Girls Day Out!

Today was a great day! My mom and I decided to spend the day together. She needed to head up north to pick up a book for my brother, and I decided to tag along. Right down the street from the bookstore was our brand new Lakeshore Learning that just opened up. I have been dying to go, but with gas prices I was holding out since it's a bit of a drive to get there.

At Barnes & Noble, I found a very interesting book about A.D.D/ A.D.H.D diet. I recently read Jenny McCarthy's book Louder than Words about her autistic son. It was so interesting and so inspiring. I highly recommend it for parents and teachers. For the past few years, I have had this urge and feeling that I am supposed to do something with autism. I can't explain the feeling, it's just very heavy on my heart. I don't have any family members who are autistic, so I'm not sure where the feeling is coming from other than I'm supposed to help through my teaching. After reading McCarthy's book, I'm even more inspired. I won't give all the details, but she was able to help her son dramatically by changing his diet. I believe a diet can help with A.D.D/A.D.H.D students as well. So I found a book called The A.D.D and A.D.H.D. Diet by Rachel Bell and Dr. Howard Peiper. I'm super excited to read it. I will post later on what I thought about it. I also picked up a copy of the TEXES test study guide. I still have a year before I have to take it, but I thought it would be great to get a jump start on it.

As I mentioned Lakeshore Learning was just down the road from the bookstore. It was AMAZING!! They have such great prices compared to the other teacher stores. They are having a huge sale, 20% off of most of the store. I found this great writing center type thing. It's called Write and Publish. It comes with a stand and 24 different activities. I love finding things and reproducing them in my own way, but the stand and the whole set up was way too cool. I gave in and purchased it. I plan on making my own activities to go along with it. I also found this other cool thing. It was for pocket charts. There is a title that goes at the top, like "I know my phone number", then you place a card with the child's name who knows this. I loved the idea, but the things to know were a little bit below the age I want to teach (I want 1st-2nd, maybe 3rd). As I looked around the store- I handed it to my mom and asked her to think of a way we could create something similar. She came up with an even better idea. Since I'm doing a safari theme, she suggested having a tree, called the "I know tree" and use leaves to put what the kids have mastered. I loved the idea!! I purchased a tree bulletin board set and bought several leaves. I plan to laminate them and just write with dry erase makers. I though I could do things like, I know my 2's, I know how to tell time, etc. I decided to call it the knowledge tree instead, but GREAT idea Mom - Thanks :)

It was a great girls day!! I honestly never spend this much time in teacher stores or spend this much money, but everyone is having such great deals, it's really hard to pass them up!