Back from NYC!

Last week, I got to go to Teachers College at Columbia University in NYC for the reading institute with one of my colleagues. SO MUCH FUN! I learned so much, I seriously could blog for the rest of my life solely about the reading institute! I can't wait to start creating and using some of the ideas I got from the institute! Fabulous in First's Sunday Smorgasbord Linky is perfect for me today - this is a bunch of random! :)

Teacher's College swag bag- love!

My coworker and I got to have a private lunch with KATHY COLLINS. She is my teacher crush! She is absolutely amazing to listen to. She also delivered the closing speech for the week for the institute.

My birthday was July 4th! We were in NYC for it. We decided to brave the 100 degree (felt like 100000 degree) weather and the millions of people and visit the statue of liberty and the 9/11 memorial. I'll admit, we took the ferry to Liberty Island, saw the AMOUNT OF PEOPLE ON THE ISLAND WAITING TO RETURN (Oh, my, gosh...) and said no thanks to departing from the ferry! So we took some nice pics from the ferry instead :)

The night before my birthday, we saw Wicked on Broadway! It was absolutely amazing. 

I heard about SO MANY AMAZING READ ALOUDS this week! I could do a whole blog post just about read alouds. I think I spent $100 on Amazon while I was away loading up my cart! This is one that I purchased while in NYC. It is SO cute, the language is incredible, and the vocabulary in this book lends itself to some great vocabulary work :) I recommend it! (Plus, it kinda looks like my dog Lola...)

I was spoiled on my b-day even in NYC! My mom shipped me some chocolate covered strawberries :)

I plan to be back tomorrow with a new chalk themed freebie :)

Link up!