Lessons With Coffee

Happy Summer! As a math teacher I am often looked to for advice for what parents should do for their children in the summer to "give them an edge" next year or "prevent summer slide."  I love the idea that parents want to help take such an active role in their child's education, and am willing to try to give my best advice.  I do not have children of my own right now so the I can only say what I would do IF I did have children.  I was recently contacted by Personal Creations who asked if I could write a blog entry for student motivation, engagement and projects over the summer.  Personal Creations is pretty much THE source for anything...well...personalized.  They personalize pretty much anything from picture frames,  to Christmas ornaments, and tote bags to wine bottles!   They have a bunch of teacher stuff that is really cute: and I would be remiss to not feature this one:  Even though my first name is Jameson...and I am not

Last week I posted on Tuesday a super fun new linky with Ramona Recommend s.   I had intended on posting about a set f books my mother got me when she went to Italy, but I decided to meet up with my friend Zhenya for a fun filled afternoon of exploring our own town!  (More Below!!!!).  While we were out about I came across this book, (also another but I bought it on amazon because it was cheaper...hahaha).   I had to buy it! For those of you not familiar with Sleeping Bear Press, They are a small publishing company from AnnArbor Michigan.   Sleeping Bear Press has published a collection of books, one on each state and one for Washington, D.C (Among MANY other alphabet style books.   One  of my Favorite is B is for Battle Cry - about the Civil War in the US). The books are filled with intriguing facts, people, places and history for each of the states. Each two-page layout is brightly colored with captivating illustrations that children will love. Done in an alphabe

The June/July theme and detailed rules for the exchange can be found  HERE .   Please read this blog entry THOROUGHLY before you email me with any questions.  Matches are found in a link at the end of this post. (I have also emailed you the link to the email you signed up with.) Instructions now that you are paired! 2) Below you will find a link to a Google Doc where I have created all of your matches.  Please download the file before asking questions about it.  Here are some things to know about the Google Doc: There are 3 tabs. The first is a list of all of the participants in alphabetical order by email.  Like I said in the email.  You are divided into bloggers and non-bloggers.  As months go on you are more than welcome to switch groups, just let me know that you have a blog when you get one! The last two are the matches based on blog ownership or not.  You need to find BOTH of your matches To find who you are sending to: Look for your email in the first column (It i

As we get into summer I know that many of us do DIY for our classroom.  OH if we could only decorate our classrooms with all store-bought things life would be so much more relaxing in the summer! I have a ton of DIY planned out...I am assuming you saw my post yesterday about my TODO list!!! While I was at Michaels looking for paint for my projects I found this...So I did what any impulse buyer would do...I bought it.  I like the idea of speeding up my paint time for all my wood projects or anything that I would use acrylic paint for.  I have a lot of it.  But I did not want to spend the money on the expensive MS paint. Let's see if it works with the cheap store brand. This is what comes in the box. Bummer.  Only two little bottles.  Oh well.  Directions say mix 1:1 (hey real life ratios in the form of mixtures and concentrations!!!!) of the enclosed spray paint medium and MS satin accrylic paint.    I don't have her paint I just have this:

I like this linky a lot!  It is easy for me to do because we ALL use Pinterest.  Probably more than we should.  HEHEHEH. SO here I am linking up with  Mrs. McClain  again!! Although I am a day late.  Oops. While our district is in the process of going 1:1 with Apple iPads (holy huge mess....here is an article. ) I was given 20 iPads to use in my classroom next year. I am going to try to have a completely paperless classroom (other than our ISN's) so I have been looking for resources for going paperless, flipping my classroom, and anything that is iPad related. This pin is for an app called Showbie.  This is an app that allows teachers an easy way of assigning, collecting and leaving feedback for assignments that are done all on iPads. I am trying to figure out how I am going to do assignments and such this year being that I only have 20 iPads but this might work out well. This pin is amazing.  It is a step by step of how to set up google docs in