Winter by Marissa Meyer. I also started reading The Five Love Languages. 

What’s Next?

I have no idea what I will go to next. I will be perusing the shelf later today to get my next read going. Probably I will choose something light since I have report cards and end-of-the year paperwork to complete this week.

What are you reading this week? I would love to hear from you in the comments!

Signature

 

Celebrate This Week 6/4

celebrate-image

It’s Saturday and that means it is time to reflect on the week and celebrate things both big and small. Join our community and celebrate this week by linking up or just stopping by the host Ruth Ayres’ blog to read others’ celebrations.

The weeks go by so fast towards the end of the school year. The days turn sunny and warm, and life could be speeding past and passing me by, if I didn’t stop to appreciate moments in my every day life. The practice of celebrating each week has shifted my mindset and made me into a more positive person overall.

It’s not that I wasn’t positive before…I just was surrounded by negativity and sometimes gave in to the temptation to wallow in the complaining. I still have a lot of negative people around me a lot of the time, although I have removed myself from some of the most toxic negativity by avoiding certain people as much as possible. The practice of stopping to celebrate has given me back the appreciation of the incredibly complex and awesome job that I do each day. Lately we have been overwhelmed with more paperwork, more testing, more demands on our time and more mandates for the way we should be teaching. Many of my colleagues are being weighed down with that load and forgetting the beauty of the career that we have all chosen. I am grateful to this community for giving me a practice of celebration that helps me to be aware of when I am loving my job. Here are some of the best celebrations from last week:

We went on our big field trip to Madison. This is an hour and a half drive to visit our State Capitol among other things. The students are always very excited to go on such a big trip. We took a double-decker coach bus and it was a beautiful day. We went to the Wisconsin Historical Museum first. Then we had a guided tour at the Capitol building. Finally, we toured Camp Randall stadium, where the Wisconsin Badgers play football. Our trip was successful and I love that these kiddos will have some great memories of this day.

IMG_1280

 

We are making a memory book of our fourth grade year. I had the students brainstorm all the things that they remember being special in their fourth grade year. We came up with a list that was two pages long. They included things like morning meeting and all the different read aloud titles. They remembered so many things that we have done together. I love that they have enjoyed so much about their fourth grade year!

I am also celebrating the fact that the nice weather has brought days that are perfect for visiting the Beer Garden in the park that is a few blocks away. I love the community and neighborhood in which I live. There are so many kids and dogs and people just enjoying the company of friends while also enjoying the weather and the park. It is so nice to have something like this within walking distance.

Lastly, I am celebrating finding out that I got the position at my school building for summer school. Although this means not attending the conferences that I attended last year, it is a needed boost to our income and I will also be able to organize some of my classroom closets over the summer. The summer school schedule is a nice one, we are there from 7:30-11:30 Monday through Friday. I am hoping to convince the building engineer at my school to let me stay later some days to work on organizing things. It is not a guarantee in our district that you will get summer school positions, so I am happy that I have this one.

What do you have to celebrate this week? I would love to hear from you in the comments!

Signature