Get Ready for Cyber Monday!

Be sure to check out Teacher Pay Teacher's huge sale on Monday and Tuesday!

Everything in my store will be marked down 20% and then if you use the promo code

TPTCYBER you will an even bigger discount! 

Don't forget to leave feedback on your previous purchases so you can use your TPT credit to add in some more discounts! :) 

(That is one of my favorite parts of TPT!!)

Here are some products that you might be interested in...

Reading Strategies Posters, Bookmarks and More!

Perfect for Beginning Readers!

Once they develop their decoding skills help them work on their comprehension with these posters and recording sheets from:

Wrangling in our Reading Skills!

Do your kids need practice with inferring or Drawing Conclusions?

This is a perfect workshop station for that!

Drawing Conclusions: A Workshop Center

An engaging station to practice Visualizing!

Picture This!

Practice Measuring with nonstandard units!

Measuring Snowmen

Make a Ten to Add can be a hard strategy for kids to grasp 

but this little station will be perfect to help kids practice!

Making Ten to Add

 My kids love playing games from this packet! 

All you need are some copies and dice! 

I've making some more games for this packet, so will update it as the year goes on!

Dice Game for the Whole Year!

There are lots of great freebies to check out too!

Be sure to check out all the stores at TPT and stock up during the cyber sale!

Don't forget to leave feedback to earn those TPT credits!

Click on the picture to go to TPT and get your cart ready for the sale tomorrow!

S is for...

Last one of the week! :)

 And one I appreciate the most...

At the end of a long day, I love the peace and quiet of the evenings.

With a energetic group of first graders and two energetic boys at home,

its nice when things slow down in the evening!

I wish it happened a little more often! ;)

I'm linking up with Blog Hoppin'! 

K is for...

You know you are a teacher when you have millions of KIDS! :)

The majority of them are not my biological kids,

but they will always be referred to as my kids.

I was counting up today... 

In my 7 years of teaching I have probably taught around 120 kids! 

Each one has taught me so much too.

Of course there are the ones that stand out more than others ;), 

but all are so special and I know God put them in my class for a reason!

Check out Blog Hoppin' Week of Giving Thanks for more!

Only one day left. :)

Five For Friday: Happy Black Friday

Monday and Tuesday seem like ages ago! I love having a break. 

I really needed the rest and change of pace! 

I'm linking up today with Doodle Bugs Teaching Five for Friday!

1. Monday we really dived into our new IB unit so I had the kids draw a picture of someone they thought showed greatness. There was a mixture of parents, teachers, presidents and leaders. It was really sweet!

2. On Tuesday we gathered all of the first graders into the hallway and had dessert together. It was so sweet to get them out and watch them enjoy eating and talking. We ended the time singing our Learner Profile song that one of the teachers and classes wrote and it was precious!

3. I am sure thankful for these two boys! We had a great thanksgiving with family over and of course their favorite part was the pie! :)

4. Now that you are done with Black Friday shopping it is time to get ready for Cyber Monday! My store will be on sale and add the promo code: TPTCYBER for extra savings! 

5. I've been working on some winter stations over break. 

Head over to my store to check them out! 

Hope you are all having a great break! Be sure to go back to 

Doodle Bugs Teaching Five for Friday to see what other people are up to! :)

N is for...

Happy Thanksgiving! It was a fun filled day! 

Lots of cooking, 

(thankfully I don't have to worry about the cleaning part, Will is taking care of that!)

Eating, and...

(I must admit)

we did our black Friday shopping on Thursday. 

Sorry if you are anti that, but my sister and I had a GREAT time 

and are now cozy in our PJs.

N was the most difficult one for me to think of so I decided to follow the theme of...

Even teachers get run down and need a break! ;) I love lazy days at home, staying in my pjs for as long as I want, playing with the boys, catching up on things around the house. 

I do love teaching, but we all need a break once in a while to rest, recharge, and regroup for the days and weeks ahead! I am always very thankful for those days off to help me do that! :)

Once again I'm joining Blog Hoppin' Week of Giving Thanks!

A is for...

I'm loving this first day of break! 

We are not going anywhere so it is nice to sit back and have a lazy day.

I already did all of my thanksgiving grocery shopping so this evening and tomorrow will be busy days, but that is later! 

Today's day is A...

I love my house full of boys! :) 

 Growing up in a house of mostly girls 

(only one brother who is 8 years younger)

there was a lot to  boyhood that I did not realize! 

But as our life has filled up with cars, trains, dinosaurs, and super heroes

I am so thankful for the two rascals God has given us! 

Life wouldn't be complete without Will either! 

He puts up with my insanity and rantings quite well.

Not to mention he is an amazing dad too!

So thankful for my family!

I'm linking up at Blog Hoppin' Week of Giving Thanks!

H is for...

Thanksgiving Break has started! Can I get a Hallelujah! :)

The day has finally slowed down so  here is what I am thankful for today...

Yes, Hot Coffee... it is rare that I enjoy a cup that is hot. I feel like I am in the stage of life where I drink lukewarm coffee because I pour a cup and then get distracted by 10 million different things. 

So a hot cup means I have had a chance to slow down, sit down, and enjoy my coffee!

Maybe this break that will happen! ;)

I'm linking up with Blog Lovin' Week of Giving Thanks!

T is for...

Blog Hoppin' is having a Week of Giving Thanks, so I decided to join in the fun...

Because really, after a crazy day at school...

then a crazy evening at home 

(thanks to one boy that wouldn't eat and another that wouldn't sleep

and on a night when the husband is at a basketball game)...

Taking a second to think about all the things I am thankful for is just what my heart needs!

Appreciation is one of our IB attitudes so this month that has been a focus in my class. 

It is easy to take a lot for granted, unless we slow down to appreciate the little things.

Each day of the week will be a different letter of the word THANKS...

T was a No-Brainer.

 I have been blessed with some awesome teammates! I am so grateful to go to work with girls who are so loving of their students, so excited for the teaching and planning, and so encouraging to me!

(and know when to hand me that piece of chocolate at the end of a long day!)

I have learned so much from them and am thankful to have them in my life!

My goal is to do it every day this week, but we will see! ;) 

Be sure to go back to Blog Hoppin' to see what everyone else is thankful for!

It's Almost Thanksgiving!!

These past two weeks before thanksgiving have been exhausting! It's been difficult getting through the day let alone getting to blog or do anything more. And of course, nothing is getting done on time so that is why I am linking up to Doodle Bugs Teaching Five for Friday... on a Saturday!

1. We have been a little slow in starting new IB unit, Where We are in Time and Place, but we are getting there! We looked at our central idea and talked about some of the important words. The kids got confused with the word greatness and grateful, so we talked about that for a while and then we listed the sames of some people we thought showed greatness. It was a good preassessment to see what they already knew, and I will use the names they gave as a spring board for the new people we need to introduce.

2. Friday we did Fun Friday, which basically means I make sure that every thing we need to practice or review is in the form of a game. So we started with Musical Sight Words, for lack of a better name. I put all of this quarter's sight words on foam pumpkins and the kids walk on them until the music stops and then they have to say the word they are on. If they can't read it they are out! We played Kwoosh ball sight words on the smart board too! That is always a hit!

3. Punctuation practice was done with the help of candy corn, sweet tarts, and gummy worms!

4. We ended Friday going to Alex's school program! He is the cute one with his hands in the air! He was ready to start! :) I was so worried that he would not sing or even get up there, but he did a great job!

5. We have 2 days next week and then we have the rest of the week off for Thanksgiving. I know of some schools that have the whole week off. I have sale going on in my store through Monday to celebrate with you if you are already on break, or to give you a little boost if you need help to make it through! :) Go here or click on the picture!

Go to Doodle Bugs Five for Friday to see what other teachers are up too!

Sharing the Planet: Teacher Tips!

As we learned about sharing the planet and the kids were starting to make choices based on what they learned, I did some reflecting on the amount of paper I was using. My life sometimes feels overwhelmed with paper and I hate it! And sometimes its not about the planet... Do you all have copy limits? Limited budgets? All those things can make planning a little difficult.

But there is a way to:

Save Paper, Save Money, Save the Planet...  and Save our Sanity!

So here are some things we can all do to feel like we are doing our part!

Whether it is basic sheet protectors or dry erase pockets, these things are a LIFE SAVER! Instead of having to print a class set, you can print one or two sheets, slip them in a pocket and you are good to go! Groupon has had deals on the pockets so I have a set of 20 and we use them ALL the time, small groups, workshop stations, sometimes even whole group. I LOVE them!

This is a new one for me. We have always been good at recycling paper when we are done, but now if there is a blank side, we fill it up!! The first couple of times the kids were so confused about what side to work on, but they quickly figured it out.

We have all bought those great packets on TPT that end up taking up a TON of paper... but sometimes there is extra space on the page. Did you know that you can print two pages to a page on PDFs?

My printer/PDF viewer at school looks like this:

Just go to page scaling and pick multiple pages per sheet. Click on two pages and it will scale it down!

My PDF view is, for some reason, different at home. I guess they may be different versions.
Anyways. If I only want one page for a station I will choose the pages I want to print (blue arrow) mark the same page twice, choose the multiple page option and I get a half size sheet. A lot of times shrinking it down to half size still gives them enough space to write!

Just a couple clicks, but it can help save lots of paper!

This is easiest to do on our laser printer at school, because you don't have to feed the paper through again, so check to see if your printer will do it too!

Go to preferences when you click print and the screen that is special to your printer will come up. Choose to print on both sides. Ink Jet printers might have special directions, but no extra work is needed for the big printers at school!

Call me a pack rat, but certain things I know I can reuse, so I hold on to them a little bit longer. If I don't use them in the next couple months I will throw it away, but think creatively first! I used to use shelf liner for my bulletin border. When I changed up my boards I held on to the long strips for a bit, and they became perfect for number lines! I have had these for a couple of years now and the kids love them when I pull them out!

Those are 5 easy things to start doing! Start saving the planet! :)

Five For Friday

It's been a week! Even with Tuesday off for Election day, it was still a really LONG week! We have been working some more on teamwork activities because the kiddos are really struggling to get it along. I wrote about some of the things we have been doing here.

I'm linking up with Doodle Bug Teaching's Five For Friday to share some of what we have been up to this week!

1. We finished up our unit of Sharing the Planet. As an ending activity the kids worked together to make a pledge. We added it to our bulletin board. 

The kids also wrote the pledge to add to their portfolios. We wrote it on the back of old paper to make sure we were reusing!

2. I pulled out a new math game now that we have been focusing on number paths and counting on an counting back. I made it using old bulletin board boarder (or actually shelf liner!)

I love these add/subtraction dice too! It is such a good way to have kids move back and forth between adding and subtracting!

3. Election Day meant I got to hang out extra with this little man! We went to the library for story time while Alex was at his preschool. They were having a story time cafe so Liam enjoyed some gold fish while I had a coffee and scone!  We then made it through most of story time! 

4. My kids have been loving this activity from my Dice Games pack! It's editable so I have used it for sight words, short vowels, and much more! 

Be sure to check it out!

5. What a better way to end the week then with a sushi party with your team! It is so fun to teach friends how to make sushi and open them up to a whole new world of fun! :)