Scamp and another new book!

Well, I haven't been doing too much getting ready for school (eek, now I am having I'm not ready dreams!) because I took another journey.  This time my husband and I headed down to Santa Cruz for a family reunion.  I loved seeing family that I had not seen for years and meeting some that I had never met. 

We also got something that I have been working on fixing up and getting things to make it cuter.  Guess what it is?  It is a Scamp fiberglass trailer, otherwise known as an egg camper.  Hmmm...that gives me an idea, I can show my students  a picture of it and ask them to infer what they think it might be nicknamed!  You can see why when you see its picture. I can give clues if they don't get it at first :-)

Cute, huh?  I am going with the red/turquoise theme since it is vintage.  Yeah, now 1982 is vintage.  Hmmmm, what does that make me?!?!  I won't go there. But it is cute and now I can go on a learning journey without sleeping on the ground!  

I HAVE been thinking about my students' learning though and when I bought my retro turquoise clock to go with my color theme in my trailer, I also bought my new favorite book for school, The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore.  

This is an amazing book and it gives me new teaching ideas each time I read it.  It is a wonderful children's book about a man who is writing his life story.  As he is writing, a tornado takes the words away from his book.  He is gifted with a book from a woman and his life changes direction.  I plan to use it to introduce caring for and the importance of books, to introduce writing, and also how to infer.  The original film short has no words so it will be perfect to have them infer what is happening from the pictures in combination with their own background knowledge , as well as compare and contrast the book and the film.  It has great vocabulary too!  There is also an app which I didn't purchase...yet.  Check out the author's website for more info!  The first thing I am going to do when I get back to my classroom (right after taking our maiden voyage in our Scamp this weekend) is to create a bulletin board featuring books that take us flying.  It will be finished with the addition of pictures/descriptions of the favorite books of my new class and their pictures.  Fun!

Now I am off to go Scamping!

It's a clean slate for now...

Here is what my classroom looked like (sorry for the blurry pic) after it was cleaned.  I was SO happy that everything was put back in place!  I need to get some good gifts for our two amazing maintenance guys.  Now I just need to organize and redo the bulletin boards which are not really boards at all but paper stapled to the walls.  That makes it hard to change things.  Ideas?  I will post new pictures when I am finished.   It might be awhile since school does not start until after Labor Day.  I am soooo glad we have August off since I know many folks are already starting school soon!
What should I do today?  Go get a copy of Blogging for Dummies  at the Goodwill so I can figure out how make my blog look better!
What I am REALLY going to do is go kayaking in Boston Harbor with my book group buddies.

Wow...that trip took the bloggin' right out of me! Since I have been stalking other teacher's blogs this summer, I figured I should get back to bloggin' here again, even if no one ever reads it :-)

My trip was amazing and I had so much fun, I took a trip to Holland for spring break where my daughter was playing softball for the Centrals in the town of Bilt.  I loved bringing home treats for my kiddos in class and they loved it too!  They were so interested in pictures, especially the windmills.  I loved Amsterdam too, it is nothing like the media portrays it.  It is safe and beautiful.  

This summer we travelled to Banff Canada and drove up to the ice fields just below Jasper.  Wow.  It was on my list of places I wanted to see and it was so much more beautiful than I ever could imagine.  We saw so many animals (bears, longhorn sheep, mountain goats and more!)just eating beside the road.  I was really interested in seeing the hoodoos (never have seen one in all my years!) so we drove around till we found them.  What is a hoodoo you ask?  Check out the sign that describes them.  We learned about them in our second grade science unit, Pebbles, Sand and SIlt.  Now I have real pictures!

Anyways, now I am thinking about how to improve my practice and classroom and have been checking out other blogs (and Pinterest of course!) and feel like I need to really step it up and get busy.  Was that a run-on sentence or what?!?!

Soooo...I participated in Made It Monday which but I didn't link up because I haven't figured out how yet.  Hah!  I am posting a picture of my little craft anyways even though it is not totally finished AND I haven't linked up. I plan to write sharp and dull on the cans with chalk and use them for pencils in the classroom. I found the buckets at the Target Dollar Spot, tied ribbon on the handle, and added the little flower bows that I found at JoAnne's Fabrics. The total cost was about $3.00 for the pair.  Ya gotta love that! 

I also finished painting a bench that I found off Craigslist I will use in my classroom using Annie Sloan chalk paint.  I like the storage under seat and in the sides.  I am hoping it will be another cozy place to read but haven't had anyone try it out yet.  Gotta work on that...

Well, back to blogstalking for more great idea from other folks...