4th of July, 5 for Friday!

I must admit I'm impressed with myself, posting 5 days in a row... wooh! Luckily there are so many fabulous linkies to keep me organized and posting away!

Today, as every most Fridays, I'm linking up with Doodlebugs for Five for Friday! I must say, this is a linky party that is a little easier during the school year, but I think I can manage 5 things today!

[one]
Please, please, please go check out my Whole Brain Wednesday post from this week! I'm really hoping to keep this "Whole Brain Wednesday" going even though the school year and if there's enough interest, I'd LOVE even more to make it a place where teachers can link up their WBT ideas! So if you are a "Whole Brainer," are reading the WBT book, use even a little bit of WBT in your classroom and would love to link up some of your old or new posts on Wednesdays PLEASE go check out Wednesday's post & leave some love telling me you'd LOVE to link up in the future!!!

[two]
I've mentioned this in other posts recently, but I'm going to give a shout out for some help again... I am (supposed to be) working on a spelling sequence for my grade level team (2nd grade) over the summer. We had talked about using Words Their Way and then I found the Fountas & Pinnell 2nd grade Phonics book & really liked their sequence.
We plan on having a "rule" or "pattern" each week and have the kiddos generate words then pick their own spelling words. We tried this at the end of the year and loved it!

Does anyone have any suggestions when it comes to either of the "programs" we've looked into? I really need to get moving to get this all ready for us come the end of August and would LOVE any suggestions that any teachers out there have. I just really want spelling/word work to be meaningful and useful for my kiddos and not just memorizing 10 words for the spelling test on Friday then forgetting them immediately afterwards.

[three]
I realized I don't think I ever posted a picture of my class thumbprint tree (from my wonderful sister) after my kiddos from this year put their thumbprints on it. I only have 2 years of kiddos on here, can't wait to add more each year :)

My sister made one of these for Mrs. R (remember her?) and her son was very concerned about what we would do when the tree was all filled with thumbprints... too cute!

[four]
I keep seeing baby animals on my runs! The college athlete in me would scoff at the fact that I will stop and take pictures of beautiful, cute, awesome things on my runs these days, but hey, I guess I'm not that crazy runner anymore ;)

[five]
Another summer moment... yesterday I was lucky enough to join my friends on a boat ride to Rhode Island. I haven't been to the beaches there in a little while and sorta-kinda forgot how much bigger they are than in Long Island Sound... totally got knocked on my butt and lost my sunglasses :( but it was a beautiful day!

(Yes, if you hadn't already noticed, I am a beach bum!)

Hope you are all having a great 4th... it's all sorts of rainy here in CT, so today is not a day of festivity, but the weekend is supposed to be grand!