Her School Year 14-15 Reflections

Summer is in full swing - I have gotten into a good rhythm with my days of leisure (as Sean calls them). Last week I blogged about my goals for summer vacation; you can read them here. This week I am going to reflect on the 2014-2015 school year - focusing on what I would like to do differently next year. Thank you Mrs. D at Mrs. D's Corner for hosting this cool linkup. 

Communication:
I had a class website that I LOVED, but my school system took down the server that it was run through so I had to go hunting for another site. I used Google Sites for a while, but wasn't a fan. It was a little boring and a little blah. Later this summer I am going to a training on Weebly, so my fingers are crossed that will be my new website. 

Organization:
We got a brand new building last year and unpacked in August when we went back to school. It became a fast and furious race to get ready and some things did not get done. For example, my filing cabinet. Everything is in it but it isn't very well organized. I want to go in one day this summer and get that done. It will be such a relief.
I also need to organize my desk. Again, in August, stuff got thrown into it and it worked for the year, but I want it to be more organized this coming year.
My Guided Reading table was new to me - as was Guided Reading. I have a plan for organizing that spot in my room and the materials I need while there. It's going to be great!

Content:
I talked about this last week with my summer goals, but I only really have one big thing that I want to do this summer in regards to content and that is change up my English homework. For a few years now I have been doing weekly journal assignments with the essay prompts that Virginia has put out. Then I found a TPT product that is amazing for context clues. Then I discovered that my students need more work with analogies. So the plan is to combine all three into a weekly homework assignment that includes a journal, a page of context clues practice, and an analogy. It will be so much easier if I can get it done over the summer, rather than scrambling during the school year.

My Big Summer Project:
I kinda love that my big summer project is not school related. My friends and I are knitting an afghan together with about 40 other women and men, run through our favorite local yarn store. Each month the square is connected to a Sherlock Holmes story. We knit the square and read the story on our own. Then we come together to discuss the knitting and the story. It's like a knitting book club. I'm loving it! May's square was really hard so I fell behind, but I am rapidly catching up with all this summer knitting time I have. My goal is to be finished with May, June, July, and August's squares by the time I go back to school.


Do you have any changes or adjustments that you want to make for next school year? I would love to hear about them so I can possibly steal borrow those ideas. ;)

Happy Reflecting,

Her Summer Bucket List 2015

It's summer-summertime! I love, love, love not having a set schedule, not having to set an alarm in the morning, not having to grade papers, and not being so stressed all the time. I am so excited about summer!

Natalie at What the Teacher Wants is hosting a Summer Bucket List linky party. I always set goals for myself over the summer and this seemed like the perfect way to do it this year.

School:
I was introduced to the book "Learn Like a Pirate" by Paul Solarz through the Runde's Room blog. A bunch of teacher bloggers are doing a book study this summer and I am joining in. I can't wait to get started!
I had an epiphany at the end of the year about how I wanted to run my English homework throughout the 2015-2016 school year. I think it is going to be so much better! I will blog about it once I am done.
I give my students the option of extra credit each month, but it needs to be reworked. I want to tackle that over the summer because the school year is so crazy. I have good intentions, but not enough time.

Personal:
I always set a workout goal for myself and I don't always meet it. This year I am using my Wii to help me meet my goal. I'm going to alternate between Wii Zumba and EA Sports 30 Day Challenge. 
With the working out, I want to track all of my food in MyFitnessPal. I horribly underestimate calories when I do it on my own. MFP really helps me keep things in perspective.
I have been seriously slacking with my personal reading. I used to read 70 books a year. Now I am reading about 20. Crazy! I am hoping to read 5 books over the summer and I have them all chosen. I will blog about them later this summer.
There are so many WIPs (Work in Progresses) in my knitting world. I am ready for some things to come off the needles. My goal is to finish at least 3 WIPs and make some progress on my Sherlock Afghan. Lofty goals, but I am hopeful.

Fun:
Shellie and Tim will be here in exactly four weeks. I am about to jump out of my skin I am so excited - I won't, because that's gross, but I am so ready for them to be here! We are planning a week in New York City and Washington, DC. We are also going to do the tourist thing around home. So ready!!!

Pretty big goals for the summer, but I think I can do it. I will revisit them in August to let you know how I did.

What are your plans for the summer? 

Happy Summer,

Her Learn Like a Pirate Book Study

I follow several bloggers who are doing a book study on the book Learn Like a Pirate by Paul Solarz. I have been intrigued about this book and his other, Teach Like a Pirate. I ordered the book this past weekend and cannot wait to get started.

I understand the importance of collaborative groups in both Civics and English class, but I will admit that I am a complete Type-A/OCD personality in the classroom. It's hard to relinquish that control and turn the learning over to the students - despite the fact that I know for authentic learning to occur, that is exactly what I need to do.

I am loving the idea of this book study and this book. I can't wait for the book to get here so I can get started. Want to join? Head to Amazon for your copy and The Primary Gal's blog to link up.

What are your initial thoughts about this book and the idea behind it?

Happy Reading and Learning,

His and Her TBT Post: School Differences

Angela at The Teacher's Desk 6 is hosting a Throwback Thursday linky party. The rules are simple - choose a previous blog post and re-post it. 

I went back to school yesterday to open my classroom in a brand new building. It's very exciting - and stressful at the same time. Because this week means the start of a new school year, I chose a post from February, 2013 as our throwback post. Sean explained some of the differences between Australian schools and American schools. Enjoy!

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It wasn't long until I learned that school in America was very different to how I remember school growing up in Australia. The hours may have been similar but a lot of aspects of K-12 education are quite different. I thought this would be a great topic for this week's "Living in America" so here is my list of major differences:

• School Year: The Australian school year runs from late January to December. (Sometimes the first day of school would be my birthday which I hated) In America the school year starts in September and ends in June. 
• Summer Vacation: I was always jealous of the American kids in movies that got 2 months off for summer vacation where I only got a measly 5-6 weeks. What I didn't realize is that although American children got a nice long summer break, they got stiffed during the rest of the year. Basically you get a few days off for Thanksgiving, a week or so for Christmas and a week for Spring Break. In Australia we got around 6 weeks off for summer break but then had 2 weeks off after each 10 week term. It worked out pretty well as we got a nice break every couple of months.
• Uniforms: Very few public schools in America wear uniforms, although a lot of private schools do require them. I remember the first time I went into an American classroom and saw all of the kids in different clothes. At first I thought it must have been an "out of uniform day" but quickly remembered that the kids did not wear uniforms. In Australia all schools including public schools require students to wear uniforms. They tended to be a little on the ugly side sometimes but we didn't have to worry about what we were going to wear each day.



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•  School Buses: The yellow school bus is an iconic American symbol. Just about every city and county in America has a fleet of these buses and they carry millions of children to and from school each day. In Australia there is no dedicated school buses. Instead each city has a contract with a bus company to transport school children to and from school each day. Often the buses are regular public transit buses that are used for school transport in the morning and afternoon and then returned to regular public transit use for the rest of the day.
• Recess: In American schools recess is something only elementary school students (K-5) enjoy. After that you have to wait till lunch to enjoy a bite to eat. In Australian schools all students, even the 12th graders get a 20 minute break for recess. I loved recess and looked forward to the short break to grab a bit to eat or run around outside and expend some energy.

I could easily go on about even more differences like Australian schools lack of middle school and sit down cafeterias and American schools not having cool field trips like we enjoyed in my schools but that will be saved for a future post.

Question for the week: What was your favourite thing about school and your least favourite?


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Pretty cool huh? I love hearing about the differences between the two school systems. 

Happy Thursday,

Her Summer Goals 2014 Recap

Goodbye Summer 2014!!

{Source}

It has been a great summer of lounging, reading, relaxing, and some working, but it is back to school for me today. I thought I would recap my goals from this summer and see how I was able to do with all I wanted to accomplish.

My to-do list was a mile long and, I will be honest, I did not get everything done.

School:

I have quite a few picture books and I forget about them each year. I want to organize them and make a list of what I have, along with lessons I think I can do with them. Hopefully this means I will actually use them in class.
Done! I put them into the same Lexile Leveler app as my other classroom library books. 

My county requires that I do D.O.L.s with  my students each day. I like them and I think they teach the students about editing other people's work (which is 1/2 of their state writing test), but the way they are presented is not exactly like the test. I started changing up the basic routine and found a way to make it work for my class and match the test. *Bonus!!* Now, I just have to modify all the week's of sentences and paragraphs.
Not done! It's going to make more work for me throughout the year, but it will be OK (I hope!!).

Last year, my principal decided to put the Civics and Science classes on an A/B schedule (students would have one class on an A day and the other on B day). They had each for the entire year.  This is the schedule I made for this past year that has to be tweaked for this year.
Done! I have the whole year mapped (though I know it will need to be flexible, it's nice to have a basic plan done).

I love these posters I found to help my students with reading strategies. They were just printed on a color printer so they are small. I want to recreate them so they are larger and can be seen throughout the room. Hopefully, this will help remind the students of what they should be doing as they read.
Not Done! Rather than recreate them, I am planning to take them to Office Max and have them blown up. 

I have spent a lot of time (and let's face it - money) building up my classroom library. Now I need to get it organized. I want to use my Lexile Leveler app to find the Lexile level of each book and put a colored sticker on them so I can remember. Then I am going to organize the books by genre so the students can more easily find things they want to read. My students this past year read a lot more partially because of all these books I had in the room and I hope that trend can continue once they are more organized.
Done! This is probably the project I am most excited about. I took photos throughout of the process and I will be blogging about it soon.

The last week of school my Civics students helped me come up with vocabulary terms for Civics. We ended up with 173 words/phrases/terms. *phew* I'm thinking Word Wall!
Not done! I did not get this one finished, because I rethought the idea. I'm not sure how I am going to help the students with vocabulary, but I don't think this is it.

These are a hit each year and I love giving the kids something to recognize their birthday. I put the balloon on the front of the birthday pencil and a coupon for something fun on the back. I will blog more about this once I get them done. 
Partially done! I am enlisting help on this one. I have all the items printed and ready to go. I have some former students who are coming to help me set up my classroom and I'm going to ask them to work on it.

In addition to the school stuff, I had some fun stuff I wanted to do for me.

Read:
I want to finish reading The Book Whisperer by Donalyn Miller. I started last summer but didn't finish before we headed across the pond to Australia.
I also want to read Reading in the Wild by Donalyn Miller. It is the follow up to The Book Whisperer and I have heard great things. 
In addition to those two school books, I want to read 10 novels.
I read the 10 novels, but did not read Donalyn Miller's two books. Maybe during the school year.

Health:
I plan to log my eating each day into MyFitnessPal. (I started again today so if you also use the program I would love for us to be "Friends". My user name is Manders0808.)
I also want to go to the gym at least four days a week. 
I did well with logging the food that I ate, but the gym was more sporadic. I did manage to lose a few pounds so that's a good start.

Knitting:
I want to finish my first pair of socks, finish my first cabled scarf, and start (and maybe finish) a baby project.
I am over half finished with the socks. I haven't worked on the scarf the entire summer. I started my first garment project instead of a baby project. 

House:
I want to clean out and reclaim one of the bedrooms we don't use that has become a catch-all.
I want to find a way to stop the ants that are attempting to take over my kitchen.
We have a bunch of items that we set aside to take to GoodWill and I want to actually take that final step and get them out of the house.
The first one is half done, and the other two are done. We also found time to decorate some and that's a great feeling!

Misc:
I want to bake a loaf of bread from scratch. I have no idea why but I have had a hankering to do this for a while now. I've done it before and I want to do it again. Anyone have a good recipe?
I sort of cheated this one. I made banana bread, but not a full loaf of yeast bread. Maybe one weekend when we don't have any plans - ha! - I can tackle this. I'm thinking Cinnamon Raisin Bread sounds tasty.


I didn't get everything done, but I am happy with the time I spent relaxing and reading. I also spent some time with family and friends which always feels good. What didn't get done can always be done later. It's been a great summer and I am hoping it leads into a great school year.


How did you do with your summer to-do list? 


Happy Wednesday,

Her Getting Back, Take 2

I really wanted to have house project progress photos (phew - say that four times fast!) for you today, but our contractor delayed our start again. This time it was the weather's fault. My fingers are crossed that today is the day work will begin.

I have been working hard this week and last to get ready for the new school year (I go back a week from today). There are a lot of little things and a few big things that I have been working on. I know now that some will get done and some won't. (More on that next week when I share my summer to-do successes and misses.) One that will be getting done is the pencil idea I had last year. I put duct tape around the top of my pencils to help show which ones were mine and to encourage students to return them. The idea worked like a champ and I am doing it again!! I still had pencils in March, which is completely unheard of. Most years I am out of pencils by December.

I blogged about how I did this last year, so rather than retype everything I am copying and pasting. I know it's a cop out - forgive me. :) The only difference between this year and last is the tape. Last year's theme was zebra print - this year is polka dots.

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Every year I buy pencils and pens for my students to borrow as needed. ---- Key word --- borrow! But because I teach middle school, I usually am out of pencils/pens by midyear. Last year was particularly bad because I was out of pencils and pens by the end of November. I have seen many ideas online, on other blogs, and Pinterest about how to "tag" pencils. I decided to go simple. Here is what I did...

I went to Target to pick up the materials I needed. A box of plain pencils and some zebra print tape. (The theme of my room is zebra print.)

I cut a small strip of tape and put it on the end of the pencil.

Then I just rolled it up. Simple as that!

All 60 pencils took about 30 minutes with Sean's help. He cut the tape as I rolled the pencils. 

Now when my pencils are borrowed I will know who has them so I can ask for them back. I know I could let the kids keep the pencils but I hate running out and not being able to afford to buy more mid-year. I really want them to last this year. *fingers crossed*

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Do you have a specific way you keep track of materials that you loan students?

Happy Teacher Prepping,

Her August 2014 SLANT Box and Back To School TPT Purchases

Hi everyone! I am exactly two weeks away from summer vacation ending and very early alarms starting. I'm trying to stay positive and, today, I have two great reasons to smile.

First is my amazingly wonderful summer SLANT box from Courtney at Ramona Recommends. She is such a sweetheart and I loved getting to know her. She sent me a fantastic box and I cannot stop thanking her for everything. Here's what I got...

 The first thing I saw was a sweet note from Courtney. I am jealous of all the sunshine she gets in southern California, but she promised some sun-shiney gifts in the box. (PS - Isn't her handwriting great?!?!)

 

She included three note pads...one with adorable, summery flip flops, one to help our meal planning here at home, and a fun one that says "just a note" that I plan to use at school. She also sent a year-long planner and some adorable polka dot file folders. They will go perfectly in the room since I am switching to polka dots as a theme. :)

She also included two books. One was a picture book that illustrated the song "It's A Small World After All" with a CD that sings the song. The other book is a chapter book that I will be adding to my classroom library, once I read it of course. :)

She also included some fun items. Some "crayon" tissues, Expo markers, flair pens (my fave!!), pencils (that I know my kids will need/use), and stickers (which 8th graders fight over constantly). The peanut M&Ms were delicious! Yep, they are gone already! haha

 

Courtney - Thank you! Thank you!! Thank you!!! I am in love with everything that you chose for me. You were a great partner and I'm glad we "met" through this process. Thank you again and again!!

Second is the annual Teachers Pay Teachers Back to School sale. I am linking up with Erin at Learning to be Awesome to show off my stash. 

Click here to go to Erin's page.

My Wish List on TPT had grown to five pages - yep 5! I used this sale to clean it out and buy some of the things that I have been wanting for a while. Here's the list of what I got. The links are below.

Teacher Stuff:

Polka Dots Teacher Binder

Teacher Toolbox (Polka Dots Themed) - Editable 

 

English Stuff:

Book of the Month: Independent Reading for Middle School (Grades 6-8)

545 Slides of Daily Bell work/Warmups/Bell Ringers for English with answer key

Language Arts Interactive Notebook - Point of View Lesson - Grades 5-8

Punctuation Pockets Craftivity: Editing for Punctuation

Combining Sentences - Task Cards

Context Clues Posters & Interactive Notebook Entry

Context Clues Task Cards: 32 Cards (includes game answer sheet)

Interactive Reading Notebook Activity: Analyzing Author's Choices

Reading Workshop Kick-off for Grades 7-8

 

Civics Stuff:

Three Branches of Government - Interactive Student Notebook

 

How do you plan to spend the last few days before school begins again? Or if your school year has already started how is it going?


Happy (What's Left of) Summer!

Her August, 2014 Currently

It's the start of a new month which means it's time to join Farley at Oh Boy 4th Grade for the Currently linkup.

Listening: I used to listen to the Pandora app when I wanted music, but then I discovered iHeart Radio. I like this app so much more, because of their "perfect for" feature. I turned the app on a few days ago in the morning while I was getting ready and it offered a "Singing in the Shower" station. I listen to it all the time now! It's all songs that you can't help but sing along with. Here's what played while I typed this blog post:
          Thrift Shop by Macklemore
          Carry On by fun.
          Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen
          Hey Ya! by Outkast 
          Stay with Me by Sam Smith

Loving: I found a Virtual Yard Sale group on Facebook a few weeks ago where people can sell household items that you would typically find at a yard sale. I made my first purchase yesterday and my second today. Yesterday I bought a beautiful, old, paned window to use as a picture frame which is all the rage right now. Today the purchase was a pre-lit Christmas tree. We have been talking about buying a new tree and today we got one for a major deal. 

Thinking: Going back to work does not bother me as much as the 5a.m. alarm clock does. I am just not a morning person.

Wanting: I had such great plans for all that I was going to get done over summer break. I'm nowhere close to done with all of it. I'm hoping I can find some motivation over the next two weeks.

Needles: Same motivation issue with my knitting. I have beautiful projects cast on but no motivation to work on them.

1st Day: We have to go back eight days before the kids which is going to be a blessing this year because of all the unpacking. We are moving into a new building so all my school items are in boxes. Being in a new building = AHHH-MAZING!! Unpacking = Ick!


What are you currently doing?


Happy Sunday,

Her 13-14 and 14-15 Back to School Goals

Have you liked our "His and Her Hobbies" Facebook page? If not, click here!

I know it is summer vacation, but my brain never really turns the school part off. It shuffles to the back, but it's still there. Jess from I {heart} Recess is once again hosting her Back to School Goals link-up. I participated last year while I was in Australia (you can read that post here) and really like the idea of setting goals for the coming school year. 

 These were my goals for last school year:

 

How did I do?
Personal - ha! That's a joke. I was lucky to leave before 5:30 and I didn't go the gym any. Epic fail! I give myself a F.
Organization - I definitely did better than I have in the past, but I did fall behind a few times. I give myself a D.
Planning - There was some day-to-day planning going on, but not nearly as much as the year before. I say a C-.
Professional - This one I did! I loved that book and all that it recommended. My students read way more this past year than in the year's before.  I give myself an A.
Students - I really tried with this one, even implementing a lunch time work session. It's hard to get middle schoolers to want to write. I'd say C+.

Now for this year's goals:

My fingers are crossed that I can accomplish all of these goals. I know they will make me happier, healthier, and more productive in the long run. Here's hoping year 14 is the best one yet!

What goals do you have for the coming year?

Happy Thursday,

Her Summer 2014 Goals

Hello Summer 2014!!!

Source

As much as I miss my students (you can read about that here), I am happy to be a "Lady of Leisure" as Sean calls me. Summer is a time to regroup and refresh. I love my job - don't get me wrong - but summer vacation is a great perk!

Like a lot of teachers out there, I have a to-do list a mile long for my summer vacation. I'm typing it out here so I can hopefully keep myself motivated to get it all done.

School:
This is not as long as my list usually is, but I have quite a bit I want to get done for school.

I have quite a few picture books and I forget about them each year. I want to organize them and make a list of what I have, along with lessons I think I can do with them. Hopefully this means I will actually use them in class.

My county requires that I do D.O.L.s with  my students each day. I like them and I think they teach the students about editing other people's work (which is 1/2 of their state writing test), but the way they are presented is not exactly like the test. I started changing up the basic routine and found a way to make it work for my class and match the test. *Bonus!!* Now, I just have to modify all the week's of sentences and paragraphs.

Last year, my principal decided to put the Civics and Science classes on an A/B schedule (students would have one class on an A day and the other on B day). They had each for the entire year. This year it looks like she is going to switch us to semesters (one semester Science, one Civics). This is the schedule I made for this past year that has to be revamped for semesters.

I love these posters I found to help my students with reading strategies. They were just printed on a color printer so they are small. I want to recreate them so they are larger and can be seen throughout the room. Hopefully, this will help remind the students of what they should be doing as they read.

I have spent a lot of time (and let's face it - money) building up my classroom library. Now I need to get it organized. I want to use my Lexile Leveler app to find the Lexile level of each book and put a colored sticker on them so I can remember. Then I am going to organize the books by genre so the students can more easily find things they want to read. My students this past year read a lot more partially because of all these books I had in the room and I hope that trend can continue once they are more organized.

The last week of school my Civics students helped me come up with vocabulary terms for Civics. We ended up with 173 words/phrases/terms. *phew* I'm thinking Word Wall!

These are a hit each year and I love giving the kids something to recognize their birthday. I put the balloon on the front of the birthday pencil and a coupon for something fun on the back. I will blog more about this once I get them done.


See! That's not that bad? Right!?!?


In addition to the school stuff, I have some fun stuff I want to do for me.

Read:
I want to finish reading The Book Whisperer by Donalyn Miller. I started last summer but didn't finish before we headed across the pond to Australia.
I also want to read Reading in the Wild by Donalyn Miller. It is the follow up to The Book Whisperer and I have heard great things. 
In addition to those two school books, I want to read 10 novels.

Health:
I plan to log my eating each day into MyFitnessPal. (I started again today so if you also use the program I would love for us to be "Friends". My user name is Manders0808.)
I also want to go to the gym at least four days a week.

Knitting:
I want to finish my first pair of socks, finish my first cabled scarf, and start (and maybe finish) a baby project.

House:
I want to clean out and reclaim one of the bedrooms we don't use that has become a catch-all.
I want to find a way to stop the ants that are attempting to take over my kitchen.
We have a bunch of items that we set aside to take to GoodWill and I want to actually take that final step and get them out of the house.

Misc:
I want to bake a loaf of bread from scratch. I have no idea why but I have had a hankering to do this for a while now. I've done it before and I want to do it again. Anyone have a good recipe?


That's my summer to-do list. It is going to be busy, but very fun I think. What made your to-do list this summer?


Happy Vacation,

His and Her: Weekly Recap

Today we are off to spend some time with Amanda's parents and celebrate Father's Day and Amanda's Mom's birthday. Today's post is a recap of what we blogged about this week so you can catch up on anything you may have missed.

His: First Sale on Etsy:  
Sean talks about his first sale on Etsy and what he has planned for the store.

 

His and Her What's for Dinner? Wednesday:
See what new recipes we found for dinner this week. Perhaps you will find a new favourite too!

Source

Her Saying Goodbye:
Amanda shares how she says "Goodbye" to her students on the last few days of school.

Saturday Snapshots: Bicentennial Park
Some shots of one of the scenic parks in Sean's home town.

That's it for this week. Which post was your favorite?

Her Saying Goodbye

Tomorrow is the last day of school with my students. I am happy that the 5:00 a.m. alarm is ending and the hectic to-do lists are going to be over, but I am going to miss my students so much. My heart hurts thinking about them leaving and me not seeing them every day. 

I am one of "those teachers" who gets attached to my students each year, but this year was worse. Not worse in a bad way, worse in a good way. My students this year are amazing students - they try hard...bust their butts each day, they focus on their assignments, and they are polite and respectful (most of the time anyway). More than that though, my students this year are amazing young people. They are kindhearted, sweet, compassionate, and fun. They have great senses of humor and have kept me laughing all year. I don't know what I will do without them moving forward. Thinking about them leaving makes me cry, even now and they aren't gone yet.

I wanted to plan some special send-offs for them so that they could see how much they meant to me. In addition to the grade level awards ceremony, I planned some things to do in my classroom with just me and them. This is what I am doing tomorrow. I hope, through these things, they will see just how much I value them as people and appreciate their work as students. 

First, each student will get an individualized award. I thought about each student and what I love about him/her or what I am going to remember most about him/her. I typed this onto a certificate and I printed each on the color printer at work. I used card stock to make them more durable.

This is the template I used. Click this link to download the certificate.

I opened it in Microsoft Word, deleted the Kindergarten Diploma and [Child's Name] and then took a screenshot of it. I then opened PowerPoint and added the photo to a blank slide and sized it to fit. I added some blue WordArt for the award title and a fun font for the student's name. I then duplicated the slide and made the first award. I duplicated again and made the second award. The file has one award for each student. This way I could load the card stock into the printer and hit print once. My doctored, PowerPoint version can be found here.

The awards I am giving out tomorrow are:
110% Award 
Always Smiling Award
Amazing Person In & Out Award
Best Friend Award 
Biggest Heart Award
Brightest Smile Award 
Civics Buff Award
Giggly & Silent Award
Goofy & Giggly Girl Award
Happy Dwarf Award
Helping Hand Award
"I Want to Win Once!" Award (for my students who like to power struggle with me)
Out of My Shell Award
Participator Award
Ray of Sunshine Award
Shy & Silent Award 
Sleepy & Silent Award
Sleepy Smartie Award
Smarty Pants Award
Smarty & Silent Award
Smiley Award
Smiley & Silent Award 
Stick to It Award
Studious & Silent Award 
Sugary Sweet Award
Super Helper/Participator/Chatty Cathy Award
Sweet & Silent Award
Sweetest Smile Award
Sweetheart Award
Sweetie Pie Award 
Wonderful Worker Award


I will also  show the students an iMovie that I made for them using the song Gone, Gone, Gone by Phillip Phillips. I heard this song a few months ago and thought it would be perfect for the last day of school because it is all about being there for someone and never leaving them. I have made other videos for them this year (as part of their state test prep), so this will not be new to them. I modify the lyrics and let the artist sing, because I cannot carry a tune in a bucket. The modified lyrics play on the screen with some special messages from me to the students as the song plays.


It will be a good day tomorrow because it is the last day of school. But it will be a sad day as I say goodbye to all my amazing students. I hope they know, through all the things I have planned, how much I love each and every one of them and how much they are going to be missed. Now I just have to find the waterproof mascara. 


How did you say goodbye to your classes this year?


Happy Summer Vacation,