Feeling Inspired

You know when you get that inspired feeling?  You know how that makes you feel?  Can you think of a time that you felt inspired?  Picture that moment in your head now...

I feel so lucky to say that four things happened today, SO FAR, that definitely made/make me feel inspired.

1.  At the Illinois Writing Project Leadership Training this morning, we found out on site there is a girl who just graduated from high school and will be entering into her freshman year on a writing scholarship.  She used to attend the elementary building where our training is.  We invited her into our session this morning to read some of her writing.  She was so excited to come in and share!  We were in awe of her, and I was definitely inspired.  
*Inspired to see a product of why we are at this writing workshop this summer.
*Inspired to meet a young woman as excited about writing as myself and the rest of our participants.
*Inspired as a writer myself.

2.  I led the teachers in a discussion on diverse learners this morning, which went so well.  First we finished the following sentences:
*Diverse learners are...
*Diverse learners have...
*Diverse learners can...

We then viewed this short movie clip from the Khan Academy.
It is entitled, "You Can Learn Anything.
Get ready to be inspired.  :)

After that, I had the teachers jot down any times in their classrooms that they helped a struggling learner:  ELL student, special ed student, any student who had difficulties that would make the learning process difficult.

We split up into 4 groups.  We took these ideas we jotted down around on a Gallery Walk and referred to these strategies as we read each scenario on chart paper.  The scenarios were:

1.  Peter is in 3rd grade, and he has trouble coming up with ideas to write about.  He speaks Polish at home.

2.  Angelina is in 9th grade.  She struggles finding the correct word choice while she is writing.  She speaks Spanish at home.

3.  Bobby is in 5th grade.  He struggles with spelling, conventions and grammar.  It's hard for anyone to read his writing.  He is embarrassed.

4.  Kailey is in 1st grade.  She gets distracted easily and is a reluctant writer.  She writes one sentence and says she's done.

The teachers came up with amazing supports on their posters!  So inspired!

3.  Have you heard of Kid President?  If not, please drop everything you are doing right now and watch, listen, reflect, smile and many even tear up.  :)  Here is the other video I shared at my Diverse Learners session at our Illinois Writing Project Leadership Training.

4.  This morning, I left before Emma woke up so my husband, Joe, just sent me a picture of what he found on his jeans at work when he looked down.  Awwwww...our little bug.  She teaches us things day in and day out.  This morning's lesson:  I am always with you.
And....it is ok to be addicted to stickers.  ;-)

So, this is what inspired me today...what has inspired you?!?

What I'm Loving Wednesday-Family, Writing, Music, Show, Dinner and Dessert

Again today, I am accepting the daily challenge of Michelle over at BigTime Literacy!

So, here is what I'm loving today (and always)!

Family

I am beyond in awe of our daughter.  Every. single. day.  My heart is overflowing with love for her.  I love my husband more today than the first day I met him because of all of the connections we now have together.  One being our daughter.  She reminds us about the important things in life.  Never take those for granted.  #lovesofmylife

Fresh Writing Ideas

I always love hearing about new ideas to get kids writing.  I hope you do as well! 

*Tell your students to write down 5 or so different names for themselves.

My example:

Kari

Mrs. Commare

Mommy

Mom

Pumpkin

Babe

Karl

*Next, pick 3 of your favorites.

I picked:  Kari, Mommy, and Karl

*Then, invite kids to write about one of the names.  Kids can write down a funny story about the name, something interesting, or the origin.

I wrote about Karl.  :)

Sometime in upper middle school, I had a PE teacher who seriously called me KARL like every single morning during attendance for almost two weeks!  Seriously. how. embarrassing.  I got the stares, I got the looks, I got the points from the cutest boy in class.  Every. single. day.  Finally, the PE teacher realized my name was Kari.  Not Karl.

This could be an awesome beginning of the year activity to get your kids knowing each other, which will allow your students to become more comfortable sharing their own writing!

I need to always remember, "Prewriting is more important that the actual writing itself."

Music

Boy am I jealous of anyone who was able to go see T. Swift this past weekend in Chicago!  My favorite as of late...Style!

Show

I cannot wait until The Big Bang Theory comes back on this fall!!!  I love Sheldon and Penny's relationship!

Dinner

I <3 this meal!  I make it often, and it is super easy!  Just a lot of chopping involved!

corn, red peppers, green peppers, black beans, cilantro!  YUM!

http://www.eat-yourself-skinny.com/2013/03/better-than-chipotle-bowl.html

Dessert

How can I pick just one?!?!  Haha!  Well, good old chocolate chip cookies are my absolute favorite!  Maybe I should bake tonight?!

Emma's 2nd Birthday Party and Monday Made It!

Today, I am super excited to share some pictures from Emma's 2nd birthday as well as to link up with Tara from Fourth Grade Frolics for Monday Made It!!  This is my very first Monday Made It, and honestly, I am even more excited that my very first Monday Made It happens to be about my favorite little munchkin in the whole entire world.  :)

So, I decided for Emma's birthday this year, we would have a pink lemonade stand considering summer SCREAMS lemonade and adorable lemonade stands.

Here is the link I found on Pinterest that inspired this lemonade stand!

Emma's pink lemonade stand birthday party was a HUGE success!!  Family, friends, lemonade, bubbles, playing outside, cake and presents...a little girl's heaven!!  :)

We are so lucky...AGAIN...that the rain held out until after cake.  Last year, and then this year, we had friends and family tracking the weather to make sure that we did not get stuck in the rain!!  :)'

If you want any info on how we made the lemonade stand, just let me know!!

Adorable Snowmen!

Awwww!!  My mom and my dad helped Emma create this special ornament for my husband and me!  What an amazing memory!  The snowmen are her three fingers!  :)  Keepsake indeed!!  Thank you Mom and Dad!  :)  (Dad did the holding of Emma's hand with the white paint!  Mom and Emma did the rest!  Haha!)

Salt Dough Ornaments and Goodies!!

I am sure you have seen these adorable Santa ornaments floating all over Pinterest (or something like them), and I am so excited to say that ours turned out successfully!!  :)  I got the original idea from Jay over at Learning to Play and Playing to Learn!

Emma is so proud of her creations!!  :)
Even though E is only 18 months old, she was great at helping make these Santas, and also the hearts we made when we had left over dough!  :)  It was really hard to take pictures of what she was doing while she was doing it, sadly...But, she did help put on the stickers, and then she ran around in circles around my legs while I painted and Modge Podged!  LOL!!  :)  We are making these Santas and hearts for both sets of grandparents as well as Emma's uncle.  We cannot wait to see their faces when they open the Santas that are E's little hands.  :)

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Fahrenheit.

We traced E's hand, as soon as she let me, onto a piece of white paper.
*I then used this piece of paper as a tracer to trace multiple times onto the rolled out salt dough mixture.

First of all, in order to make the salt dough you need the following ingredients:

2 cups of flour

2 cups of salt

1 cup of water

We poured the dry ingredients into a big bowl and started to stir.

Then, we slowly added some water while we continued to stir.  We kept adding a little bit of water a little bit at a time until all the water was used, stirring in between pours.

We laid the hand tracer onto the rolled out dough mixture and I used a knife to cut out the handprints.

As soon as we made our three hand Santas, I realized we had extra dough, so we made some hearts, but you could make any shape you wanted!

We put the hands and hearts onto a cookie tray and into the oven they went!  Now go about your business and do something else!  Those ornaments will be in there for about 6 hours.  Make sure to flip the ornaments over halfway through so both sides get cooked.

As soon as both sides are cooked, take them out and let them cool.

Then you get to paint!



Add some flair! :)

Make sure to Mod Podge those suckers so they stay nice and crisp looking.

Here is the finished product with ribbon and all!  Now these can be hung from the Christmas tree at the grandparents' houses!

Here is the idea for our hearts.  We are going to give our parents and Emma's uncle a hanging heart so they can hang it anywhere they want:  a cabinet door, a doorknob, cubicle at work, etc.

Enjoy this special project with your little one or by yourself!  :) 

Loving fall!

Fall in the suburbs of Chicago!  :)

I want fall to stay for awhile longer before all the cold and snow decide to show up!  I am not liking what the forecast is saying for next week, but time will tell!