Five For Friday ... June 20

Hey Sweet Friends!

I couldn't wait to link up with Doodle Bugs for FIVE FOR FRIDAY!

1.   

It's my second full week of summer break ,AND I am loving it.   Things get extremely hectic at the end of the year for teachers but getting to summer vacation is definitely worth it.  I am so thankful that I have a job that allows me to be home with my own kids 3 months of the year, and the rest of the year I get to work with some amazing students.    We've spent the beginning of our  summer break just hanging out at the pool and going to sporting camps and events.  No stress!! Woot!  Woot!

2.

At the end of each school year, I send home a letter to parents giving them tips on things their child can do to help prevent that "Summer Slide".  I even created "My Summer Bucket List" to send home with my students to complete during the summer.    (Click on the photo to learn more.)

But as a parent helping my own child prevent that "summer slide", I am horrible.  My daughter loves to read and write, so this was never a problem in the summer.  But my 8 year old,  a typical boy, would rather spend his summer from morning until night outdoors.  I know the skills my soon to be 3rd grader needed to work on during the summer, it was some accountability that I needed.  This past winter our school district passed out some information on a summer reading program that would fit the needs of each child.  It is through the Institute of Reading Development.  Click Here for the link.  The program has an online portion in which my son watches a video before either reading from one of the books shown in the photo above, or watches a video before completing some phonetic exercises in his workbook.  He does this 4 days a week for about 20-30 minutes.  He LOVES it!  It helps that my son gets an incentive for completing the lessons for the whole week.

3.  Zoo Phonics

Have you heard of Zoo Phonics?  I'm getting ready to use this with my 4 year old son.  He was so excited to see the different animals that created the letters of the alphabet.  He can't wait to play the letter bingo game that is included.   I first heard of Zoo-Phonics my first year of teaching.  That was almost 17 years ago!!  I was a 1st grade special education teacher.  There was no curriculum of any kind for these little ones.  So I did some research and found this program and ordered it.  It was awesome!  I taught students with severe learning disabilities and these students were able to learn their letters, sounds, blends, and even began to read easy level readers by the end of the school year. 

4.

As if life isn't busy enough with 4 sweet kiddos, creating products for my classroom and other educators, and blogging,  I have a FUN, NEW Summer job!  I am having SO much fun while having cute manis and pedis for the summer.   I am a Jamberry Independent Nail Consultant.  Can I just say "LOVE"?!!

If you want to find out more about Jamberry,  OR get your "SHOPPING ON" and browse the online catalog you can click HERE.

I would love to answer any questions you may have about the Jamberry products, host an ONLINE FACEBOOK PARTY for you, or add you to my team.

You can contact me at:  teachingwithstyle@outlook.com

OR Find me on Facebook at:  teachingwithstyleandjams

    

If you are new to Jamberry and would love a FREE SAMPLE, please click on the photo above to request a sample.

5.   I'm probably way behind the times, but have you heard about this?

   My sweet hubs called me yesterday morning from his work excited to tell me about this site he had heard from his morning radio station.  Too sweet! He said as soon as he heard about this he thought about me and my classroom.   Brad Meltzer has a series of  children's biographies about heroes from history.  His message to children is that we can all be heroes.  Currently there are 3 books in this series:  I Am Rosa Parks,   I Am Amelia Earhart,  I am Abraham Lincoln.    If you go to his website: Click HERE or on the picture above, you will find more information and activities that go along with the books along with the links to order these books.  I'm really excited about this.   This would be great to include in my study of Presidents, Black History month, and famous American Women.

  

Thanks for stopping by!  I would love to hear how you are spending your summer vacay.  Please check out everyone's 5 for Friday HERE.