Sunny Summer Days Linky Week 2 and Monday Made It

 Ahhhhh!!!!! I can finally say it's the first Monday of summer!  Boy, does that feel good!  I think we all darn well deserved it!   For those of you still going, your summer will be here soon enough.  Enjoy these last days with your students and make learning as fun as possible!  Carrie and I would love to hear what everyone is up to this summer!  Whether it's relaxing, vacationing, blogging, making products..anything and everything that you are doing on a day-to-day basis!! Make sure to follow us on instagram to see what were doing on these "Sunny Summer Days." You can find us at @tabletalkwithcandc. Share with us what your doing on instragram 

End of the Year Fun: To end the school year, Carrie and I did a fun math "RELAY RACE ACTIVITY" outside with the students.  It took up 2 days worth of math time (30-40 minutes/day)!! Wahooo!!  The relay consisted of kinesthetic and cooperative learning approaches to figure out the answers!  Our students absolutely loved it!!   Students were divided into teams of 4 or 5.  Each team had to work together to solve the problems on their slip of paper.  After they finished the problem, students had to show Carrie or I their work before they could go onto their next math adventure!  All of the problems consisted of various skills we learned throughout the year.  It was a great review and a great motivator for all!   

You can get your copy of this fun math relay race from the Queen of the First Grade Jungle. We are also excited to  be linking up with 4th Grade Frolics for Monday Made-It.

Pinterest Inspired Co-Worker Gifts: Sooo...it dawned on me pretty much 2 days before the last day of school that I needed to get some gifts for some of my colleagues! Ugh, I am so bad about remembering the fun and thoughtful parts about our jobs!  (It just gets so crazy busy at the end of the year! ) Carrie made me me this cute "Hope you have a sparkly summer" tag that came with nail polish and nail filer!  So cute, right?  Simple, yet so thoughtful and definitely going to be used!!  My other co-worker got me "The Little Engine that Could" book.  This year was a big year for our district as we took on a new initiative to take on "The Skillfull Teacher." Has anyone heard of it???   I'll give you the cliff notes version of it.  It's written by Jon Saphire and it directly correlates with the new Chorlotte Danielson Evaluation framework.  Is this sounding anymore familiar with anyone?!?!  I am sure many of you know exactly what I am talking about with all of the change in education and with Common Core. Anyhow, "The Skillful Teacher"  has a strong philosophy in teaching "EFFORT" and flooding your classroom environment with effort, etc, etc.  It actually is really good stuff..but I won't bore you.  So, "The Little Engine That Could" was the perfect book to represent effort as we take on this new "Skillful Teacher" adventure as a district!

Below are some of my pinterest inspired gifts for my colleagues!  I made Carrie this cute little clipboard and found some other fun ways to say "THANK YOU!"  We also had several retirees this year, so I found a cute note on pinterest that said "Your Retirement Sucks! (Seriously)! "  I had so much fun creating little thank you tags and buying simple yet useful gifts for my co-workers! 

End of the year Student Gifts! I love giving my students awards at the end of every year.  Something fun and to remind them all of what they've accomplished this year.  This year I created a few extra fun things for each student.  We also handed out "super sweet candy awards" from Hope King at 2nd Grade Shenanigans.  My husband helped me shop for the "movie size" candy for each award.  So fun!

Inside each bag -

We've been working on Super Improvers this last part of the year.  So I created awards for each student  for the level they ended on.

  Saturday Cook Out with Friends! I got to enjoy my first weekend of summer with great friends!  My husband and I had some friends over on Saturday for a little cook out!  The weather was perfect.  We got some yummy fresh burgers and brats from Marianos!! Anyone else just love Marianos!?!?  Made a yummy appetizer and guzzled down  a few delicious sangrias!  For those of you who are simple cooks like me...all this little appetizer needs is ....  1. French bread (cut thin slices, and toast!) 2. Salami (preferably sopressata) 3. Fresh Basil (cut into fourths) 4. Boursin Cheese (Garlic and Herb) 5. Artichoke hearts

TARGET Dollar Spot Find:  Had to do my weekly shop at Target today!  Little did I know they were going to have these great book boxes or organizational boxes!  I had bought a handful a few months ago, but definitely wanted more! I  can use these at school as student's book boxes for guided reading, my professional books, my guided reading lessons, literacy or math centers, etc!  I am also thinking of using these boxes in my office at home to keep me organized!  They sure are cute, so maybe it will actually motivate me to go into my office at home to do the fun "grown up" stuff (pay bills, organize bills, blah, blah, blah)! : )

What have you been up to on these "Sunny Summer Days?!?" We would love to hear about your summer activities, summer hobbies, books you are reading, things you are working on for next year, and anything else you would love to share! 

In case you are new to Linky Parties, here are some helpful directions! There are a few ways to copy the image for the Linky Party.  

1. You can right click on the picture and choose "Copy Image," 

2. You can take a screen shot.  I'm not sure how you do this on a PC, but on a Mac press "shift command 4".  Then trace the object you want to take a picture of.  It will save the image to your desktop.  

Now you have the image to insert in your blog post and link back up to our blog.  

*Caitlin & Carrie