Rainy Day Activities

We are getting a lot of rain here in my area and I thought about how cooped up some students may feel. I know my husband is getting cabin fever too. So, I thought of some activities to do on a rainy day.

Homemade play dough – make several batches of this in different colors. Let students create things with this

Get some leaves and make leaf prints Identify the trees or plants they come from.

Paint leaf prints

Leaf rubbings

Games

Seven up/Heads up

Hangman – Take turns guessing the word.

Word Creation – Come up with a long word with a lot of letters. Have students create words using the letters in the original word. Each letter can only be used as many times as it is given in the original word.

Storybooks – have students get in groups and have them write their own story books. Give a topic or theme to help them get started. Fold paper in to fourths and as they write their story on each page and draw pictures, have them number each page in order. Then when they cut the pages out, they can put the story in order. Make a cover for the book and staple the book together.

Create a game – Give students supplies and have them get in small groups. Have them creat a game on a specific topic (addition, multiplication, short vowel words, etc.)

Informational posters – Have students think about something they like to do or are interested in. Have them design a poster that they can share with the class.

What other activities do you do in class when it is too rainy to go outside? Please share.

Tracking Habits

Spring and summer are a good time to work on improving healthy habits. For some reason, the warmer, nicer weather makes it easier to work on these.

Here are some of the habits that I want to improve on a regular basis:

·      Eating fewer carbs (daily)

·      Logging in my food (daily)

·      Walking at least 10,000 steps (daily)

·      Cleaning or gardening (daily)

·      Reading the Bible (daily)

·      Writing a blog post. (5 times a week)

·      Creating scrapbook pages (10 per month)

·      Losing weight (lose 10 lbs. in one year)

I have found out that keeping track of my habits helps me stick to them better. I feel like I’m holding myself accountable and if I have to write it down, then it motivates me to follow through. If I see that I’m not meeting my goal, I push myself harder to work on the habit.

Since I’ve started keeping a bullet journal, it has helped me track these habits. I’m not sure exactly what style of tracker I like yet and I’m experimenting with different styles. I keep trying different ones to find the one that motivates me best.

I think my students would benefit from tracking their habits also. When I had them make a graph of their weekly average, many of them really were motivated by seeing the visual. It helped motivate them to do better and try harder. Those that were doing well, did not like to see their progress decrease. I think most people are like this.

Do you track your habits? If so, how? Please share.

Planning a Trip

Anyone who knows us knows that we love to travel.  Many people ask me often how we plan a trip.

First, my husband and I decide where we want to go. We look at the weather and then we look at the map to figure out how many days it will take to get there. Next, we discuss whether we want to camp or stay in a hotel. We also talk about the different things we may want to do while we are there. This will help determine how long we will stay there.

Next, I do it Excel spreadsheet and start writing a packing list. I list things that I want to make sure I don't forget to bring. In case we are camping, I list our camping supplies that I want to bring too.

Then we talk about how we will plan on staying at a hotel or campsite. Many times, we like to be spontaneous, so we don't make any reservations until we get into that town.  We started using the Hotwire website to find reasonably priced hotels. So far, we like this process. We put in the location and the date we need a hotel; it could be for more than one night. The search engine for Hotwire shows the different hotels and the star ratings as well as the price but it doesn't show the name or the location. Once we choose our hotel, we can book it and then they will email the name of the hotel and the location after we book.

Next, we look at the map and decide how far we will go on our first day of travel and what towns we may stop in for the night. This gives us an idea of what time we need to start looking for a place to spend the night. It might be a hotel, or it might be a campground.

I also like to make a list of possible activities that we may want to do in the town we are going to. This helps us when we're planning what to do while we're there because sometimes we forget what we researched when we were at home.

We also try to budget how much money we will spend each day so we can make sure we have enough money. Nothing is worse than to be on a fun trip and start having to worry if you have enough money to get home.

We also think about places to eat and whether we need to bring food and the stove. If we are going to be in a city where there are plenty of places to eat, we don't bring a lot of food to cook.

I like to download books on our iPads, just in case we have some relaxation time. I also bring my knitting with me because it is hard for me to sit and do nothing in the car.

Usually, this is all we need to do to plan a trip. We enjoy the adventure and we always have fun no matter where we go because we are together.

Do you like to travel? How do you plan for a trip? Please share.

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