Cyber Monday Sale

I am throwing a Cyber Monday Sale in both my Teachers Pay Teachers store and my TeachersNotebook store! Check them both out! Sale runs Monday - Wednesday! :)

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you out there! This Thanksgiving I have so much to be grateful for.

1. My God
2. My family (this includes my loveable fur-baby, Snowball)
3. My friends
4. My jobs
5. My class
6. The great family/work trip I just took (read more below)
7. Three Golden Apple Teacher nominations
8. Facebook so I can keep in touch with family and friends spread far and wide
9. Time off
10. The holiday season
11.  LIFE!
12. All the goodness God has given us...
13. And more things than I can even think of.

 Work/Family Trip

    This week I went to Orlando for a combined work/family trip. Over the weekend we attended a wonderful dance convention called Dance Revolution. It is a faith-based dance convention, but the steps and technique and joy brought to the kids is just amazing. My acro team go rave reviews! It was their debut performance. But, what brought me to tears of joy was my little niece (ok she's really a thrid cousin, but we think of ourselves as "aunt" and "niece" - easier for her to understand) won a scholarship to go back next year - only one from our studio and only one in her age division. SOOOOO PROUD of her. This is only her 2nd year of dance. The scholarship was based on her attitude, work ethic, and skills in classes. :) She was wonderful. This little girl has come so far in the short time she has been dancing...she used to be shake when someone she didn't know would try to talk to her; this weekend she RAN up on stage all by herself in front of probably a thousand people to accept her award. NEVER would have happened without finding confidence from her Lord and in the love of the teachers/owner of our studio and all the friends she has made there.
    On the family front, after Dance Rev, we met up at Universal and enjoyed some great family time. Would have been better if we weren't all so sick and it hadn't been so blastedly cold in Orlando. Forgot how much cooler it can be there than in this area. It was ridiculously cool, but we still had an enjoyable time. Looking forward to maybe going back up for my birthday since we got an amazing price on tickets - $115 for 2 park unlimited until Jan. 31. This is the first time my birthday has fallen over winter break in a long time, so it would be fun to get to do something for it.

Kayla with her two favorite Dance Rev teachers - Ms. Misty & Ms. May Beth.

Harry Potter Land - can't believe it is still so crowded there

My first and probably last Butterbeer - way too sweet & way too expensive, but after reading all the Harry Potter books I had to try it for the experience

My LOWEST score on Men in Black ride...when I lived in Orlando I used to ride this ride like 10 times in a row at least, I was addicted to it - what can I say, I am ultra-competitive - was happy to see after 7 years of not riding this ride, I still had this skills; however it killed my hand

Working Hard But No Time to Blog/ Reading ?

I have been so crazy busy with school and my second job, plus catching whatever lovely cold my kiddos are passing around I have had no time for blogging world lately. I plan to get nicely caught up in a few weeks. Just wanted to post for a minute to say I'm still here.

Right now I am reading Island of the Blue Dolphins with my class and remembering why I loved it as a 5th grader myself. Our school bought these great common core book units from S&T Publications which are phenomenal. We are all taking turns doing various novel studies and using these units instead of the textbooks. I am trying to figure out which book to do next: suggestions, please?! Choices are: Bud, Not Buddy; Watsons Go to Birmingham; Hatchet; Joey Pigza Swallowed a Key; The Boy in the Striped Pajamas; and I forgot the other title. Let me know your thoughts please.

Hope everyone has a great turkey day! Can't believe it's next week already.

Sale in My Stores

Check out my stores at Teachers Pay Teachers and Teachers Notebook. I am holding at 10% off sale of many items in both stores - and at Teachers Notebook you can also register for my giveaway! Who knows, you might be the lucky winner? :)

MIA & Problem/Solution Freebie Game

So I've been missing in action all week - spent the week in the hospital - so not fun. Of course, this is my "haha" for lesson planning all the way to Thanksgiving break the day I went into the hospital. So much for trying to get ahead. I still don't know quite what's wrong, but I am going to try to go back to work on Monday. Hoping all stays well and that I can survive the week until I can get in for a follow up with my own doctor on the following Monday. While I was sick, I apparently picked up some new followers so I am giving away my newest game to the first 3 people who comment below with their name and e-mail so I can send it your way. Made this game up today since I am working on problem and solution in class next week. Thought this would make a fun center game.

 

You can also purchase these at my teachers pay teachers store or my teachers notebook store.

Hope everyone has a great week. :) 

Great Day

Love days like today when I can just thoroughly enjoy my class.

We had a great play this morning to go to...each year our school does a program we call PARP - Parents As Reading Partners. In this program, the kids log minutes reading weekly for 6 weeks. They get small prizes for participating each week and a bigger prize if they do at least 5 out of the 6 weeks. However, the best thing about it is always the plays the teachers put on. The teachers kick off the program with a play the Friday before the kids start reading and introduce a problem that the kids can solve by reading the required amount of minutes. The program always closes with the second act of the play which is what the kids REALLY look forward to. I have never been in it myself (even though I love the stage) due to the time constraints of my second job I would have no time to attend practices. However, I really must give KUDOS to my fellow teachers who do this each year (and yes it is almost the same teachers every year). The play always goes along with our theme, and this year it was written by our wonderful media specialist. Since our theme is "Diplomat is on the Case of Learning" (secret agents, mysteries, etc) she created a very cute play of Scooby Doo and Crew solving the case of why the Big Bad Wolf was so upset all the time (and tied in many storybook favorites - Sleeping Beauty, Hansel & Gretel, Rumpelstiltskin, Belle, Goldilocks, and Little Red Riding Hood). The play was fun for kids and teachers too! The cast really did wonderfully.

We then came back to our room to make fun campaign posters for Judson Moon the boy who would be President from the book we are reading The Kid Who Ran for President. The kids are loving this book and their posters were truly original.

Finally, best part of the day was a compliment party. The kids elected to watch Shiloh Season since we had just recently read Shiloh and watched the movie they wanted to know what happened next. I crazily allowed them to bring in any fun snack they wanted and a soda to go with it. I have never done this before, but they were so AWESOME about it. They truly worked hard for this compliment party and deserved every minute of it. I thoroughly enjoyed our day and hope they did too. This class makes teaching fun! :) I LOVE IT!!!!

Just had to share because it's so easy to get bogged down, but when you have a day like today it's nice to share with fellow teachers because it's really what it's all truly about.

Algebra Games - Exponents & Equations

My kids are sooooo excited to be doing algebra...we are such BIG kids. Poor things have been stuck doing long division since school started at the beginning of August so no wonder they are excited about it. And boy are the GOOD at it. Because I love having kids practice skills using games, I made these cute "I Have, Who Has" games for my teacher pay teacher store and also have posted it at my teachers notebook store. Because I am now just 1 follower away from 40, I am giving it away for FREE to you!!! If you think this can work great in your classroom for a review, just comment below with your name and e-mail address and I will send it your way. Thanks for following. :)