July Favorites 2018

July has officially ended and that means it's time to pause and look back at some of the highlights from the past month- what a wonderful month it has been!

1. Summer planning

One thing I love about summer vacation is the chance to play around with my planner in a more relaxed way. Without tons of lesson plans and other information to cram into each week, I can use more decorative elements and play around with different supplies! If you want to see some of my favorite tips for "functional planner decorating", here's a video I made on that. The flexible weekly layout I use in the summer is in the "business planner" section of the #PlanMyWholeLife planners.

2. Family time!

Of course one of the best parts of summer vacation is getting more time with my daughters! They are just such wonderful humans 💓

3. New school year setup

I don't start school until the very end of August so no, I haven't set up my classroom yet, but I have set up my planner for the new school year (and isn't that the most important part?!?). It's one of my favorite rituals every summer to flip through and reflect back on the previous year's planner and get it set up with fresh new pages for the next school year- click here to watch the video of that whole process.

4. Music education blog posts

As always I've collected some of my favorite blog posts from around the web that I read this month- don't miss these! There's something for everyone from early childhood to secondary music!

Elementary general music classroom setup tips from Anacrusic:

Tips for making KidStix kits from Ponderings from a Finch:

"Genius Hour"-style project from Off the Beaten Path in Music:

A book-based lesson to connect with Mariachi music from Tiny Tapping Toes:

I hope you all had a wonderful July and that you have an even more amazing August ahead- exciting times!! I'd love to hear how your summer is going or chat about your plans for the new school year- send me an email! You can get in touch with me, and stay on top of my latest news, by signing up for the Organized Chaos Newsletter right here. And remember I always share little peeks into various aspects of my life more regularly over on Instagram- I'd love to connect there as well :)