Currently February

I am joining Farley from Oh Boy Fourth Grade for her February Currently Linky Party.

This is the dog I adopted - "Dot" - from the Humane Society. She is a pure-bred Yorkie. So cute. Just waiting to see how long it takes Snowball, my current 1.5 yr. old Maltese, and Dot to truly get along.

These are some photos from my lass making Oobleck to learn about properties of matter. Kids loved it.

Currently January

OK - so January is like officially an hour away, but I thought I would do this now while I had time. When I made it I was "listening to - Gangnum Style" but right now I am listening to something that I like better - Back in Time by PitBull - good way to sum up some of my greatest memories of life - especially the background track of "Baby" from Dirty Dancing. Like some of the pop culture references I am hearing however, if I could understand the whole song I might not like it as much LOL.

I am joining in Farley at Oh Boy Fourth Grade's Currently January Linky Party. 

Those of you living up north (or even those also in Florida) may laugh over my "wanting" statement, but I seriously was not made to live in Florida even though I was born and raised here. WAY TOO HOT this year! I want some cool weather - so far we have had like a day or too of cool weather then it's back to 80s. Ridiculous - that's not winter.

As far as my OLW, I am recommitting to MOVEMENT! I was doing very good previously about exercising every other day, then I had my car accident and I have seriously slacked off because it hurt so much. I need to get back to it though ASAP. My dancing is also a part of MOVEMENT, we are MOVING into recital time which creates lots of choreography MOVEMENT my favorite time of year! Also, MOVEMENT relates to my teaching job, as my kids need to make forward MOVEMENT in their academic progress. Got some ideas you want to share with me for struggling readers & mathematicians? - would love to hear them - feeling like I need some new stuff. Last MOVEMENT word is I MOVED lots of stuff in TeachersPayTeachers and feel so blessed with the positive comments I have received from teachers purchasing my stuff. Glad I can help others. Now, trying to think of new ideas for stuff to make for 2013.

Hope you all have a great January!

New Item Freebie / Currently Linky

 Been super busy lately, but just made a new game for my fifth graders to use and have posted in in my teachers pay teachers and teachers notebook stores. These are "I Have/Who Has" games for practicing finding the Least Common Multiple and Greatest Common Factor of number pairs. There are 18 cards per game - one game for LCM and one game for GCF, plus teacher directions.  The first three to reply with their e-mail address will get a set for FREE!

Since I haven't been on a lot lately due to so much going on at work and school I decided to join Farley at Oh Boy 4th Grade for her Currently December Linky Party. She has also created a cute set of Currently's for use in your classroom. Check them out at her blog.

Fall Favorites/ New Item Freebie/ Currently Linky

I love Fall. Even though I live in Florida and fall is just an illusion (especially with the heat and crazy stormy weather we've been having lately), I love the season. I just got my classroom all decorated for fall (the kids love it, but they ain't seen nothing yet - Christmas is even more fun).

Right now I am reading The Kid Who Ran For President by Dan Gutman with my 5th graders. It is on the lower end of the 5th grade Lexile range, but I am finding so much to teach from it. First we have talked about the election process, the rules of government, the ages/rules etc. for the different offices. Second, the book is rich with idioms and figurative language. Then, an unexpected teaching lesson came about. I have a few old copies of the book and bought 17 new ones to make a class set since 17 of my old ones walked away over the summer. Well, interestingly enough the book isn't EXACTLY the same as the original. Names have been changed to protect the innocent or not-so-innocent. LOL Instead of jokes about Arnold "The Terminator", now the jokes are about Chuck Norris. The new book references Google, You Tube, texting, etc., while the old one references calling directory assistance and using a video camera. Why? Well the book was originally published in 1996 BEFORE all that stuff came out. What a great lesson for my kiddos who think that stuff just always existed. We even turned it into a center where they looked up the dates the stuff was invented - and get this - they actually asked to do that! I LOVE it :) SO much better than just reading a boring old textbook story, they are actually diving in and getting to know characters and learn about real life, plus they are developing a love for books.

In keeping with the fall theme, I just made a fall/Halloween/Thanksgiving center at my teachers pay teachers store for the younger grades (2-4) for practicing ABC order, making words, and finish a story prompt. Check it out at here. Comment below - first one to comment favorite fall memory will win a FREE set. PS - I will be holding a 10% off sale on all my fall items and a few others October 8-10 at teachers pay teachers.

Finally, I am linking up with Farley at Oh Boy 4th Grade for her Currently October Linky Party. She has also created a cute set of Currently's for use in your classroom. Check them out at her blog.

Currently Linky Party

I am linking up with  Farley's September Currently...link up and comment! I thought it was a fun way to meet some new bloggers!

New Stuff / Freebie Linky Party

I am linking up with 2nd Grade Pad in her Favorite Freebie Linky Party.  My favorite freebie I have created is a group of 3 since they all go together. I have made black & white polka dot jobs & classroom numbers, black & white polka dot calendar icons, and black & white polka dot classroom objective signs/labels.

The story behind these is this year our school wide theme was detective and I could not find much to go with it. Plus I was in a car accident in May which left my summer funds pretty depleted. After trolling Pinterest and blogs all summer, I decided to try my hand at graphic design and make my own things for the classroom. I have had a ton of downloads of these items from my teacher pay teacher store.

Hope you can enjoy these items!

So I spent some time this morning making new games for my classroom and that I could put on TeachersPayTeachers.

I have created two new center games working with prefixes and suffixes.

You can download samples of the games or purchase from my store. The games are geared for 3rd-5th graders. The first 3 people to comment below with their e-mail address will get a free copy of my new games.Also, the first 5 new followers will get a copy of these games and one item of their choice of my TeachersPayTeachers store so send your friends on over.

Here's a "snapshot" of the new games. Click on the pictures to go to their pages on my tpt store.