Day 3- Fitness

                                  

Fitness is important to me.  I plan to do more indoor and outdoor activities this year.  I want to do more dancing, running, indoor rock climbing, basketball, Pilates, yoga, and soccer.  Last year, I ran a half marathon, and I would love to train for a marathon. Click on the picture below to visit my Pinterest board for some running tips. 

Some new things I want to try this year are CrossFit and Aerial Fitness.

 

I love my Pilates machine and use it on a daily basis!  

   

I started juicing over a year ago and am addicted! Click the picture below to visit my Pinterest Board for some yummy recipes!

My go-to for fitness motivation... 

http://www.blogilates.com/

Crafting and Creating

Day 2: Crafting and Creating 

             

Here are some of my DIY projects from my Pinterest Boards. 

 I love all of these ideas...just need to find the time to do them! 

And I'm already thinking about Valentine's Day.  

School crafts, home decor, and gifts for my students...

Door Decorating Contest

I'm so sorry I'm posting this so late!  I have been so busy this break and can't wait to get back to teaching and blogging.  This is a pic of my classroom door {closet}.  I have included a link below so you can see all the other adorable doors.  

I have more pics in my classroom, so I'll share those sometime this week. We haven't had access over the break.  Hope you all had a wonderful winter break!

Click here to see more ideas from our Classroom Door Decorating Contest

I'm also linking up with Blog Hoppin'.  And I'm late, so I'm going to start today with Day 1.

            

Fun and Family

I really want to get out more this year.  I want to do more crafts, art classes, dance classes, walks along the river, date nights with the hubs{ideas from these amazing girls...http://www.thedatingdivas.com/}, more cooking, and traveling to new places.  I'm going to work on balancing work and family.

Love for Sandy Hook

As educators around the world, we remember and honor our fallen colleagues and their students from Sandy Hook School.  We honor them each day in our classrooms where we continue their dream of educating our children.  We honor their memory with our service. Join with teachers everywhere in committing random acts of kindness to show our love for Sandy Hook. #love4SH

What an amazing testimony from a mother who lost her daughter to the Sandy Hook shooting. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUR7BFTphmI

Two Winter Freebies

I'm exhausted.  We had craft night at our school last night and then I spent a ton of time decorating my classroom {it was supposed to be just the door} Haha!  So I'm just going to post two freebies tonight.  Tomorrow I'll post the pics of the door decorating contest.  I've been so busy, I haven't even had time to look at the other doors, but I'm sure they're great!  Do you decorate your classrooms for the winter?  What do you do?  Please comment and share your pics in the link below. 

  If you want to join us for Secret Santa, click the picture below. 

These are Active Inspire Flipcharts that go along with these cute read alouds.  Grab them while you can.  They are free for the next 24 hours!  Thanks for visiting tonight! 

 

Door Decorating Contest

My class is decorating our classroom door.  Every year at our school, we have a door decorating contest.  The students love being a part of the planning and execution of it.  Here are some before pics.  The kiddos are hard at work, and as you can see, making a huge mess.  They were listening to music as they worked and watching short Pixar movies.  One of my students today said, "Ms. Cloud, we should make a Naughty or Nice poster."  So that's what I did.  

Here's a pic of the Naughty or Nice Board.  Please feel free to use this idea in your own classrooms.  I'm sure there are ideas that are similar floating around on Pinterest.  Again, I can't take credit for this... it was one of my amazing students! 

Here's the mess on my desk as we were working.  I always justify it by saying, "it means are working hard."  Here are just a few of my purchases...the rest are in my car. It was a cool 20*F this morning, so one trip to the classroom was sufficient for me! Frozen toes and nose while I was on duty today! I'd rather be in Arizona for sure when it's this cold here! 

  

Here are some of my kiddos hard at work.  They came up with the cutest ideas and are way more creative than I ever could be.  

Our theme is gingerbread houses, candy, candy, and more candy!  The class decided to make a gingerbread family.  Each group decided on a family member and got to work. We have a mom, dad, brother, sister, baby, and one group wanted to make a gingerbread dog...a-d-o-r-a-b-l-e! 

Check back with us tomorrow. I'll have the final pictures posted along with some pictures of other doors in our school.  We still need to work on the houses {including a dog house}, ornaments, and snowflakes.  Wish us luck on the contest!

I'm doing this after school.  Hopefully it lasts through the night. 

And here's a link to my Pinterest Door Decor Board. Please link up and share pictures of your own classroom doors or favorites from Pinterest.  I love seeing all that's out there! 

Love ya'll! 

Random Acts of Kindness Linky Party and 13 Days of Christmas Giveaway

with 

Here's how it works:

You choose 2 blogs that you follow {try to pick one newer blog that you recently began following and one blog that you have been following since you first began} and highlight them on your blog by explaining why you think they are such a gift! Then you give them a RACK by offering them one item as a gift from your TPT store!

While it's hard to only pick 2 blogs, here are the 2 blogs I am passing my RACK on to this year:

I started following Amy, from 

when I first started blogging.  I'm still amazed at how dedicated she is to blogging, teaching, and service.  Here are just a few reasons why she is FANTABULOUS!

 

A blogger I just recently started following is

 from

I'm so glad I found her through a guest blog post.  Her blog is so bright and colorful.  She has clearly spent a lot of time on her creations and I'm so happy that she is willing to share them with us via TPT. 

Here are some of her amazing products...

 

 
Thanks so much girlies for being such an inspiration to me.  I love your blogs so much and can't wait to get to know you better through.  I look always look forward to seeing your next post, featured product, and seeing what you've done in your classrooms!

Go check out 13 Days of Christmas!  There are tons of freebies and cute featured items.

for

You can grab this freebie today...

Make sure to enter to win this adorable Christmas cookie clip art set... How adorable is this?

And then visit for the next 12 days to grab another freebie.  On the 14th day, someone will win all of the giveaway items!