Have you ever wanted to participate in a Twitter chat, but you don’t know where to begin?  Join me and several of my blogging friends for a fun laid-back hour of non-stop tweeting fun! July 1st @ 9pm EST is when the fun begins and don’t forget to use the #TeacherFriends to get in on the fun!  Hope to see you there!!

My friend Debbie Clement will be moderating, so its sure to be a good time!! 🙂

As I just begin my summer vacation…how sad is it that I’m already wishing for more time??  For the last two days, I’ve done nothing but sit on the couch (except when I exercised!!) and watched TV.  I feel great sitting there watching nothing and letting my mind wander, but then around 3:00, I start to feel guilty for just sitting there all day.

I talked with my neighbor about it yesterday.  I told him that I feel like I had wasted my whole day!  I felt guilty about not getting any of my projects done or getting anything around the house done.  My neighbor then asked me how I felt about watching all the shows on TV.  I told him that it was nice to sit and do nothing for a change, just relax! 🙂  He said that it didn’t sound like a wasted day to him–just someone who is always on the go taking a rare day off! 🙂

How many times as a teacher have you felt guilty for doing nothing during the first few days of summer vacation?  For me, its hard to think about sitting and doing nothing because for 181 days, I’m always doing SOMETHING! 🙂  It takes a little while to wind down from that.

So I challenge you teachers out there…what’s one thing (non school related) that you wish you could spend your day doing?

And it is OK to just sit and stare at the TV for a few days!  You’ve worked harder in 9 months than most people do in 12 months! 🙂

P.S. Okay, I’ll admit…there was some Pinterest pinning happening in there too…and some list making for a workshop next week, and I did take some time to rubber stamp! 🙂

Well…I’ve failed already! I thought this post was going to post yesterday, but something got messed up in the scheduling department (me!) and it didn’t post…so you will get two posts today! 🙂

On to the technology!

Have you heard about GoNoodle yet?  If not…you need to hear about it!  It saved my sanity the last two months of school!!  And even better yet…its FREE!! (Unless you want to upgrade to a premium membership)

What is it?

GoNoodle has taken all those fun and silly YouTube (and other videos) and put them in a kid friendly place so you have have brain breaks without the worry of commercials popping up!

There are there categories of brain breaks…energize, focus, and calm (my favorite!).

When you first log in, you will need to create a free account and then create your class.  Once you have created your class…it will look like the picture below each time you log in.

You will then select one of the silly monsters to represent your class!  This is the 4th one my class went through in 4 months.  I think the best part about GoNoodle is it not only houses kid friendly videos, but they all help the kids get active in some way!  When you have finished an activity, your progress is tracked so you can see how much activity you have completed!

There is a HUGE variety in the videos…These are just a few of them and you can also sort them by category (YouTube, Zumba Kids, Calming, Energizing, and many more!).  My kids LOVED the Airtime videos we would watch at the end of our GoNoodle time…they loved seeing which place our bubble would travel to next and enjoyed listening to me read all the fun facts about the city we landed in!  

Its hard to see, but here is my class this year GoNoodling to Everything is AWESOME from the LEGO Movie–this is one of their favorites…along with Let it Go from Frozen and the Sid Slide from Ice Age!

Here is the Lego Movie part we were dancing and singing to!!

I could really tell that getting up and moving for a few minutes helped my students concentrate better throughout the day.  Sometimes, we just really needed to move, so we would do the 200M sprint, sometimes we just needed to move our whole bodies, so we would dance, and sometimes (and we always ended with this) we just needed to take some deep breaths and calm down, so we would click on AirTime and do just that!

So when your kids are antsy…GoNoodle!!

It’s back!!! I’m bringing back my summer blog posts from last summer.  Each day of the week (minus Sat/Sun) will have a theme and I will blog about something a little different each day. 🙂

First up, is Magical Monday!

This is a new board I’ve started on Pinterest, where I pin all my “magical” ideas that are currently inspiring me!  You can click the banner above to see all my pins.

I want to share my son’s birthday with you!  He turned 10 at the end of May and wanted a water themed birthday party.  I was relieved at his theme choice because he is usually so specific and this was a more general theme!

I rent out a shelter from our local park (I don’t have to clean my house!!) every year for this birthday because he really likes the outdoors–and with a water theme, well…he wanted water balloons!

To go along with the water theme, the nice people at Oriental Trading sent me some party favors and games to help pump up the fun!!  Here is a picture of the favor bags each guest went home with, flip flop erasers, and some cute water themed candy ideas!  Each favor bag contained a Fun Squeeze Fish Squirt, flip flop erasers, and some bubbles.

Everyone came dressed in their swimsuits for the water balloon fight and then the kids all dried off by doing the LIMBO!!  This inflatable LIMBO set is from Oriental Trading…just one trick to setting this up; don’t forget to bring the sand to weigh down the limbo stands–ask how I know!! 🙂  My hubby and sister were happy to help hold it up for the kids though, so no fun was lost!!  I turned on a little Chubby Checker and the kids had a blast!  Here is the birthday boy showing how low he can go! 🙂

Here’s a look at the table that we set up for the party.  In addition to their goody bag, each guest also got a foam visor to wear to protect them from the sun, and a blue, water colored lei!

After pizza, lots of water, and some candy, the kids were ready for the next game!

The birthday boy and his guests loved playing this Going Bananas Monkey Bean Bag Toss Game!!  Even my young niece who attended the party was able to play!  Because we were in a park, we used some sticks we found laying on the ground to mark the throwing line.  3 bananas and 3 chances, each player got a mini beach ball for playing. 🙂

Next, we played Go Fish Toss/3 in a row.  I loved this game when I picked it out because it is 2 sided. 

On one side, you can play Go Fish…there are pink and yellow balls that come with the game (its also inflatable, so it packs up nice and small when you are done!).  To play, each player tries to get their color ball in the same number space; each opening is numbered. 

On the other side, you play 3 in a row.  Its like tic-tac-tow…but you toss the balls into the openings instead of using x’s and o’s. 🙂

After all the fun, it was time for cake! 🙂

What are your favorite party themes?

Join my linky party and tell me all about your favorite party theme!

Thanks so much to the wonderful folks at Oriental Trading for sending me all these goodies that made my son’s party so much fun!!