Happy New Year Freebie

Happy New Year my bloggy friends!  I hope you all find 2013 to be the best and brightest! 

I know, right....he is soooo cute.  Brand new clip art from Scrappindoodles!

I made these cute little signs to hang up on my chalkboard for when I return back to school.  I also made individual signs that I printed out and attached like a banner.  If you can use them, please click on the picture for a freebie.  I used backgrounds and clip art from www.scrappindoodles.com.

I hope you can use them.  If you do download them, can you comment and tell me what you think???  Thanks in advance...

New Year's TPT SALE

Okay...I'm bad.  I know I double posted today, but I wanted to share my new sale at TPT.

In honor of the New Year, I'm having a sale at my TPT store.

 

 

 

Please click the picture above or click here.  Stop by my store and save 20% off of everything.  Just a little savings for the New Year!  :)

New Year Resolution Linky

Jen from The Teacher's Cauldron has started a fun linky to make some New Year's Resolutions.  I'm not good at resolutions, but I'm getting better at joining linkys. 

 

 

Jen wants you to add 1 personal and 1 bloggy resolution. So here are mine: my personal is to cook more often for my family.  I LOVE to bake and to cook, but after teaching all day I get too tired to whip something up.  That means I just make quick dinners.  In 2013 I want to be able to spend more time to cook.  I'm hoping to make things ahead of time or at least to find some quick recipes from pinterest (that I at least have the right ingredients at home to make). 



My bloggy resolutions are (sorry Jen...I gotta have 2):  1-I want to get more regular with my postings.  I want to blog , at least 3-5 times a week.  I need to spend more time and use the scheduling button more often.  And 2-I want to comment more on other blogs.  I get really lonely sometimes with post after post with no one commenting.  Since I don't like the way that feels for me I want to share more love to the bloggers out there.

So there you have my 2013 Resolutions.  Now click on the button above to join up for your own resolutions.  Happy New Year everyone and Happy Blogging!!  :)

Leah's Pony and Common Core

I don't know if anyone uses the story Leah's Pony in their reading class, but I do.  It is a wonderful story about the Great Dust Bowl and how a girl sells her most prized possession, her horse, to help out her family.  Her neighbors find out that she is selling her horse and they buy it back for her.

It is a great historical story that teaches the students about sharing, caring, and the Dust Bowl.  I'm trying to incorporate a lot more nonfiction or historical fiction into my reading class lately to gear up for the common core.

I have one page about using adjectives to describe the main character, Leah.  The students have to site details from the story using page numbers.

I have another page about writing how the horse felt about being sold from the horse's point of view...again siting page numbers and information from the text.

And the last page is finding facts from the story (with page numbers) and making their own opinions about each one.

 

I'm really trying to get my students to site information from the text.  It sure is hard with third graders, though.  If you could use these, you can click on the last picture and go to google documents to download them for fee.  But could you please leave me a comment below to tell me how you are implementing common core into your current reading class???  Thanks in advance...and happy common core!  :)

Valentine's Day Creative Writing

 I finally had some time to sit at the computer and do some new products I've been wanting to do for TPT.  Thank goodness for my son's new Skylander video game.  Who would have thought that I would be happy my son played video games, but at least it gave me 30 minutes to create.

I don't know if you have seen these cute Valentine's Day frames from Surfin Through Second...

 

 but I made some cute creative writing papers with them.  I included 8 valentine's day ones and 1 groundhog day one.

 

Whatcha think???  Click on the picture to go to my TPT store.  It's only $2.50.  And if you like it, please leave me a heart-tastic comment!  :)

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to all!  I hope you heard the bells from Santa's sleigh this morning and had a magical Christmas!

Blog Best & Brightest

Christina from Bunting, Books, and Bainbridge is having a linky to brag and share about blogging in 2012.  I had to join up since I'm still a newbie in the blogging world. 

One of the BEST things I did this year was...I started my blog at the end of June of this year.  I still can't believe how much I have learned in that 6 months, and how much more I still need to learn!  This community of bloggy friends is the best group of people I've ever had the joy of becoming a part of!

The post that I love the BEST from this year is Finally, I Did It on June 30.  This was the first time I blogged about setting up my TPT store and I had so many wonderful well wisher comments...it was so kind of everyone!

My most popular post this year is Hall Pass Sign on August 1st.  I thought my sign turned out cute, but it was so nice to hear others really liked it too!

The BEST news I shared on my blog this year was when I had my first giveaway.  My 200 Follower Giveaway  in September was so exciting to me.  It was my first big giveaway with so many bloggy friends that joined up.

The BEST products I created and blogged about this year are my 2012-2013 Editable Calendars and my Shared Writing Journals.

 

And the BEST freebie I shared this year was my Apple-tastic Writing Set. 

 

 

I have made so many bloggy friends during my 6 months as a blogger, but some of the BRIGHTEST new bloggy friends I've made are...



         

 

 

So there you have it...my best and brightest of 2012!  Now go, link up, and share your BEST and BRIGHTEST bloggy moments from 2012!



Welcome Winter Sale

I'm linking up with Casey at Second Grade Math Maniac for a Winter TPT Sale and Blog Hop. 

From now until Sunday you can get 20% off my TPT store.  Click below to join in the fun and link up for this blog hop!

Book Report

For my second book report of the year, I used Paper Bag Character Study from Runde's Room. 

The set includes the papers my students had to fill in and glue to the bag.  Some of them decided to write on the bag, some used the paper.  Some used bags that represented their characters, some used a brown bag.  It is a really cute project.  And I loved how my students really had to know their character to do the report.

Here are two samples of what my students turned in.  The first one is from "Ready Freddy" and the other one is from "Muggie Maggie". 

The students really enjoyed doing this book report.  How are you doing book reports this year???

Just a Funny

Okay...just a quick funny story today.  I thought we could use a little laugh...

In our reading books the students have to answer Think and Respond Questions after each story.  The last question is always about what reading strategy the student used for this story.  After tons and tons and tons and tons I mean a lot of practice on answering questions in complete sentences and restating the question in their answers, I now assign these questions for homework.

So here is the funny part...on the last question about what reading strategy they used for this story, one of my darlings writes..."The reading strategy I used to help me with this story is my eyes." 

Don't you just LOVE this time of year!!!  Heeheehee  :)

 

Silence for Sandy Hook Elementary

Join in for Sandy Hook

 

Please join me in a day of silence for teacher bloggers on Sunday, December 16, 2012, by only posting the picture below on your blog and titling your post as "Silence for Sandy Hook Elementary."  Thank you Farley at Oh Boy Fourth Grade...

Thoughts and Prayers

My thoughts and prayers go out to the children, families, and staff at Sandy Hook.  I'm just so saddened...

All I Won for Christmas Giveaway

Tanya Rae Designs is having a fantastic All I Won for Christmas giveawy going.  It has over 68 products you can win from 60 different bloggers (yes...I am one of them...YEAH)!  You have to go on to her blog and enter.  It is perfect for this time of year.

Reindeer Writing

I used this cute Rudolph art project that I got from Amy from Step Into Second Grade  (click on the picture to go to TPT to download this freebie).

I had my students color their reindeer any way they wanted.  They could decide where they wanted to put bow (to make it a boy or girl), what color they wanted the nose (Rudolph, a regular reindeer), etc.  Then they glued it onto a piece of construction paper and decorated a background scene.  I was sneaky...I didn't tell them why (don't you just love being sneaky with your students...I do!).

The next day I gave them back to the class and told them to write a story about their reindeer.  I told them they could write anything they wanted.  I gave them the writing paper and they were so excited.  I don't normally give them a free writing project (too much state test prep), so this was sooooo much fun.  Can you imagine the conversations I heard about their reindeer's adventure??? Too cute!  Here is a picture of the writing paper I gave them.

Here are some of the papers the students turned in..

          

          

Aren't they cute???

Holiday Linky Party

I'm linking up with Tania at Mrs. Poultney Ponderings is having her first linky party ever.  She shared where she will be spending the holidays.  I had to jump on this one.

I will be enjoying the holidays with my family here at home in wonderful Frankfort, Illinois.  My parents will be traveling to Virginia to be with my brother's family after Christmas, but we won't be traveling with them.

My 20 year old will be home from college, my 7 year old already has sugarplums dancing in his head, and after my little accident...I am so ready to just be off of work and enjoy some family time. 

So I won't be going anywhere exciting like Tania this holiday season, but I wouldn't change it for the world! Now it is your turn...go to  Mrs. Poultney Ponderings and link up where you will be spending your holidays.  This is her first linky party, so let's show her some holiday love!