School Prep and relaxing

I spent my entire June (and some of my July so far) after I got out of school prepping and planning for the next school year. I was very productive planning a lot and buying a lot as well.

Here's another peek at what has been happening.

My dogs Pudge and (hiding) Sammy helping me prep some things. 

Started creating a new homework agenda 

I made 4 more trips to Target and got sucked in each time by the dollar section.

Bought this adorable sign from the dollar section at Target (for $3) to hang. 

Creating a layout for my classroom door welcome sign

Also found these cute strands of lights in the the dollar section as well..

Now I've been doing some fun stuff too. You saw I went to Disneyland. I'm going again next week as well. Hanging around town I've been creating greeting cards and hanging out at the beach. 

I made some greeting cards. The one on the right I am using for my niece's birthday card. 

   Walking around the shops at the beach I frequent and I got to see how they mold and wrap the salt water taffy! So cool!

Don't let the Pigeon Run This App for the iphone

I was very fortunate to get a chance to review one of Disney's Publishing apps, Don't let the Pigeon Run This App. They have several titles that are wonderful for young learners at home or even in a classroom setting at school. All Disney Publishing apps are available from the App Store on the iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch or at www.itunes.com/appstore.

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Rated as one of the “Best Apps in 2011” by iTunes, this app features the creative work of three-time Caldecott Honoree Mo Willems, who brings the Pigeon to the digital screen with this original, feature-rich, animated app. The app lets users create your own Pigeon stories and is fully animated with hilarious shake-and-play technology and customized voice integration. $6.99

As you all know, I am a teacher. Lately my first grade friends haven't been motivated to write stories. I found the Pigeon app the perfect motivator for them. We did an author study on the Don't let the pigeon author, read several of the books and I put my iphone under the doc Cam and zoomed in. Together the class and I created a story before our journal writing for a week. Each day, a different group of students got to come up and create a story. After creating the story infront of the whole class, we played the story and turned the words on. We used the star pointer and read the story allowed as we watched it come to life. The kids always get so excited and after the story is over they were very eager to get their creative juices flowing in their writing journals. On Friday we used the How to Draw the pigeon part of the app and did a whole class art lesson drawling the pigeon. This week the kids will be coming up with their own pigeon story we are going to publish.

This is a great app and I would be the other Disney apps are amazing as well! Want more information, click the links below and check them out!

For more information, visit http://disneybookapps.com and www.facebook.com/DisneyReads, or follow @DisneyReadson Twitter.