Christmas is almost here!

I can't believe that Christmas is right around the corner! This year has gone by way too fast! I'm loving my latest Pinterest craft, and I want to share it with you...

I made the chalkboard and it has become the center of my house. My friends look forward to coming over and seeing the newest quote. As the year goes on, I change the bow to match the season or holiday. I have seen people put these over their beds, which would be very fun too!

Happy Holidays... Hopefully I will have more crafts to share in the near future!

Election Unit - Day 4 Recap

Today I presented the Presidential Candidates to my second graders. I was really worried that the information would be over their head. I was also worried that they were too little to care. While I presented my lesson, as seen below, the kids were SUPER engaged. They were all over learning about the issues. I did not prepare an activity for them just because of my worries of them understanding. But I was wrong! THEY LOVED IT! The other 2nd grade class came and joined us too. When I was done teaching I paired them up and had them discuss their thoughts. And goodness, their thoughts and opinions where AMAZING. They were having full on adult discussions! It was amazing. I hope that you can inspire you kids to be educated voters like I did.

Best of luck!

GO VOTE! :)

Election Unit - The Candidates

Need a way to teach your kiddos about the candidates? Here it is! You can find the full presentation on my TpT page!

I am so excited to teach my kids about who is running! I hope that this lesson will inspire my kids to be independent thinkers when it comes to voting. :)

Please enjoy and share with your colleagues! 

Happy Voting!

Presidential Portraits - Final Product

As you have seen below, Ive created a unit about the Election. Yesterday we created our own Presidential Portraits. I talked with the kiddos about how they have show their personality in their picture as well as in their background. Some of the kids put the ocean in the background and others put their house. This was one of the best ones! I hope your kids will create ones just as cute!

...Underneath the name, the student put, "Will give 2 million to our school." :) 

Election Lesson # 2 - The Presidential Portrait

Here is the second lesson in my Election Unit, all about Presidential Portraits! I think its great for the kids to look at art and the presidency in a different way. My kids will be creating a self portrait for themselves after the small lesson! Find this on my TpT site!

....As I am finding out, my TpT items are not uploading! If you want any of my election materials, please leave your email below and I will send it to you ASAP!

And here is a frame that you can use with your kiddos!

Election Lesson # 1 - The President and Voting

Here is the slide show for the first lesson! I hope you can find a use for it! My kids ate it up, they asked when we would get to learn more about the election... such a rewarding moment! Please use my voter registration from below to help you with this lesson too!

An Election Unit - Day 1

I decided that teaching my second graders about the importance of the election and voting would be a great mini unit to do, as well as help break up our day which has been packed with a lot of writing and math lately. Today I did the first lesson, which was awesome! They LOVED it! Today's lesson was all about the President and Voting. I even make a "Voter Registration" form for them to fill out. You can find the lesson presentation PDF and Voter Reg form at my TpT page.

I will upload the rest of the lessons this weekend. I hope that you can use it and find it helpful with your class! :)

Masked Masquerade?

I wanted to share these beautiful masks that my roommate makes! She works her tail off on these pretty things... Check out her etsy page here to see all of her masks. She does custom ones too! Her masks have been custom created for parties and weddings as well, incase you need to mix it up a bit!

Pink mask with Swarowski crystals and vintage lace 

Royalty mask!

Scrapbook all day long!

While busy working my WONDERFUL and FUN student teaching PACT, Ive also been busy putting together my scrapbook from my Europe trip I took in August! While I haven't had too much time to work on it yet, I want to share a few of my pages.

I tried to theme this scrapbook around the colors purple and green, which has been difficult because a lot of the scenery pictures get lost in the green paper and purple can be a little over powering at sometimes. I decided to pull in blue, pink and yellow as needed. I think its turned out pretty great so far!

Cover page for Luxembourg

I had a really hard time doing the layout for this page. I knew that I wanted to include my own handwriting on this page and I just couldn't figure out where to put it. Finally, I decided to use a tag and glitter broad. In the end, I think it turned out pretty good!

Larochette

I took this beautiful picture of Larochette and I knew that it had to be a focus. I decided to use the yellow and purple to pull out some of the color in the buildings. I just love the offset double frame. It seems to make it a bit whimsical! 

Bernese Oberland

I could have done single picture pages for at least 4 of these pictures. I almost wish I would have blown some up and made single picture pages. But, then I also like how the beauty of the pictures will really pull in the viewer for a few minutes. I could look at this page for an hour and still be in awe by the beauty of the pictures.

It's just on my mind

I was doing some deep thinking today (and eating some honey) and I remembered this quote from Winnie-the-Pooh. I did a quick little mock up... I hope you like it!

A few of my favorite scrapbook pages!

If someone came to me and said, "Steena, would you scrapbook my life?" I would drop dead at the opportunity. Scrapbooking has become the one constant in my life that continues to make me happy. It constantally challenges my creativity and pushes my limits to go out of my design comfort zone. My first few scrapbooks were very clean. Solid paper, straight lines, no embellishments.... I didnt want people to get lost in the page design, I wanted them to enjoy the pictures. When I came back from my semester abroad I had a month off from school so I decided to go scrapbook crazy. I learned that the page design only enhances the picture and it captivates and audience better than a plain book. Ive posted some of my favorite pages from my Oxford scrapbook below, which are easy enough to re-create for yourself. I try to keep scrapbooking on the cheap side... so I make a lot of my own designs with paper and I use paint instead of the more expensive borders and other embellishments that Michael's offers. If you use one of the page layout ideas take a picture and let me see how your variation turned out! :)

From a day of Punting the Cherwell River in Oxford

Exploring Oxford with friends

Borough Market

I really like to make sure that anyone could pick up my scrapbook and know where I was. I like to use bits of info from travel books to make sure that everyone can learn something about where I went. Every page should tell a story, don't forget to use your own words and own handwriting. Your scrapbook is about you, don't forget to include you in it! 

2nd Grade Apps

So I have been failing (miserably) about posting on what was supposed to be my new thing to keep me busy. But apparently between working student teaching and having two other jobs to pay the bills, the blog has been getting away from me. The top of my to-list this weekend says, "blog about scrapbooking," so hopefully that will happen! 

Student teaching in second grade has been quite the experience. My background and master's degree is in the area of Special Educaiton and I have been very weary about my new set of kids. Luckily, they are pretty cute so they have grown on me. The greatest part about being in regular ed is the awesome technogly I get to use! All of my second graders have their own iPods, and its really allowed me to become a different type of teacher. I wanted to share some of the great apps that I use with my kids!

• Explain Everything (similar to ShowMe or Educreations, but I like it much better)
• I use this on my iPad to create math tutorials for the kids. At the start of our math hour the kids watch the tutorial that I made. Then those who understand can go back to their seats and the ones that need a bit more help can stay with me to watch it again and then receive small-group support. You will find one of my lessons below! 

• Math Ninja
• Super awesome game to work on math facts! The kids LOVE it!

• Grammar Jammers
• Remember "School House Rock" from when we were kids? Well, this is just like that. The kids find the songs catchy and they are actually learning from it.

• Sonic Pics
• We use this for science. The kids planted seeds and then recored their observations in a journal and took pictures of their plant 3x a week. At the end (when we realized that the rabbits had eaten all of the other class' plants), after we sent them home, the kids compiled their pictures into the app and were able to record their voice then upload it to their own dropbox which they can share with their parents!

• Chicktionary
• A bit like boggle, but with chickens! Our higher level kids love this app. To be honest, so do our lower kids even if they can't make many words. Im horrible at games like these so its fun to see the kids try and beat me every time! 

• Math Sky
• Basic Math fact app. ......tell the kids to be careful. Some of ours get really into it and walk around the room bumping into things!

• Penny Me
• Fun game about money

• Grammar Dragon
• Grammar app for parts of speech. Its to early in the year for our kids to use it, but the 3rd graders (who have iPads) are loving it. 

• Penguin Math
• Another basic math fact game

• Tell Time Lite (or expanded version)
• Kids eat this one up! They earn points and learn to tell time. The points they earn get them money so they can buy fish for their own aquarium. We are debating about buying the expanded version since the kids are learning so much from it. 

• Evernote and Dropbox
• Must have apps! Get them, it will make your life so much easier! :)

Off the beaten path

I wanted to share some of my favorite pictures with you from my recent trip to Europe! I hope that they inspire you to see the world and explore all of it's wonders outside the big cities that many people so often travel to. As an avid traveler, I believe that seeing the small and off-the-beaten-path places are the best places to explore.

Blokzijl, Netherlands

Blokzijl is one of the cutest villages that I have visited in Europe. It is so small, the kind of town where everyone knows everyone. The streets are lined with pots of hydrangenas in various colors and flower pots hang from light posts. The sun was shining and everyone was out riding their bikes, it was picture perfect! 

Koksijde, Belgium

 Koksijde is a pretty big beach near the southern border of Belgium. I spent two days there, both of which were beautiful days with the sun shining down on us. The boardwalk is lined with apartment home and little shops. Kids and families can rent bikes and "carts" to ride along the boardwalk. Koksijde is an enchanting place and great for any family vacation!

Larochette, Luxembourg

 If you don't know where Luxembourg is or if you have never really heard of it... don't worry. I am getting my master's degree and had many of my fellow students asked, "Where the hell is that?" My brother, who is the smartest person I know, even asked me, "What country is that city in?" Luxembourg is a small country of 450,000 people and has the highest income level in all of Europe (which was easy to see because everyone drove VERY nice cars). An hour outside of Luxembourg City is the village of Larochette which is home to a breathtaking castle (in ruins) which has spectacular view of the village below!

Bernese-Oberland, Switzerland

....Does this even need an explanation? 

I didn't think so! Breathtaking!

The first of many!

Welcome to Bits and Pieces! As a student, teacher, coach, crafter, traveler, photographer and foodie I was looking for something else to fill those few minutes of my spare time with. What better to do with those extra few minutes than have a blog!?!? I hope that I can share bits and pieces of everything I do with you... just little tid bits to keep you occupied for long enough to want to follow my blog or at least so that you will share it with your friends. I hope you enjoy!

Laroucette, Luxembourg