Where are the days going?

Summer seems to be flying by, I can't believe June is almost over!  In two weeks we'll be going on our vacation to Lake George, NY, and the boys are getting so excited.  I'm excited too.  We're going to visit Fort William Henry while we are there.  My oldest is really into all things military, and will love to check out the fort and their weapons display.  Bonus for me is that they also run their ghost tours on the weekend at night, so we're going to do that too! =)  That is right up my alley!  Along with a planned visit to the Great Escape theme park, a camp site right along a river, and white water rafting, I am looking forward to roasting smores and reading the stack of professional books by the campfire.  Until then though, we are definitely keeping busy around home.  We started our day today with my oldest son and I taking a 2 1/2 mile long walk with our pup, Doc.  Doc is a Harrier, Beagle, Chow, mixed mutt (lol), and he is very difficult to tire out.  He's like the energizer bunny, and keeps going, and going, and going...you get the idea.  Today must have been overly exciting for him as we took a different route than usual.  We also ended up going by one of my son's friend's houses, so he was able to also meet another dog, which is always exciting for him.  After returning home and re-hydrating we went for a short ride to pick up my youngest from soccer day camp.  Back home, and now this:

He is officially one pooped out pup! =)  Which means that I can look forward to a quiet, relaxing afternoon of blog stalking, reading, and creating more things for my classroom.  I've been quite busy lately.  When I started the summer I made a goal to create at least one new game for my students to use.  I decided on making a memory game for them to use to increase their fluency.  I have used similar games during guided reading groups, and also in reading workstations.  I have had this adorable clip art on my computer for some time now, and just had to put it to good use.  So, I created my "Monster Mash Memory" game for my class to practice high frequency words.  I've included words 1-300 from Fry's list, and hopefully later on this summer I will have another game made with at least the next 300 words.  When I use these with students I will not have them working with more than fifty came cards so that they don't get overwhelmed.  This will also make it possible to have more students practicing at the same time by splitting the card sets in half.  Here's a sneak peak at the adorable game cards:

See what I mean about the adorable clip art?  I just love it!  It's by KPM Doodles...I love her stuff! The adorable frames that go along with it came from the 3AM Teacher who I love as well.  You can get this game which has 39 pages of memory game cards for your students to practice with.  Just print on card stock and laminate, and you're ready to go!  You can check it out at my TpT store if you are interested.  Right now it's for sale for only $2!

I have so many different ideas kicking around my head at the moment, and I'm hoping to be able to get more things finished up so I can share them with you.  Some of what I'm creating for my classroom will be to go along with my new color scheme.  I've decided to go with a nice teal blue and black color base.  After the fabulous tip from:

 I decided to purchase flat bed sheets rather than yards and yards of fabric.  Walmart had these great teal colored flat sheet, and for less than $5 each! Yippee!!

So, I was able to pick up four, enough to cover all of my boards, for less than $20, which made the hubby happy. ;)  Now I just need to make up my mind on which border I'm going to go with.  Maybe you all can help me decide?  I know that I am for sure going to use this somewhere in my room:

And I want to go with at least one of these four, however, I seem completely incapable of making up my mind!  So, if you would be so willing, please leave a comment and let me know which you like the best.  I am definitely leaning more towards the first one below, but I like them all...HELP!  ;)

 



 

 

 Okay, so there you have it.  Again, I'm leaning more towards the first of these four, but let me know what you think! =)  Sorry this post ended up so long by the way! ;)

~Heather~