Currently and a facebook giveaway

I love Farley's Currentlys. They are a fun way to record what is going on at this moment in time. They are also fun to read. I love reading everyone else's currently. I'm actually not that late to the party this month since it's on the second.

I really want to clarify my thinking one and make a plea to my readers. On of our fourth grade teachers has 3 boys. The youngest has been in the hospital since the first of November. They orginally thought it was a virus attacking his brain but this past weekedn we found that it is brain cancer. He has 3 tumors on his brain. This family has been so strong these past few months. The boy is in the 6th grade and he has the most precious smile. His name is Regan and he needs so many prayers. Please pray for healing for Regan and comfort for his family. I have been so amazed at this family going through so much, yet living out the Christian life. His dad has asked me everytime I see him, how I'm doing and how my healing from surgery is. I have faith that God has great plans for Regan and that he can heal him. It has been so cool to see our community and school come together and Root for this boy. The other explanation is for my one little word. I want to be more intentional with my relationships with people and try to reconnect with some old friends. I also want to be intentional with my teaching and my planning and try to find the best ways to meet all my students' needs. I also want to be intentional with my blogging and creating. To blog about real ideas and things going on in my classroom. To also create things that I truly use and not just to create to create. Last thing for today, is I'm having a giveaway over on my facebook page. You should check it out if you haven't Yet. 

End of the Year Housekeeping

I can't believe today is the last day of 2012. It has been a great year. I married the most wonderful man who took me on the best honeymoon a girl could ask for. I have a great class of first graders. It has been a good one. I have been wanting to post some of my resolutions and join in the parties that are going on but I have some things I need to attend to first. So look for my resolutions to be posted tomorrow.
First I want to share the ornaments we made for our parents in my class. They turned out soo cute. I know you can't do it now but maybe pin the idea and save it for next year.
This first one I got the idea from Laral over at Little Miss Kindergarten. (You can read her post here.) I was planning on making these angels anyway but after Sandy Hook, it just seemed fitting.

The second one was a snowman I had seen all over blogs, pinterest and my assistant had brought in one a former student had given her. I had planned on making the kids ornaments with the frosty ball ornaments I found, but recovering from knee surgery prevented me from doing as much as I would have liked. These were easy and the kids had fun.

Next order of business that needs finishing up is the Holly Bloggy Exchange. I'm so late in posting this but I wanted to do it justice and posting from my phone wouldn't do that. (we still don't have internet at the house. I called last week and got the run around from both cable companies. My husband called and they came Saturday to check out the situation. So hopefully by the end of the week we'll have internet!)
Here is what I sent my partner Lisa from Live, Laugh and Love to Learn.

I love 31 and their pouches so I had to send that. Then I got some of my favorite pens, gum and chapstick. I also really love fuzzy socks.
Lisa sent me the cutest package. I loved the way she put everything in a  glass jar.

I love Essie nail polish and purple so that was the perfect gift. I keep meaning to paint my toes and my nails. But my right foot has been really swollen for the past two weeks as I'm recovering from surgery. I haven't really wanted to show off my Fred Flintstone feet. Thanks Lisa.


If you want to participate in the next Holly Bloggy Exchange, be sure to follow their blog. I have partcipated in all of them and have had such a great time.

I am partcipating in a giveaway over at Kindergarten Faith. There are some great things to be won. So check it out.

You can win your choice of items from my store. I just posted a new write the room activity to Teachers Pay Teachers. My kids loved the Christmas one I made so I had to do a winter themed one. You can check it out here.http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Wintery-Mix-Write-the-Room-Activities

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you have a very Happy New Year! I'm exctied to get back to blogging and creating in the new year.

Thanksgiving Books Linky

I know Thanksgiving is a little over a month away but I love Thanksgiving books and when I saw this linky I knew I had to participate. Plus I'm already thinking about thanksgiving. I'm having surgery on my knee the Friday before Thanksgiving so I'll be out of school the week of Thanksgiving and most of the week afterwards. I'm looking for good units and activities that will be easy for a sub to do while I'm out. I'm a little bummed that I'll be missing this holiday with my students. I missed it last year because of a stomach virus. I think that might be worse to have a stomach virus on Thanksgiving rather than just being on crutches. Anyway, here are a few of my favorite Thanksgiving books.

This one is my all time favorite. I think because I grew up with my aunt reading this story to my sister and I every Thanksgiving. I would like to continue the tradition and read this story to my niece, Sophie. She's two this year so I think we'll be reading it come Thanksgiving day. Although I think she's going to be disappointed that I won't be able to run with her like I usually do.

Here's another good one. There is one Night Before Thanksgiving where the farmer ends up shooting the turkey. This is not that book. My kids always seem to enjoy this book.

This is another good one. I love all these books and the kids always enjoy reading them. They are great books for text to text connections. I'm hoping this year to find a good first grade unit for this book and this be what my kids do with the substitute.

This last one is another favorite. My aunt bought it for me when I was teaching 3rd grade ELL. My mostly Spanish speaking students loved this book. It's a great story about family which is what I think Thanksgiving is all about.
As I was on Amazon looking for pictures of the books, I saw so many great Thanksgiving books. It makes me wish I was going to be there to teach it this year. I had to stop myself from buying some new books. Of course I always have to stop myself from buying new books when I'm Amazon. I'm currenly trying to stock my kindle so I have plenty to read while I'm having my surgery. Leave me a comment with a good adult book to read while I'm out recovering. I'll do the random number generator and pick a winner on Thursday and that person can have an item of their choice from my TPT store.
Be sure to check out First Grade Found Me to see what other people's favorite Thanksgiving books are.

500 Follower Giveaway day 3

Well, I hoped to be back today with something actual to blog about other than just my giveaway. But last night was parent teacher conferences and I was behind on my lesson planning and other things. So this is going to be short and sweet.
Today is the last day of my giveaway. You have until Monday to enter all three giveaways. Thanks to all my great bloggy friends that gave me lots of things to giveaway. Here's what you can win today:

• 2 Items from my TPT store of your choice
• Fall is Here pack from Lanier's Lions

• Columbus day pack from Mrs. Lirette's Learning Detectives

•  Beginning Sound sort from Ketchen's Kitchen

• Any item from Kindergarten Smiles TPT store

• Halloween Math and Literacy Pack from Kindergarten Korner

• Kindergarten and First Grade Writing Forms from Teaching with Love and Laughter

Here's the rafflecopter to enter:


a Rafflecopter giveaway


 I'll be back tomorrow with my item from the product swap. I can't wait to see all the great stuff people swapped.

 

Writing and 500 followers Giveaway day 2

Last week I blogged about struggling with teaching writing. I don't feel like this is my strongest area. But I also don't feel like I can devote as much time to overhauling my instruction in this area this year. I'm working on implementing Daily 5 and math work stations. But for the past few weeks, I've been trying to change things. I have one student who I believe is gifted. He's so stinkin smart. He likes to write stories and they are like books. So I got the idea of giving him 2 pieces of paper and folding them hamburger style to make a book. This inspired the other kids to want to make books too. So slowly we're making books. I made them sketch out their ideas on a paper with labels and then adding sentences. They they told me when they were ready to start the book. In the middle of all this, I decided to purchase Deanna Jump and Deedee Will's writing workshop unit 1. The biggest thing I took from that this week was to have the kids share something. I started the week by reading a Mo Willems book. We're crazy about Mo in my class and he's our author of the month. We read Don't let the Pigeon Drive the Bus. We talked about how the illustrations can show parts of the story. We also talked about how books tell stories and don't just name things. Then they went back to their story and worked some more. At the end of the time, I had them tell me what their story was about. I have some pretty creative kids in my class this year. By listening to them talk, I wrote on the board, the names of students I needed to meet with the next day. The next day I shared some of my own writing. I wrote the beginning of a story about a camping trip. I also included some sentences about what I wanted for Christmas. This led us to talking about making sure only important information was included in our story. This time when we shared, they told me something about the beginning, middle or end of their story. I had 3 students who were finished with this story. I put their names on the board to share the next day. So Wednesday, I started out our writing time letting the three kids share their stories. It was magical. They were listening so intently and then we practiced giving compliments and telling why we liked the story. I think this inspired some of the other kids to finish their stories and to add more details to it. Then the three that shared started new stories. They started sketching out their ideas. So slowly, I'm making progress with my writing. I wanted to share one of my student's stories. This is the one that just amazes me.

This is the cover of the book. The story is called Super Max vs. Robot

" Back at the hideout of super max Jack and Robot were out there doing evil. Lets go said super max. Out into action they went. "

 "Yes yes three days three days yes said robot. we only have three days. So lets go get grony goblin. Just then a zoom! came up the road. Super Max is coming soon he said. "

"Wish went super max's sord as he striked robot down. and with robot back in jail. The city was saved thanks to super max. "

 This was the back. What I loved the most was that he put a barcode on the lower right corner like a real book.
I'm going to try blogging once a week about writing. I hope that they will help me to grow in teaching writing.
Now on to the day 2 of the giveaway.
Here's what you can win today:

• 2 items from my Teachers Pay Teachers store. You can check it out by clicking on TPT on the right.
• An Apple to Play from Sharing Kindergarten 
• Finger Counting Combo Pack from Kindergarten Smorgasboard

• Any item from Herding Kats in Kindergarten's TPT store

• Fire Safety Math and Literacy centers from My Not So Elementary Life

• I can read alphabet from Crayons and Curls 

• Monster Madness from Miss Kindergarten

You have until Monday October 8th to enter. Check out the rafflecopter below.


a Rafflecopter giveaway

500 Followers Giveaway Day 1

Oh my goodness! I can't believe I have reached over 500 followers. And even more than that I can't believe that I have so many bloggy friends who are willing to help me out with this giveaway. So many in fact that I have split the giveaway up into 3 days. 

 Here's what you can win:

• Any 2 items from my Teachers Pay Teachers store. You can check it out on the right by clicking the button.
• Any item from Penny at Superlative Science's TPT store

• First Grade Sight Word pack from Danielle at Kroger's Kindergarten. You can check out the pack here.

• First Grade Dolch Word Worksheets from April Wolfe at Wolfilicious. You can check the pack out here.

• Any item from Vickie Plant at Mrs. Plant's Press TPT store

• Sub Tub from Kindergarten Lifestyle

•  Common Core Math Journals for K-1 from Maggie's Kinder Korner

 This giveaway will last until Monday October 8th. Be sure to check back tomorrow for another great giveaway.
a Rafflecopter giveaway

One Year Blogiversary Extravaganza!

As of today, I have been blogging for one year. I am amazed by this journey I have been on this past year. (that sounds so cliche). I have met so many great friends in person and through the blogs. I have grown so much as a teacher. I had a personal blog before starting this teacher one. I enjoyed posting on it but I didn't really have much of a readership. I wrote a blog post on that blog  that got a lot of attention from my teacher friends. This led me to doing a search of kindergarten blogs. I found April Larramore's blog Chalk Talk and Fran Kramer's blog Kindergarten Crayons. I was hooked. I found all kinds of ideas and books to read and resources. I just kept clicking away. From there I found so many blogs for all grade levels. I also discovered all these great resources and I was inspired to start creating some of my own. One of the best thing about blogging is all the friends I have made. I have had so many people help me along the way and inspire and encourage me. There are friends that I have never met but they leave me sweet comments on my blog and help me to feel inspired. There are also some fabulous friends that I have actually met. This great state of Tennessee has some fabulous bloggers. Especially my bloggy BFF Laura at Kinder Kraziness. She organized an awesome get together back in April and then started a facebook group for us Tennessee bloggers. I also had the pleasure of meeting Natalie from Teachery Tidbits in person. I'm sure that all this seems a little nutty to those that are not a part of this amazing community. We send presents to people we don't know (thanks to the bloggy exchanges). We spend hours talking at restaurants with people that we've just met but feel like we've known forever. I love this community. It makes me feel like I'm normal instead of some weirdo who gets excited about school supplies or can't turn the teacher brain off. I also can't believe that over 400 people read what I have to say on a regular basis. In honor of all this sappy stuff and my excitement of having over 400 followers I'm have a blogiversary extravaganza this week. It kicks off today with a giveaway.
I also have put all my items on my Teachers Pay Teachers store on sale until July 28th. You want to make sure you're following me and keeping up this week. I plan of having a flash freebie Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday on my TPT store. So be sure to check back.

 

Here are some things you can win:

My entire TPT store

2 Items from Markeeta at A Teacher and A Blog's TPT store

An item from Laura at Kinder Kraziness's TPT store 

An item of your choice from Holly at Crisscross Applesauce in First's Grade's TPT store

Your choice of items from Mary Lirrette at Mrs. Lirette's Learning Detectives' TPT store

Owls on Dots Classroom Theme from Natalie at Teachery Tidbits 

 

Splish Splash Splat Unit from Mrs. Castro's Class

Any item from Jennifer at Herding Kats in Kindergarten's TPT store

An item of your choice from Erin at Eberhart's Explorer's TPT store

"/>Enter below at the Rafflecopter. You have until July 28th to enter. I'll announce the winner on Sunday July 29th. Be sure to check back at my blog this week for all the goodies.   a Rafflecopter giveaway