bloglovin' giveaway

I'd love if you want to travel along with me through bloglovin'

Two winners will get to choose any two items from my TpT shop as a big thanks.

Thanks to those two Collaboration Cuties for the linky and for making this a smooth transition for all!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

summer collection: home in canada

I have the most beautiful niece.

She has a hilarious sassy attitude.

{I'm sure this is not so hilarious to her mother or Nana...}

She's rather independent.

And she brings me flowers :)

board game review: pandemic

I'm the kind of person that is not fun to play board games with.
I know because I've been told.
Anything based on luck or chance, I hate.
Anything super competitive makes me a grouch.
I can never roll the number I need or turn up the card I'm looking for.
Never bring out Risk around me.
It may make me hate you.

My husband is a bit of a nerd, which is awesome.
{For the record, he claims I am a nerd, too... As if.}
Since he prefers to keep me around {yay!}, he's been looking into cooperative board games.
We have a couple now, and I'm much more fun to be with when we play those games together.

The other night we brought Pandemic to our friends' place.

Basically each person in the group is given different abilities and works together to find a cure for four diseases that are threatening to wipe out humanity.
Strategizing {not a word apparently?} is fun because everyone thinks of or notices different things on the board.
It's really difficult!
But working together, you feel like you're accomplishing something at least.
And I'm happy to announce that today...we won!
Yes, we've only been playing on the "Easy" level, but hey.
I think it would even be a fun game if you have older kids.
If you're interested, you can watch a pretty good run-through of the game. 

Another one we've been playing is an iPad app called Forbidden Island.

Of the six or so times we've tried, we've won only once.
So also a difficult game!
You are trying to collect four monuments on an island and fly them (and yourself!) to safety before it sinks.
You have limited movement abilities and only three actions to make.
The "water rises" quickly!
Spaces are sinking constantly.
That time we won was so satisfying...
But it's fun and it's only five bucks so it's worth a shot.

Happy game night!
- Amanda

bloglovin'

Bye bye, Google Reader...
Hello, bloglovin'!

summer collection: home sweet home

Just got back to Canada for the summer (a short month and a half) so we're soaking it all in right now.

Happy summer!

Etsy. It's a Problem.

Seriously, who let me on Etsy?
It's a problem.
The sort of problem that I love, though.
It's like Pinterest, but for buying things!
And do I ever love buying things.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Giveaway!

Just stopping in to send you over to the lovely Sara from Miss V`s Busy Bees. She`s having a week-long celebration where you can win yourself some awesome stuff! (Including something from me!)

Goooood luck.

3 Day Weekend!

You know what's awesome?
A long weekend right before the last week of school!
Even though there are a total of 21 kids currently attending...
21 kids in grades 2-6 altogether...
So we've pooled the kids in one room and we all rotate through fun lessons.

Today is the perfect day to get a few things started for next year, and to get started on cards for my kids.

They're pretty simple, but I've written a personalized message inside each one.

I think the kids will love reading them.

I'll just add them in with their report cards and then we'll be outta here!

If you'd like a copy, I uploaded them to Google Docs, so feel free...

Since it's the crazy-hot summertime here in Kuwait, I've been keeping cool with these two yummy treats:

Starbucks Iced Green Tea at home
It's super easy to make and just as delicious as the real thing

and Breakfast Strawberry Ice Cream

Yep, ice cream for breakfast :)

June's photo header

This month's header comes from Amsterdam.
Since we'll be packing our bags to leave Kuwait in the next week, the photo seems fitting!
That thought makes me smile :)
It's also one we snapped on our way to enjoy a frothy cup of pumpkin ale.
We'll be looking forward to relaxing on the deck with something frosty alongside...
(You know, since it's not allowed in this country...)
Another thought that makes me smile!
- Amanda

Off the Bookshelf - Susannah Cahalan's Brain on Fire

Rather than writing end of year reports like a good teacher should, I read this book last weekend:

Every time I sat down I wanted to read more. It's just such a fascinating story...

Susannah describes herself as a healthy, well-adjusted New York Post reporter with a basically sunny outlook. She's in a happy relationship and she works hard to keep her career moving forward. One night, she has a type of seizure and from that point onward starts exhibiting some pretty unexplainable behaviours. When she watches tapes from her stay in the hospital during the time, she describes these as akin to the jerky movements of that crab-walking little girl from The Exorcist {only not quite so "possessed"}. She was not herself and had no sort of understanding of these behaviours as her own nor control over them.

After numerous visits with psychiatrists and specialists, several brain scans, and a month-long stay in the hospital, it turns out that her body was basically attacking her brain, the result of an illness called anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis. This is a largely new disorder in terms of diagnosis, as there's really no other way to describe it than she was going crazy; many doctors would call her symptoms schizophrenic, ordering up entirely incorrect prescriptions.

She calls the book a fiction because she doesn't have memory of this time in her life - she's built the story on interviews with friends and family, doctors' and specialists' notes, and videos from her hospital room. The paranoia and hallucinations she experienced are things she doesn't wholly remember. 

In the end I think the book speaks a lot of our vulnerability - we are made of cells that function on a totally non-conscious level, completely separate from our understanding of daily life. It's pretty terrifying to think how quickly this bright young woman changed and for no reason except that she was unlucky. The way she tells the story is so honest and made me value my health in a way I hadn't really considered before. I highly recommend this one; it is nothing short of remarkable.

Wrapping It Up

This has felt like the longest.week.ever.
I've been sick, but I'm SUPER lucky because my class has been awesome.
Like, hands down, the most awesome ever for the last two or three weeks.
At times, even better than in September!
So that's been amazing.
Today was Lollipop Day in our Countdown to Summer, which was delicious.
And tomorrow is Thursday so I have extra reason to celebrate.
And as I've mentioned, we have a lot of students stop coming to school before the actual end of school.
Honestly, it's kind of great.

It definitely means we put a rush on assessment for the fourth quarter...
But we were able to finish our Birthday books this week and they all look great!
{Much cuter than the bland ditty pictured above...}
This unit has got to be my most favourite of all the things I've created.
The kids LOVED seeing "Social Studies" in our schedule because they knew we'd be learning about birthdays and working in the books.

Since tomorrow may be the last day I see some of my students, we're having our party/awards day!

This year, I asked my class to make awards for one another. 

Since we're Bucket Fillers, they also LOVED this project. 

It was super simple {except for the cutting - note to self for next year} and I'm really looking forward to their presentations tomorrow!

I also have all of my awards ready to go and am really Really looking forward to giving these out!

If you're looking for something simple to give out for your end of the year, I have a set for kindergarten through grade six, plus an editable version so you can add your own cute fonts for a personal message. 

Find them here.

Weekend...!

- Amanda

Map!

Ahhh, guys!
I just made a very cool new thing for this blog!
See that "Map" tab under the title?
It's a new page!
And it has this very awesome image, which I also made:

Now you can see everywhere I've been!
I'm pretty impressed with it :)

crafty + travel tales

Yesterday my husband called me "crafty."
So today I thought I'd share some of it with you:

glittery nail art

neon letters for my classroom theme next year

a watercolour kinda weekend

and many new blog headers

I took this photo in Sri Lanka, on our early morning way up to Horton Plains.

Horton Plains is a National Park and a protected site sort of in the center of the island.

I still think the light in this photo is just perfect.

It was lucky to get such a great shot, though, as I took it from a moving vehicle.

If you've ever been, you know the mountain roads leading up there are less than smooth!

Despite that, Jeff was able to sleep on our way back down...I was bouncing around so much in the jeep I could hardly get a photo to capture his crazy:

The man can sleep anywhere.

If only...