Goodbye Summer

I am officially kicking back into school-mode.

Summer. 

Is. 

Over.

I know I shouldn't really complain, since basically all other jobs don't even have a summer break to begin with.  But I still can't help feeling that summer went by way to quickly.

Something I am excited for this year though is music in my classroom.  I wanted to try music for transitions and other things last year but didn't really find a way that seemed easy and doable enough at first, and then once the year started there never seems to be any time for something extra.  So I decided to get all prepared for music this year before school started again.

My plan is nothing fancy and obviously still all theoretical since school hasn't started yet.  I'm hoping if I have my plan for what I want to do, then once school starts I can slowly implement it from day 1.  First off I want songs for transitions.  Last year my class transitions were extremely better than the previous year, and most of them were pretty good, but a couple still seemed too hectic.  Songs seem like fun and easy way (once the procedures are learned hopefully) to improve transition time (lining up, cleaning up, etc).  I am excited about this because 1) I think music is fun!  I feel like it will liven up the class and create an upbeat atmosphere.  2)  Songs are a specific length - and most of them I'm going to shorten to be exactly what length I want.  So transitions will now have a set time to be completed by, instead of just however-sort-of-long the kids decide to take that go round.  3)  Ideally the system will become routine and I won't have to even say anything; the class will just know what to do with each particular song.  4)  Fun music makes me happy!  I hope it will help me lighten up some and just enjoy myself throughout the day more at school.  Also a happier teacher usually creates a happier classroom - so me being happy during the day is a plus for the kiddos as well.

In addition to the transitions with songs, I plan on using music in the background during the day while my class is working.  I've heard from other teachers that this can help keep the general noise level down slightly during work time and also help students know different times of being focused.

With the exception of wanting a couple more songs, I feel pretty ready to go with music starting at the beginning of the year. I plan on using my iPhone with the playlist I've created for my classroom as well as the app Songza that a good friend introduced me to.  I've starred several stations in Songza that I've tested and seem awesome for school.  With some cheapish bluetooth portable speakers that Cody helped me find, the whole class will be able to hear the music pretty well.  If I have time at some point when I have all transitions planned, I hope to burn a CD of the songs for whenever there is a substitute.  Hopefully that should be easy enough if all the songs are on a CD and labeled for each transition.

Here's what I've got so far, but again, I still need a few more, and there's one that I'm not loving right now.

Walking on Sunshine - morning routine, unpacking, starting the day.

Peanut Butter and Jelly Time - line up for lunch

The Final Countdown - end of the day, clean up, pack up

Mission Impossible Theme - considering this one for lining up for everything except lunch

Not a transition - but I also have the theme from Jeopardy that I plan on using for different quick-think times

Anyways... still working on final decisions with some of these and looking maybe for a couple more.

Here are some pics from my classroom this week.  I worked on it every day but Thursday and somehow still feel like there's a dozens things to do!

This was the first picture I took of my room this year after already moving around a lot of the furniture.

All big furniture moved and bulletin boards (mostly) up.

This was how I left it before our teacher work week starts on Monday. 

My side bulletin boards are a Mystery Wall and my math board.  My Mystery Wall is new this year and so far includes a Boggle board and a Thinking Backwards board where I will put up an answer and students can write on sticky notes what they think the question could be.

The front of the room seems pretty busy to me in this picture, but it didn't feel that way in the room.

Our Meet the Teacher night is next Thursday, so everything will have to be ready to go by then!

  

Jamaica!

I cannot tell you how many times I heard Cody say some variation of "Jamaican-me-crazy!" while we were on our trip this month.  It made me smile or laugh every stinkin' time.

We had been wanting to go on a beach vacation for a while and decided that this summer was a perfect time to do so.  We wanted a relaxing trip in which we didn't have to do or worry about anything except enjoying our time.  Cody found a deal on Expedia for an all-inclusive resort in Ocho Rios, Jamaica.  It included our flights and the resort for a week and we were immediately pretty excited.

We stayed at the Jewel Dunn's River Beach Resort and Spa and would highly recommend it if you're looking for an all-inclusive Sandals like resort but for less.  (At least it was less with the Expedia deal, I guess we're assuming it's less just in general.)  The resort itself was really nice, the staff and overall service was wonderful, the food was good, and of course it was gorgeous.  We would love to go back and stay there again except that Cody keeps reminding me that there are so many other places in the world we'd also like to see one day.  Maybe after we see all of those we'll go back : )

Most of our vacation was simply relaxing at the beach.  Cody and I both read two books while lounging around.  Each day we would eat a massive breakfast and then go plant ourselves on some comfy chairs at the beach.  After moving back and forth between the sun and shade a few times and reading a chunk in our books we would go get lunch.  Usually after we were done with the beach each day we would head over to the pool to de-sand.  (We did rinse our feet first; we didn't want to be those people dragging sand into the pristine pool.)  After some pool time we would grab a snack (-this might have been a little too large to just call a "snack") and then go freshen up and rest for a bit in our room.

After some down time we would get ready for dinner.  Some of the resort restaurants had a nicer dress code than others, so we had a few "fancy" nights and some nice but not-so-fancy.  Each night after dinner was a little different.  A few times we were just ready for bed and called it a night, and a couple times we stayed up and explored some of the night-life at the resort. (Cody decided this was the one area semi-lacking where we stayed.)

 

 

Besides all of our relaxation at the resort, we did enjoy a couple activities throughout the week.  One day we went to a place called Blue Hole that was a natural spring area with some small waterfalls and swimming areas.  It was gorgeous and amazing!  We had to pay a driver to take a bus there and then pay for a few guys for a tour but it was definitely worth it.  They took us up the spring a bit to some neat areas and then back down it to where the waterfall was.  They walked each of us (we were with two other couples from our resort) to a mid-low point on the waterfall where we could jump off.  Walking down to the jump-off point was more nerve-racking than the actual jump.  It felt like you were going to slip the whole time and you couldn't really see where to step.  The guides kept saying "Step there! Walk in the foot holes!" -but I tell you, I could not see any foot holes.  After the waterfall activities they took us to a different part farther down the spring a bit where we jumped off a ledge into the swimming area below.  It was a high jump to me but not to Cody lol.  He wanted to do an even higher one that only the tour guides did for everyone to take pictures of.  I'm very glad they wouldn't let him try it.  Cody jumped from the ledge immediately when it was his turn whereas I think they had to count about three times for me to finally feel good about being ready to jump.  This Blue Hole excursion was our favorite part of the whole vacation.

 

Another day we did snorkeling which was fun.  They had everyone get an empty water bottle and fill it up with tiny pieces of bread.  Once you put it underwater and it filled up, you took it to swim around with and could squeeze out some of the bread for the fish to swarm at to eat.  We saw a lot of the reef, of course tons of various fish, two stingrays, and apparently some squid.  I must not know what squid really are though because everyone kept pointing at the squid and I didn't know what to look at.

Lastly something we did a handful of times throughout the week was sail on a small catamaran.  The resort had them available and someone would take you out for a ride out to the reef and up and back down the beach.  The second time we went out Cody mentioned to the guy that he used to know how to sail one from when he was a camp counselor, and the guy gave Cody a quick refresher and then directed him as he took over.  After Cody proved he could handle it, we took the resort sailor back to the beach and we were able to go out just us with Cody sailing.  Unfortunately we were pretty bummed the last days we were there because we wanted to sail a couple more times with Cody taking us out, but they were either yellow or red flag days and they only let a guest take it out on green days.  We did get one more ride in those days but a resort sailor had to take us.  That last ride was pretty fun though.  It was a yellow flag when we went out and we could definitely tell a difference.  Compared to the perfectly calm smooth rides before, this one was much rougher.  The guy made several comments about the wind starting to get angry.  As soon as we pulled back up to the beach, we weren't even off the catamaran yet and he started yelling "Red flag!  It's a red flag now!"  We thought it was kinda amusing and were very glad we got that last sail in.

Overall everything was amazing and we had a fantastic vacation.  We got used to four meals a day (honestly the "snack" was really another meal), sleeping in together, being served drinks and snacks, and being carefree with no schedule to follow.  Coming back home was difficult for Cody!  All I heard that next week was "Nobody served me a drink at work today."  And "I'm hungry; I miss the omelet station from the breakfast buffet."

We had a wonderful time together and are very grateful we were able to finally go on a beach vacation.