Summer Bucket List

Ahhhh 9 more days of school for me!! I honestly have to say that I am not ready!!! I am actually kind of sad :( But, I have a lot of exciting things to look forward to during the summer and next year so I need to keep that in mind!!

There are a couple little 'cutesy' things I want to make for my classroom. (Maria, I promise that I am not stalking your classroom) I already bought the flowers and ordered some of the chip clips  when I was shopping online to make these magnets! LOVE! 

 I also want to make these wonderful little containers from Maria as well. I have a Michaels right by my house, but haven't had a chance to stop in yet to pick up these canisters. But I guess that is what summer is for!!

 I have this 'never ending to-do list' of items I want to create for my class and share with you all of course!! So I will definitely be spending a lot of time creating!

I will be in NY for a wedding and Atlanta for a wedding this summer, but majority of the time will be spent up in the mountains of North Carolina! The most relaxing place ever! I love it SO much!!

Typical summer day.....

 trying to work, but the dogs want to play...

 out for a run or a hike...

relaxing/looking at the amazing sunsets! <3

I definitely want to get in shape this summer. I am going to try to 'juice' all summer and work my ass off!!! 

Can't wait to read your summer bucket lists! 

A+ T-Shirts for Teachers

I am totally excited to team up with the Freebielicious girls and A+ Teacher Images! Doug, from A+ Images made us the cutest custom designed t-shirts  and now we each get to give a t-shirt of choice away to one winner from each of our blogs!!  Woo-hoo!! 

First of all...love the color--it goes with anything. The shirt is super soft and comfy! and on top of that...it is super stylish!! didn't you see the diamond studs around our logo! LOVE! 

Here are all my wonderful freebielicious buddies wearing their shirts. Can you find me?!?  ;)

Now, you can win a free t-shirt of your choice! 

We have made this giveaway super easy for you and you have LOTS of chances to win!! It is a blog hop, so you can enter as many or as few giveaways as you would like!  The contest begins RIGHT NOW... Saturday, May 18th, at 8:00 a.m. EST and ends on Sunday, May 19th, at 12:00 a.m. EST.  Winners will be announced on the following Monday. You can start by entering my giveaway here: 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Next, you can head over to my friend Lidia's blog, Kinder Alphabet, and enter there!

If you don't win one of the giveaways, but you see a shirt that you really just have to have, they are offering our Freebilicious followers 20% off orders of $20 or more by using the code: FREE20 :) Time to shop!!

don't forget to follow Freebielicious so you don't ever miss a freebie or a wonderful giveaway like this one!!
Happy Saturday!

Reader's Theater Fun!

About two weeks ago I introduced 2 of my reading groups to Reader's Theater. I really didn't have any expectations when I introduced the cute little 'plays', I just thought this would be something different for reading groups between now and the end of the year. 

Well...leave it to students to go above and beyond! My kids loved everything about these! 

They chose a partner and then found a spot around the room to practice reading. Their goal at first was just to become more fluent.

The same day I introduced these stories to my kids, they decided to spend their 'free choice' time making puppets that went along with their 'play'.  

Keep in mind...this is probably only a fourth of all of the puppets they made...for 3 different shows!

Well, these little puppets brought Reader's Theater to a whole new level! The next day the kids were practicing their play behind the theater. This created some new goals for my kids...they had to learn how to use the puppets at the correct time, they definitely needed to practice reading louder, and they needed more expression! So this was the perfect opportunity to model these to them.

By the end of the week my kids had pretty much mastered all of their new goals :) They were totally ready for a real...live...performance!! They were SO excited!! I set the chairs up, had them quickly practice introducing themselves, and they were ready to go! It was the cutest thing ever!!

I was so proud of them! Almost before they could even take a bow, they asked me if I bought more printer ink so I could print more plays for them!! 

Thank you Kristin for creating such a wonderful pack for my kindergartners to use!! 

Between you and me...I already asked her if she was going to make more of these gems and she said yes! I would just LOVE some that are a tad easier for my beginning readers!! Yipppeeee!!

You can find her pack by clicking on the image below.

Mother's Day Crafts

Happy Mother's Day to all of the wonderful moms out there!! I hope you are enjoying your day with your family!! 

I am SO lucky to have the most amazing mother in the world! I love her SO much!!

In class, we made Hadar's cute Mother's Day purses and I just love how they came out! So super perfect...and easy!!

I prepped the purse for the students and they filled out the pages... pretty much independently!! They did such a good job! 

The kids also had a blast making this craft for their mom from Cupcake!

Cupcake includes so many different 'sprinkle' options and it was the cutest thing to watch the kids pick out which ones they wanted to include on their ice cream cone.

Enjoy the rest of your evening :) 

Fabulous Feedback!

I am linking up with the fabulous Christina Bainbridge to show off some fabulous feedback I have received from some loyal blog and store followers! I really do read EVERY SINGLE comment that is made on my blog and in my TPT store and I appreciate it more than you will ever know! 

Here are 3 comments that made me smile from ear to ear!! :)

On my apple unit, that I use at the beginning of the year, I received this amazing feedback that literally had me jumping for joy. When I received it I was up in North Carolina with my family. I ran downstairs just to read this feedback to my parents...

You can find my apple unit on TPT here

My Monster Unit is actually the very first unit I use during the school year. I have already started to prep some things for next year!  I LOVED reading this wonderful feedback on it, especially about the organization-I am totally an organizational freak!

You can find the monster unit on TPT here

 This next feedback I have to include because it made me smile and laugh at the same time! 142 pages of 'gorgeousness'...now that is what I like to hear ;)

 You can check out my insects unit here

and I couldn't leave off some of this other feedback that just made me smile form my weather unit!!

The weather unit can be found here

WOW!! That is the only thing I can say!! I appreciate you all SO, SO much!! That is why this linky comes at the perfect time...Teacher Appreciation Week! On Tuesday and Wednesday my entire store will be 20% off and to make it a little better, TPT is also giving an extra 10% off! Just enter the code at check out to save more money: TAD13 

Click on the image below to check out my store!

Orange 'ya glad it's a Blog Hop?

Yay! I am excited to be a part of a Florida blogger's hop!! I am actually the....

First, I have a fun product to show off today. We have been learning all about plants this past week! 
 One of their centers was walking through the 'garden' and finding different words that would build a sentence. I told them that when they were finished they would be able to read a secret message...they were so excited!! 

After they found the words they read their message and had to illustrate what it said...

 We have also been working on plant parts. Here is one of my little boys labeling and coloring her flower.

 In math some of my students had to sort their addition problems under the right number. They loved this!

Then they recorded the equations onto their activity sheet.

All of these activities and many more can be found in my plant unit below...

Today I have for you, the last page of my word work freebie! I have been updating this freebie every month and sadly, this is the last one I am going to add to this file! Don't worry there is more coming...but they won't be added into this document :) Just click below to grab your freebie!

Thanks for stopping by!! If you haven't hopped through all of the wonderful posts, you can start from the beginning by clicking below!! Make sure to leave a little 'thank you' if you download the freebies :) and maybe you will find some new blogs to follow! Have fun!! 

Behavior Management

About 2 years ago my school 'adopted' the clip chart. Before this, I was using a stop light--and just had green, yellow, and red. At first I was a little apprehensive, wondering if this was just 'too much'. But, I absolutely love it! 

 Each day all students start on green, 'Ready to Learn'. There are certain times throughout the day where the students know that I am looking for someone to move their clip up the chart. For instance, every morning we listen to the morning announcements. When it is finished, I choose 2 students that listened quietly to move their clip up.   I also have a student that leads calendar math. When they are finished, their job is to choose 2 friends that were listening quietly to do the same. Having this be a part of our daily routine is nice because all students know that I am watching them during these times! ;)

 At the end of the day, if students names are on blue they earn one sticker, pink they earn two, and if they made it to purple they get three stickers! The stickers go onto their stars. When they earn 10 stickers, then they earn treasure box. 

I leave the stickers totally up to the students. So, at the end of the day, THEY must remember to get their own stickers and add it to their stars.  I have never had a problem with honesty here...students take this very seriously haha :)

If students move their clip down to yellow, they have 5 minutes of 'slow down' time where they need to sit at their desk with their head down. This is always during our 'free choice' time at the end of the day. If they are on orange, 'Teacher's Choice', then they have 5 minutes of 'slow down' time and I choose a consequence for them. This may be different for each student. If a student really loves the art center, but they are on orange, then I may take the art center away from them. (again this is during free choice).  

There has been a couple times throughout the year where students have had an AMAZING day! They were on purple and I asked them to move their clip up again! So....now what? They get to take their name off of the chart and I clip it onto my necklace (keys and school i.d.) for the day! If they can stay there, then at the end of the day they can pick a 'diamond' and I glue it onto their clip. This is SUCH a big deal in my class!! Whenever someone earns a 'diamond' the rest of the kids usually clap for them and give them a giant hug...which ends up more like a tackle...then they need to move their name down haha kidding!

I would love to hear if you use your clip chart differently then I do! Always up for new ideas!!