Flipping for First's Giveaway

It's Day 4 of the giveaway over at Flipping for First, which means that one of my items is being given away! 

Go check it out!!!

There are tons of great items to win!

NEW BLOG DESIGN (and a puppy pic)!

GUYSSSS!!!!

I don't have much to say, but...................

MY BLOG DESING IS FINISHED, and I couldn't be more excited! Let me know what y'all think! :)

Also, check out Flipping for First for her Vacation Giveaway all week!!! My item/store credit will be available on Days 4 and 5, so keep checking back!

Today Neely went to the school with me for the first time. My classroom is finally ready for me to set up, but little miss was TERRIFIED of the sound of furniture dragging being gently moved across the floor... so needless today, I got hardly anything accomplished.

Flipping For First Giveaway

I am excited about this! Heidi over at Flipping for First is having a vacation giveaway starting Monday. She will be giving away awesome products each day, so be sure to check it out! My item will be available on Day 4, and credit to my store will be available on Day 5.

Five for Friday

Five for Friday is a weekly teacher linky party where you post five random things from today or this past week and on your blog. Then, you go here and link your blog post up at the bottom of the post in the linky tool. Grab the button above and link back on your blog.

I am in the process of getting my new blog design! I cannot wait for it to be installed! I have seen the proof, and it is PERFECT for me! :) I LOVE IT and hope you all do too! Check back soon to see it!!!

I finally went back into my classroom this week- there is so much to do! Since I am moving rooms, I have to redo all the bulletin boards and everything. Our furniture hasn't been cleaned yet, so since I couldn't arrange it, I just spent a lot of time making BTS copies with on of my teacher besties! Can't wait to get my room done!!!

Today we had a first grade planning party and a team member's new, beautiful house! We got to meet our new team member- we actually have a few additions to our team, but the other ones we already knew! In my opinion, we have a pretty great team of first grade teachers! :) I'm excited to work with everyone!

Our puppy is getting so big, and it is making me so sad!

I am excited to be making new bloggy (bloggie?) friends! Can't wait to start collaborating with new people like Mrs. Moore.

Be sure to check out her blog!

When do you go back to school? When can you get in your rooms (I know a lot of you already can!)?

New Product!

I have a new product for sale on TpT, and I am excited about this one! It is graphic organizers that can be used with a bunch of the first grade reading skills that I teach! It includes graphic organizers for:

-character, setting, plot

-main idea & details

-sequence

-compare and contrast

-questioning

-cause & effect

-drawing conclusions/inference

I hope that you will check it out! :)

I have finally joined bloglovin... :)

<a href="http://www.bloglovin.com/blog/14247185/?claim=w3e9v8e3tmp">Follow my blog with Bloglovin</a>

I decided it was probably time to link my blog to my bloglovin' account since I have been following a lot of blogs on there. Maybe now I can gain some followers too! I've got to figure this whole thing out... Thanks for bearing with me while I do! A new post to come later about a new product I have on TpT!

Two Link-Ups, One Post

FIRST:

I am linking up with Chalk One Up for the Teacher for 2 For Tuesday!

I have decided to join in on all the fun over at Sun, Sand, & Second Grade and offer these 2 for Tuesday items FREE for an hour, and then discounted the rest of the day. If you download them, please leave some love! :) 

(I am not actually participating in her fun freebie game, but I wish I had known about it ahead of time and I would have!) 

*** Ahhh! For some reason Blogger will not let me upload pictures right now. So I will just post the links and come back and make it prettier later. :( ***

My first item is for SRSD Opinion Writing. Our school adopted SRSD as our writing program last year, so I made some resources to go with it! We use TREE as our acronym for opinion writing- this product includes graphic organizers and a rubric.

My second item is a main idea product that I used with Reading Street's "Get the Egg," but it could be used with any bird/rooster themed story! It includes a "main idea nest" with "detail eggs" and some items that I used to make sentence strip headbands- a "main idea rooster" with "detail eggs."  It turned out pretty cute when the students wore them all day!

SECOND:

I am linking up with I Heart Grade 3 for The Best Trip of My Life.

Again, this is going to be boring without pictures... I apologize!

Also, it's hard to pick a favorite trip for me! It depends on the "kind" of trip I'm picking.

For example, the trip that changed me the most as a person and was an incredible experience was my trip to Zimbabwe with YoungLife where I got to train YoungLife leaders and love on kiddos. We did home stays with the leaders there, and I always say that if I had known what I was getting into I probably would not have gone. I am SO thankful I didn't know, so that I did go! Haha It was truly a life-changing experience to get to live like they did for a few days. We stayed in big homes, small homes, and huts that you could barely call "homes" where you had to travel nearly a mile to find the nearest creek to gather water. A humbling experience for sure. God worked in my heart a lot on that trip, and I can't wait to hopefully go back some day!

My favorite childhood trip would have to be my trip to the Atlantis in the Bahamas for work with my dad when I was about 8. I just remember having SO. MUCH. FUN!

I took a "Battlefields of Europe" trip when I graduated high school. I think I would appreciate it so much more if I could go back now. It was so surreal to be in those places that I had only heard about. I feel like before I saw these places in person and learned more about the history it all just seemed like a story. It makes it seem like more than just a story when you see the graves, the museums, the beaches.  Normandy was my favorite place that we visited on that trip. It was absolutely beautiful, which made it hard to imagine that it was the same place that Saving Private Ryan took place! I felt like that was where it really sunk in that all of those things really did happen- I was a pretty naive high schooler! :)

Lastly, I also LOVED taking my first real trip with my husband! We waited for 7 months until school was out to go on our honeymoon, so the only real place we had traveled together for our mini-moon was Asheville. It was SO nice to get away with him for a week in paradise (Dominican Republic) and not have to think about school at all. Plus the fact that people were brining us pizza and drinks in coconuts on the beach wasn't too bad either! :)

I love traveling and can't wait to do more of it! :)

Collaborating in Kinder

Through one of the TpT facebook pages, I was connected with Natalie at Collaborating in Kinder. She was looking for someone to edit this resource for her. You HAVE to check it out! It is adorable! She wrote the story herself about these super cute little monsters who all wanted to be alike, but one by one they started to realize it was okay to be different! What a great little lesson! :) AND it comes with SO many activities and resources about colors, color words, graphing, and more! It is seriously the cutest!

You can read more about it on her post!

Go get it!

Follow Frenzy

I've recently started a lot of new blogs, instagrams, facebook pages, and tpt stores thanks to the #tptsellerchallenge! Here are some blogs I have been exploring:

Flipping Into First

Teaching in Bows, Pearls, & Glitter

Moore to Learn (a fellow TN teacher!)

Collaborating in Kinder

and I also have to give a shoutout to The Tennessee Classroom, a dear friend that I was already following! Even though we never see each other anymore (we were in all our college education classes together), I still feel like we are in this together! :)

Check out these blogs!

Five for Friday

1. My classroom is not yet ready for me to get into, so I went to help one of my best friends get her room ready yesterday. Her classroom has a camping theme (SO CUTE!), so I made a tree out of butcher paper, sorted through her pencil holders that are made out of tree limbs, cleaned out under the sink (yuck!), and organized her library. It's hard to tell other people what you need done in your classroom since you have certain expectations, so it's great to have teacher friends who understand your need for perfection. It made me really excited to get back into my own classroom! I hope it's ready soon!

2. We had a Hawaiian themed couples' small group last night. The idea stemmed from my husband's collection of Hawaiian shirts (WHY?).

3. I went to one of my former student's swim meets and took the pup. (She is one of those students that you wish you could have 20 of in your classroom! So precious and so helpful!)

(Thanks to Polka Dots Please for the clip art.)

4. We went to the lake with my dad and sister, their two dogs, and our pup. The older dogs were so annoyed with Neely. She did not understand that they did not want to play constantly.

5. I FINALLY started a facebook page for my "store." Please check it out if you are interested! I have a feeling it will take a while to gain "likers," but this whole process is a slow one... So I will be patient!

Make Your Masterpiece #tptsellerchallenge

FINALLY finished with my "Masterpiece!"

Since I am still pretty new to this, I am not sure how great this will be compared to everyone else's masterpieces... but I am pretty excited to share it! I hope you all enjoy it, too! :)

This includes resources for a questioning lesson. It has mustache "props," bookmarks, a page to place sticky notes with before, during, and after questions while reading, and a question sort for "good reader" questions vs. "needs improvement" questions. You could also have your students make the "needs improvement" questions into new "good reader" questions. I would love to see how you all use this in your classrooms! 

Thanks to my partner for looking over this product and noticing that some of it could be made more printer friendly! And thanks to this challenge for making me be creative and come up with a product quickly! :)

2 for Tuesday

I am linking up with Chalk One Up for the Teacher for my very first 2 for Tuesday! 

My two products that I am going to showcase are my TpT Seller Challenge Masterpiece (20% off until tomorrow!):

and my "Henry and Mudge" cause & effect matching activity (20% off for 24 hours):

Let's unpack "I Mustache You A Question:"

This comes with 

detailed instructions

mustaches to be glued on popsicle sticks as a prop

independent work: write questions on sticky notes while reading,
then place on this page, write answers underneath if they find the answer(s)

bookmarks for asking questions while reading silently

a good questions vs. bad question sort-
students could come up with their own, or sort the ones provided in the product

The Henry and Mudge activity 

goes with the story "Henry and Mudge and Mrs. Hopper's House. This can be used as an individual activity, partner activity, or a center game (laminated for longer use).

students match the dog (cause) with the doghouse (effect)

TpT Seller Challenge: Week 3 "Flash Freebie!"

It's only week 3, and I already felt stumped on this one! Honestly, I didn't know if I was going to get it done in time. I could not think of anything to make. So I started making anchor charts... and eventually I will finish those. But while making anchor charts, I somehow got inspired (to make something completely unrelated). Now I am just waiting on someone to look over it! :) Right now you can get it for FREE while it is being reviewed. It will be free for 24 hours!

It is a lesson focused on asking questions while reading. I made it for my first graders, but it could definitely be used in other grades as well. If you download it, please leave feedback! Enjoy! :)

Five for Friday

My first "Five for Friday" link-up! :)

ONE.

"Don't let this picture fool you, we're actually really bad!"

We are puppy-sitting this week, on top of having a new puppy that we own... and oh my goodness, it's almost not nearly as exhausting as teaching, but still wearing me out! They play hard all day long, and I constantly have to break it up for fear of them getting too rough! 

TWO.

Everyone is posting their pictures of Target Dollar Spot finds, but when I went yesterday they were out of everything. :( I will just keep going back and buying more things I don't need! :)

THREE.

Tonight we are going to our neighbor's house for dinner to say goodbye to another neighbor who is moving to Florida.

FOUR.

The power went out as I was typing this, so there was a delay. It gave me something else to say.

FIVE.

I put in a request for a blog design today. I cannot wait to see it once it is done and I finally have a pretty blog!!! :) I wish I didn't have to wait...

TV Shows

Linking up with Hailey from The Third Grade Nest for the first link-up that she has hosted!

I have to preface this by saying I hardly ever watch TV during the school year, and during the summer I kind of just watch whatever is on! I definitely don't have ten current shows that I'm watching, so I had to fill in with a few that I have watched on Netflix that I loved!

Some of these are embarrassing and will warrant an explanation! Haha

1. Modern Family- This is the funniest show on TV! I absolutely love it and am pretty sure I've seen every episode. We watch it any time it's on and record it in case we're not home.

2. Scandal- It's actually pretty scandalous, in more ways than one... but I've watched it from the beginning so I can't stop!

3. Pioneer Woman (or anything on Food Network)- To be honest, the hosts of these shows drive me crazy most of the time, but I love getting new recipes!

4. The Voice- I love it, but it's not actually on right now! I don't watch it regularly, but if I see that it's on... I do! (My husband used to work night shift, up until about a month ago, so I had to watch happy/not scary shows when he was gone!)

America's Got Talent- It's entertaining!

5. Chrisley Knows Best- I'm so embarrassed to admit that I watch this, but my mom told me how funny it was... When we were on our honeymoon, there were only a few channels in English. One day when it rained all day, there was a marathon of this show on... We got hooked. It's so dumb, but so funny.

6. The Tonight Show- I LOVE JIMMY FALLON, but I am hardly ever awake past 10!

7. Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives- Like I said, I love Food Network these days, and this is one that my husband will watch with me!

***These last three are not currently on TV:***

8. Parenthood- If you haven't watched this, WATCH IT. NOW. And have tissues on hand for every episode (or maybe that's just me). 

9. Hart of Dixie- This is one that I watched while Dane was working nights because it was light and funny. It's silly, but I ended up liking it!

10. One Tree Hill- Okay, this is so middle/high school... but I watched it from the day it premiered. It will always hold a special place in my heart! 

currently

I am so excited to link up with Oh Boy Fourth Grade for my first ever CURRENTLY post!

Listening: I am currently listening to Guy Fieri talk about Arizona BBQ on "Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives" and the puppies (we just got a puppy and are currently puppy-sitting for a friend) chew rawhides, while my husband is researching the new Nike UT Gear (we already watched the hour-long reveal, that was enough for me but not him). 

Loving: I will always love me some summer time. Although I do think year round school would be beneficial for the kiddos, I am (secretly) thankful that the superintendent voted it down. I need this time to regroup, reenergize, revamp, and RELAX.

Thinking: Since I am participating in the TpT Seller Challenge, I am frantically trying to think of what my masterpiece is going to be! I am so intimidated by all these people that have already finished theirs or have been working on it for months... YIKES! I need some inspiration (that should've been my "needing!").

Wanting: I am currently always wanting ice cream, BUT...

Needing: ... I need to eat something healthy (like a piece of lettuce) because my husband and I have eaten out the past THREE meals! So, I'm also needing to go to the grocery store! (I need a lot of things!!!)

All-Star: It's hard for me to think of things that I am good at doing, and especially hard to post it somewhere! I wanted to put "puppy mom" because I feel like we're doing a pretty good job of training this precious girl:

She looks sad because her mommy was out of town.
She's spoiled rotten, I promise. Honestly... she doesn't know
how good she has it! Summer is the perfect time to get a puppy!

  

but I don't know if I'm quite at all-star level yet since she's still going potty in the house... so I asked my husband what I'm good at doing and he said being sweet... 

There ya have it! My first currently!

Charlottes Web Giveaway

I can't pass up a chance to win an entire TpT store! I have hardly even had time to check it out, but it looks awesome! 

Go enter for yourself!