Five for Friday - 7-1-16

Hi! I am linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for the weekly Five for Friday linky party.

Here goes!

Noooooooo! It can't be July 1st already! That means I have one month of summer vacation left. Yes, I am one of those teachers who goes back to school in August. That means I have to make the most of my free time!

My plans for my remaining 30-ish days (I have two PD days in late July) are to try to squeeze in one more beach trip. I am a total beach lover! Are you?

Speaking of beach trips. Here are two pictures from my trip to Aruba. They don't do it justice! Of all the islands I have visited, Aruba was the easiest in terms of airport, money, and people. The people were so very friendly! I'll go back as soon as I get the rest of the Caribbean islands stamped in my passport. :-) It's worth it to work three jobs in order to splurge on a big summer trip. 

Caption this!

This is the view from my room! Amazing!

I've begun thinking about adding more flexible seating to my classroom this year. If you'd like to read about my experience with flexible seating, you can read all about it here. I'm looking for more tray tables and lap boards.My kids loved those. I've seen some at Wal-mart. I may have to take a trip to the dreaded place to look for some. Do you always feel like you stand in line for 20 minutes every time you go? I do!  Have you found any great steals of bucket seats or tray tables? If so, please let me know in the comments section. :-)

Part of my summer PD is reading The Innovator's Mindset by George Couros. I justify my pool time by taking my book to read while I'm there. Its an easy read filled with easily understandable examples of the growth mindset, building on strengths, and building a team focus (or schoolwide focus) related to encouraging innovation, which is using the tools we have to create new or better products or ways of thinking. I have scribbled and annotated all through the book! I have several ideas that I'm excited to try this next school year. 

One idea I have is to create a Wonder Wall. In the book, Couros urges the reader to allow students to create a learning task for themselves through questioning and wonder. We often create problems for students to solve. Couros believes that by allowing students to create a problem, they have an opportunity to become more innovative. I haven't fully designed it, but I have a picture in my head of how my Wonder Wall will look. What do you think?

Finally, I've been updating lots of products in my TPT store. I have a long list of new products, but refreshing current products has taken lots of my time. I am a bit of a perfectionist, which helps the products, but not my to do list! 

I hope your summer is going well. Rest. Relax. Have fun!