Towards the end of the school year my husband began asking me for a list of things I wanted to do this summer. That is a lot harder of a question to answer when you sit down and think about it. Now that I have had two weeks to unwind and slip into summer, I have come up with my list. I am hoping to refer to this list often throughout the summer and actually accomplish all of my plans :)
1.Walk with Jesus. I have already discovered that my favorite thing about summer will be having more than enough time to spend in the Word in the mornings. During the school year it was very hard to find the perfect time to sit and spend as much time as I wanted searching the scriptures and learning from Jesus. I have already found so much joy in starting my day digging deeper into Him and discovering how to live like Him.
2.Read every book that I own. I am an avid reader and love to get lost in a good book. I am also an avid book buyer. This means that I have quite a few books that I own, but have never read. I would love to take care of these this summer!
3.Learn to sew. I greatly desire to be crafty and creative. With my Pinterest addiction growing over the last year I have seen so many things I would love to make that require sewing. So, I pulled the sewing machine out on Monday and spent an hour or so learning how to use it in the basic ways. My first project is to make curtains for my classroom bookshelves. I would also love to make curtains for my own home and some adorable baby items for my niece!
4.Lose my shyness. Some of you may think, "What? She's not shy!" Oh, but I am. It is completely stepping out my comfort zone to introduce myself and get to know new people. Many of you know my husband and know that he is nothing like this. Nathan can meet anybody and know their life story in a matter of minutes. I, on the other hand, struggle with stepping out of my shell and greatly desire to do that this summer by spending time meeting and getting to know new people.
5. Cook and bake my little heart out. I LOVE to cook and bake. I love finding new recipes and trying them out, even if I have no clue what I am doing. My pinterest cooking board is full of recipes needing to be tried, so be looking for more recipe posts in the coming weeks!
6.Run my first 5k. I began training for a 5k several months ago. I've had several lags in the Couch to 5k plan from being sick several times, but I am still training! I hoping to run my first 5k in July and then hopefully (crossing my fingers), start training for the Soaring Wings Half Marathon in October. We'll see how I do through the heat of the summer!
7. Scrap my first year of teaching. Several of the sweet parents in my classroom went in together and gave me a scrapbook starter as an end of the year gift. They decorated the first two pages and gave me some pictures they had taken of the kids. I have always loved scrapbooking and am excited to make a book full of memories so that I will always remember my first group of kids! I've already gone through and printed my pictures, so I am already making progress towards this goal!
8. Go fishing. I am a girly girl. I don't like touching slimy creatures like frogs, worms, or bugs. But I sure do love to go fishing! I can thank my Papa for giving me this love. However, I do not like to touch worms and I don't like to take the fish off of the hook once I have successfully caught it. So, this year, my goal is to actually bite the bullet and touch the worm and fish. Those will be interesting pictures to post! :)
9.Love my family. The Lamb and Brewer families have experienced a lot of changes over the last year and they still aren't finished changing yet! Nathan and I got married last summer, Rachel graduated from high school and started college, Taylor got engaged, sweet Gentry was born, Kelly was deployed, and Taylor will wrap up our summer by marrying Jessica on August 10th. Change is hard a lot of the time, but I have two amazing families to walk through changes with. I want to spend my free time this summer talking, playing, taking adventures, loving, living, and experiencing life with them in very intentional ways.
10.Encourage others. With an increase in my free time these days, I can't help but notice how much "stuff" is going on in everyone's life. It only takes a few minutes reading through facebook, a blog, or the newspaper to see just many people are hurting, in need, and feeling hopeless. I look forward to using my time this summer to minister to others through encouragement. And speaking of encouragement...
I spent the last few weeks of school racking my brain to figure out something sweet and uplifting to do for my first group of first graders as an end of the year gift. Of course I saw many cute ideas on Pinterest, but one of them stuck with me and I had to do it! If you have never heard of Wordle you need to check it out soon! Wordle is a website where you can create word clouds. We used these throughout the school year as we discussed using adjectives to describe different objects. They are so fun to make and super easy! I saw the idea to create a word cloud for each student using adjectives to describe them. Of course, I loved this idea because of how personal, encouraging, and uplifting it could be! I hope my kids will keep these for years to come so that they can look back and know they were loved in the first grade!
To make a word cloud, simply go to Wordle and click on "Create your own." A typing box will come up and you simple type the words that you want on your word cloud. To make a word big (like the kid's name in my examples) you simple type that word over and over with a space between each. When you think of another word that you want to put on the cloud, press enter and type the next word. If you want the word small, only type it once. If you want it larger, type it more than once. Your text box will look something like this when you are finished:
Alicia Alicia Alicia Alicia Alicia Alicia Alicia Alicia
Bright
Kind Kind Kind
Creative Creative
Hard-working
Respectful Respectful Respectful
You can type as many words as you want! When you are satisfied with your words, click on "go." I like to select my text and copy it before I press go because once go is pressed, you cannot return to that text box. I copy my text just in case I forget something or make an error. That way I can go to a new text box, paste my words and fix any errors! Once you press go, your word cloud will appear! Along the top of the wordle you will have options to change the font types, colors, and layout. You can use pre-made color schemes or customize your own. You can also create your own layout or use the "random" button to see pre-made layouts! When I was finished, I printed the word clouds out and put them in frames from the dollar store! Here are few examples of the ones I did for my kids:
So, if you are looking for new, creative, easy-to-make, thoughtful gifts to give, check out the word clouds!
**That was a little bit of an ADD jump from my summer list of things to do, but I have been meaning to share the word cloud idea for a while! Be looking for new posts about my new summer adventures to come!
Looks like a great summer to do list! I've heard of wordle before, but love how you used it for your kiddos! Great idea!
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