Five for Friday - August 1st!

I am sure I'm not the only one who can't believe it's already August!

I haven't been blogging this week because I have been at New Teacher Orientation - 3 days of curriculum training (Holt Literature), classroom management, and cooperative learning sessions. I've left feeling rather overwhelmed, in good and not-go-great ways...
Good: Lots of resources, lots of best-practices, and lots of support
Not-So-Great : LOTS of information to process, lots more to do than I thought!

At night I haven't had the energy to venture into blogland...I've tried to give myself a "break" from teacher blogs at night...as much as I truly LOVE browsing I needed to recharge...I've been watching Parks and Rec which always makes me laugh :)

Without further ado, here are my Five for Friday thoughts...

I am linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching!

I have been working on making Neon Chalkboard Genre Posters (for Middle School) for over a week now, and I am SO excited to say they are DONE!
I made these not only because I wanted posters to match my classroom color scheme (yay neon!), but because I wanted to have the mentor texts on each poster be an appropriate level for middle school students. I have seen some adorable posters out there, but examples with Junie B. Jones and Magic Treehouse are a little young for my 7th graders! I can't wait to print these out, laminate them (of course!), and hang them above my classroom library.
Click on the picture to purchase these from my TpT store.

If you'd like my "Genre" definition poster, it is available as a free download! :) Happy Freebie Friday!

Going to a conference and listening to different speakers made me think about myself as the "speaker" in a classroom. There were some really positive strategies for engagement that I learned from some speakers, and then there were a few times where I felt like the middle school student who uses the bathroom just because they're bored! Students need brain breaks, collaboration time, and visual presentations just as much as adults do :) lesson learned.

I read a great review for Revlon Colorstay Gel Envy nail polish, so I picked some up to try it for myself! Nail polish usually drives me crazy after a day because it starts chipping - but this polish has been going strong for 3 days now! I am a new fan :)

I won two foam dice (I suppose a "pair of die" would be the grammatically correct phrase?) and a neon plastic hat at my cooperative learning session. I can think of plenty of uses for the dice in my classroom, but the hat...any ideas? ;)

This may be a long shot...but does anyone else use the Holt Literature curriculum in their classroom? It's on my mind since I just spent a whole day in training for how to use it with "fidelity"...yes, that's the curriculum instructor's favorite buzzword.

Has anyone else had orientation or PD this week? I met a few teacher who are starting school on Monday - wow!