Since we (Mark and I) went on our house buying adventure, my spare time has been nonexistent. Between packing, moving, unpacking, and kinda decorating, there has been no time for creating units or blogging. Also, as all of you know, there is still the family birthday’s, holidays and planned activities that still pop up when life seems to be out of control. So, I thought I would share some pictures of our home with you all of you. I hope this helps make you all feel not so abandoned! =)

Here is our kitchen and family room area. This was the weekend before our walk through, so Mark was inspecting EVERYTHING! I had to go to our walk through without him so he was making sure I knew the house like the back of my hand. =)

This was our home Easter morning the day after we moved in. I Know….it was a mess! Also I don’t recommend moving during a holiday. The only thing that is were it needed to be was our new sectional! lol! Those are the dinning room chairs to the left! AAHHHH…. I cringe when I look at this photo.This is the most updated photo I have of our family room! All the boxes are finally unpacked in this room. We still have to hang photos and things.  Overall, I am just excited to have a clear walkway!

Here is our kitchen! I am very proud of our teamwork here! Mark and I put up the back splash ourselves! I still need things for the top of the cabinets but I have to say, this room is coming along!

Last here is a look at our front porch and sidewalk! I am really excited about our little lights that lead up to the door!

Now onto school things! We have been knee deep in all things superhero and super villain! This unit has been a blast and a much needed distraction for me! The kids got so into this year and their stories came out really great. I have a few pictures to show you of the things we have been working on.

This is the superhero party. I got little red table decorations from the dollar store as well as superhero gummies for each student.  They also had a label to color for either their “Drink of Doom” or “Justice Juice”!

Then we set up the different cereal for the students to make their “super” mix! I have to say that this was sooo cheep and the kids ATE IT UP!

I found black and white boxes for the kids to put their super mix in and then I printed signs that I tapped over each cereal so they had a superhero or super villain name! They thought this was awesome and I have to admit it did look pretty cute! This cereal is Mind Control POPS!

The cereal you see here is Rings of Power and Good Vs. Evil Pieces. I had to make a cereal that had something to do with good vs. evil. They were OBSESSED with it. When we began writing our stories I had to post all the villain’s names as well as the superhero’s names so that they could put each other in their stories! I am telling you they took this very serious! lol! I loved every minute of it too.

The cereals you see here are Superpower Crunch and Cocoa Kryptonite!  All the bowls and scoops were from the Dollar Store as well! It was such a cheap party!  I don’t think I spent more then $20 on everything. Now time to show off some of their finished master pieces!

Here is a few pictures of their projects! I didn’t realize how many super villain pictures I took! I will have to go back and take some more of my students who chose to be superheroes! I do have to let you know that it didn’t matter if they were a villain or a hero, they were just super excited to do this unit! They could not wait to write their stories.

If you are interested in this unit you can get it here! I have made a Superhero unit as well as the Superhero craftivity. The unit offers clarifying strategies and tools that are not pictured in the photos above. If you are looking for what is pictured above then click on the second image. If you want all things to do with superheroes then click on the first image! However, I will let you know that I have updated the unit with 38 new pages of materials!  So if you have already purchased the unit or just the craftivity you need to download a new version! Just click on the product covers to head over to my TpT store.

This one is for the Superhero unit.

This one is for the Superhero craftivity.

Also keep in mind that there is awesome text for a read aloud that goes along with this unit. You don’t have to have it, but it really helps make their stories come alive and start the unit off with lots of excitement! You can click on the book covers below and they will take you to the Amazon listing! I know I have said this before but both books were written by a child author named Rachel Yu! Just another way to reinforce writing in the classroom!

Alright on to the next SUPER activity! So after our stories we learned about alliteration! Words that start with he same letter, a lot like tongue twisters! So keeping with our super theme I read a book by Bob McLeod. If you are interested in this one too, just click on the image of the book cover! It’s great, he has made up his very own superheroes and has alliteration for go with each letter of the alphabet! This was another great read aloud!

 Here are some pictures of the pages my students are creating! Yep, we are making our own ABC Superhero/Villain Alliteration class book!

Dinatickus-Man destroys dinosaurs with his dynamite and dangerous claws!

The Highflying Hockey Heroine hits hockey pucks high and has a hot pink hat to hide her horrible hair!

The Lucky Liar loves to lie while laughing loudly and likes to launch lots of liquid from lemons!

The Marvelos Mega Muncher, munches everything in his marvelous path and he has mysterious magnets on his mind while munching a marvelous mega muffin and marshmallows! His sidekick: Mischievous Monkey! I love this one!

S-Hero has spider sidekicks to search in sewers with his super silver shield! His thought bubble says, “soup, spaghetti, sandwiches….lunch!”

Didn’t they turn out so cute?? I haven’t put the book together yet, so I will post a finished book when it is all laminated and together! If you are interested in this unit you can pick up a copy by click the image below!

Okay, I know this is a kinda very long post but I have one more thing to share with you! In math we have been working on estimation! One of my teammates shared this idea with me about nice and naughty numbers. So I made some cute little number characters to help teach our lesson.

Here is how it works! Nice numbers are the numbers one through four. Their job is to let the first number rest or stay the same. Let’s try one! Take the number 54. The 4 in the one’s place is a nice number so that means the first number can rest while he changes to zero. Now the number becomes 50! He was nice and he did all the changing!

Well you are probably wondering about the rest of the numbers…. five through nine, well they are all naughty numbers! Let’s try one more! This time say the number is 68. Well you are in trouble now because the number in  the one’s place is an eight and that is a naughty number! He doesn’t like being the only one changing so he makes the first number change too! That means the first number has to change up one to become a seven and he changes into a zero! Now you have the number 70!

Now you do still have to teach your students about the different rounding rules when deciding if the number rounds to the nearest 10, 100 or 1,000! But after that, estimating the sums and differences is a snap! Say the question wants the best estimate for the sum of 54 and 68! Well now all they have to do is add 50 + 70 = 120!

Since I have been MIA for such a long time….. I posted this as a little freebie in my TpT store! You can click on the product cover below! I hope you enjoy this! My kids loved it!! There are teaching posters, small and larger number character cards as well as response sheets for you to assess your students! I included everything for free!!

I hope everyone is enjoying school as much as I have been! Again I feel really bad about not posting for such a long time, so before I go, I wanted to let you know that I will be putting all of my superhero themed lessons on sale for 20% off until MIDNIGHT tonight! So if you haven’t picked up a copy of these units you can today! Have a super week!

During all the packing I have managed to squeeze out two new units! I am excited about them both, so I wanted to show you a little peek at both of them.

My first unit provides resources for life cycles. I tried to think of the most common used animals and insects for this life cycle unit! It covers the growth of an ant, butterfly, chicken, frog, and mealworms.

I am really excited about this writing connection I have provided int he unit! There are resources for students to create their own Diary Of A Worm addition to the series! I made it so the students can choose the animal or insect of their choice. There is a planning guide to help them get ideas about their animal’s or insect’s special features as well as their life cycle. Then I also included an 8 day storyboard for them to plan out their diary entries. That is just the planning and brainstorming pages. Then I have provided a cover, about the writer page, as well as diary pages in two different lines to choose from. You will also find teaching posters for speech and thought bubbles. As you know in the Diary Of A Worm series they love to use those, so I wanted to focus on this teaching point for the students. Tons of writing fun here!

Next to provide some text resources I have added one article for each of the 5 life cycles covered in this unit! Exciting, I know! Sometimes finding text is half the battle, so you at least have a starting point!

In the unit you will also find a way to display the students understanding of the life cycle. There is a little craftivity for each of the 5 life cycles! I have also included teaching posters for all 5 life cycles as well! They are a cute little ribbon display for each one!

Here is the ribbon display for the 5 life cycles!

The last resource you will find in this unit is teaching posters for life cycle as well as metamorphosis. Then I have made worksheets for 4, 5 and 6 step life cycles. You can use these with any animal or insect but I have provided the stages in pictures for the 5 covered in this unit! This makes a great assessment for your students. There are lines for them to label each stage in the life cycle.

The other new unit that I have made is for addition and subtraction 2-digit numbers. It has resources for both with and without regrouping.

I wanted to show you the foldable that I created for this unit.

This foldable focuses on both addition as well as subtraction. It also requires them to know when they need to regroup! So there ate 4 different sections in this foldable. On each problem there is a place where they need to identify what operation they are using as well as if they need to regroup! It definitely teaches them to think before they solve!

Before I wrap it up here I wanted to offer a little freebie. It is just something I have had sitting on my computer and I received a few emails asking about thinking stems. So I thought I would post it at my store for anyone else who needs a resource for this! it is nothing big, but it is FREE!

If you click on the product cover you can download it at my TpT store!

Well that is all I have for you today. Don’t forget if you follow my store you know that I am having a SALE right now, 20% OFFall my products! The sale will be over after Monday, March 18th! Make sure you pick up some resources for reading back to school after spring break! =) You can click here to head on over to my store!

Okay so now onto all things school! I have to tell you that making such a big move and keeping up with school is really hard. So I am trying not to focus on the fact that my posts have been less productive. So incase you want to know what new products I am working on and adding to my TpT store just click the follow button on my store! The trend lately has been post new products and then a week later I FINALLY get around to posting about it.

Talking about new products I just added A Reader's Toolbox to my store. Lately I have been working with my reading coach and learning about how as readers we use many tools as we read a text. So having those available to the students as you meet with them in small group or when they are off diving into a text on their own they need to have the strategies and skills you have taught them to tackle any text. So that is when I came up with a Reader's Toolbox.

I have covered 23 reading tools! above is a reference sheet that comes in the unit. It has the picture of the tool, its purpose, as well as a picture. It is great to have with you during small group. Have this handy reference guide as you read through text and get prepared for your students. This was definitely made for teachers in mind. Of course, as always, you can use it however you wish.

In this unit you will have a few resources at your fingertips. The first is mini strategy cards. These cards have the strategy name and a picture representation of the tool. These are great to laminate and add a little hole on the top so that they can be placed on a ring. Students could have their own ring with tools you have taught them in small group. That way when they go off to independent reading they have tools to choose from.

Second, I have added bookmarks. These bookmarks have the tool at the top. Then below you will find thinking stems that students can use to respond to text. I don't know about all of you but I just love thinking stems. It gives the students the language you want them to be using and it makes them sound like little teachers! =)

Last , I have made teaching posters for you to use in instruction. There are 24 strategy posters. I have been asked when I was going to make reading skill poster and I am happy to say they are finally here! In the corner of each poster there is a picture of the tool used in the Reader's Toolbox! No matter what strategies you teach your students there will be a poster for it! Then because they are each 8 1/2 X 11 you can easily add them to a bulletin board in your classroom!

To finish off this unit, I have made a craftivity! Yep! You can create a working functional toolbox for all your students. The possibilities are endless. There are three different options with templates to use. Whatever you use- paper, cardstock, or construction paper there will be a option of templates for you. i think these would be great to store small group tools in so that when they are reading with you there is a stagey that they can pull out of their toolbox and practice using! Again you can use this whoever you want to! =)

So Valentines day this year was so much fun! The Minute To Win It games that I did with my kiddos last year was a big hit! You can check those games out  here! Also because I am teaching with Diana this year look at all the goodies our kiddos brought in! It's a ton I know!

Something I made that was new this year was our Love Bots! They were a total hit. The kids were obsessed. I mean OB-SESSED! I used the big envelopes so that the kids could put all their candy and cards inside them! Then we closed them up and sent them home. These were great!

In science we learned about all things soil. I am working on putting all these resources into one unit but it is no where near ready to post. So I will keep you posted in this resource. I was working close with our school's science contact and I LEARNED a lot this year. One of my big ahh-haa moments was what soil actually is. Do you know what makes up soil? If you are unsure about your answer stay tuned for some helpful resources!! In the mean time, here is a look at our long term investigation.

Well, that is all I have for you today! I hope all of you had a great month of February and  wishing you all a great month of  March. Remember spring break is just around the corner. =)

As you can see this unit is all about place value! It is meant for grades K-2 but I think 3rd grade could use some of the materials as intervention support. I know that one of the hardest skills for my second graders is to understand the relationship each place has with the others and then apply that knowledge to a word problem! Over the years I have created many place value charts to use in my instruction. This time I think I found the winner!

This is a picture of the chart you can find in my unit! Of course I have printed out the color option. It is great for a lot of reasons. The first reason is that you can use the colors to help them identify the different place value sections. Another is that I have added in two tens frames in the ones place. I LOVE this. I have used it for a few years now and it is a great way for the students to see that they can make the same number different ways. However, since there is a tens frame , the kids don't forget the idea of ten ones is the same or equal to a tens rod. This little feature also comes in handy when you move into regrouping in addition and subtraction! Last, I have added picture support into each place value section. So for example, in the ones place you will have the word ones, a picture of a ones cube, the quick picture of a one, and and equal sign with the number one following it (=1). Lots of great information in each section! This also comes in black and white!

Because I know that having the right tools really helps deliver the instruction I have created tons and tons of mats. I started with a variety of tens and ones mats. I love to start the year reviewing with tens and ones. I also use a lot of different materials to help do this, To be honest you never know what one will get the kids comprehending the idea! There are mats for snap cubes, base ten, popsicle sticks, and regular tens and ones (these sport the same colors as the mats for hundreds and thousands). The colors will be great for building upon one another!

Let's talk about popsicle sticks for a minute! This is the idea I am so excited to share with you! Okay, so how many of you make bean sticks with your students? I know there has to be someone out there like me… It really helps them visualize their tens as well as have ownership over their math manipulative. So let me ask you another question…Don't you hate making them! (Sorry that was more of a statement! ha!) I mean all the glue and sticky fingers and not to mention then you can't break them apart for ones. Well if you feel the way I feel then you will love my idea…

Ta-DA! Break apart tens sticks! So I was surfing the net and I came across this patterning idea with magnetic tape, paper clips and jumbo popsicle sticks. It is from a blog called Teach Beside Me. You can click on the blog name to check her out, she looks like she has some great ideas for Kindergarten! Anyways, when I saw this idea for some reason my brain though tens rod, ones cubes and regrouping! So a new manipulative is born! I am really excited to use this with my students.

Here is how I plan on using them. As you can see in the picture it is a great way to show the same number in different ways. In addition to this I want to try it with regrouping. There are always a few strugglers when it comes time for regrouping. Hopefully since they will have created the tens sticks they can easily break a ten apart in subtraction with regrouping as well as make a ten in addition with regrouping. I hope you like my idea and it is some sort of help to you. I can tell you, I can't wait to get down to business! lol!

There is a ton of other resources you can get in my unit. Here are a few samples of some of my favorites.

I have made digit character cards. The character holds up the number of fingers to represent the number that they are. I love when things are cute but totally academic! You can use them in games but they really just help the students understand that there are 10 different digits that are used in our everyday numbers.

I have included bulletin board materials for you to display in your classroom. There is a number represented in 2-digit, 3-digit, and 4-digit as well as the corresponding examples in expanded form, number form, place value chart, and word form.

These cards are so useful when teaching students about expanded form. They stack on top of each other to create a number and then as you slowly break them apart you see the value each digit has. Talk about a visual! They come in color and a white card with color trim.

The last thing I will show you is a fishing for digits game. They have to find a number that has the digit they rolled in the ones, tens, hundreds, or thousands place. There is 3 different versions of this game (2-digit, 3-digit, and 4-digit). Then the unit is finished off with some word problems, 12 to be exact.

Alright, so onto some cute 100th day portraits! I just love making these. Here are some of my favorites this year.

I just love the one that says, "Old People Rock!" I almost died laughing! Kids are so cute sometimes… I mean check out the one with his hat tilted sideways! Can you say too cute or what!

They really got creative with these portraits. I mean they are going to be really cool and hip when they are 100! My students also got really into the wrinkled skin. The got a charge out of that step in the craft!

Well that about does it for me! I did want to leave you with an update on our house adventure! We were able to accept an offer on the house, so know we are waiting to be approved! It is a big waiting game… I am driving myself crazy thinking about it. I think I have bitten down all my nails and I am not a nail biter (or at least I wasn't). If you sent some prayers our way in my last post, could you keep them coming!? Technically speaking, it is not ours yet. All the paper work has to clear and the bank has to approve us! So we are not out of the water yet. Thank you for all your support! It really does mean a lot to both Mark and I!

We got to put up the sold sign in the front yard! I was not expecting this and I thought it was totally cute, so I had to have a picture of the moment! I know we are totally cheesy, but I love it! This is definitely one for the photo albums! Hope you all have a great week ahead!

I have been thinking twice about share this information just becuase it is not all finalized yet. However, I feel like the more support through all of this the better! It has been an emotional rollercoaster, and definitely harder than I thought it was going to be. When we first came to the decision that it was time to make the next move in our future and then up until this point, I didnt know what was comming until today!

My husband was able to find a job that is closer to both my parents as well as his, I think I cried! It was really such a blessing from God! There is no other way it would have been possible. So from that point on we have been looking to buy

 OUR FIRST HOME!!

House hunting is tough business right now in Florida! There are great deals out there but if you haven't head of bidding wars, then you are one lucky duck! The housing market has changed in the favor of the buyers but also the invistors! These investors come in offering CASH! So ofcourse anyone with a brain would pick that over a couple that doesn't! But after all the houses that slipped though our fingers, it has brought us both to the house that we will hopefully be able to call ours! We have really been believers in the the saying, "everything happens for a reason" and just trusting the plan God has for us. Want to see what it looks like? Okay well this image is from the internet because I got to excited and forgot to take one yesterday! lol! So please note the plants that in from of the drive way are not really there!=) I will have to post more picture if we are lucky enough to call it ours!

There is it! I am in love with it and the thought of being able to make this our home just makes me smile! Today we go and sign a contract and make it official! However ,as you know this is just the first step! So please keep us in your prayers. We just want a smooth transition to what we hope is our very first home! We really feel blessed to be able to buy a new home and cannot wait to see all the wonderful memories we will have together in this home.

As you all know I did mention a suprise for you as well as what has been going on with me! So I am throwing a sale like all the other wonderful bloggers our there! 20% off all my products! So if you are looking for some great products for your classroom at a great price, then make sure you check out my TpT store!

This cute little sign is from Ashley Hughes! if you haven't checked out her digital clip art, you must! Click on the image to head over to her blog!

Well that is all for today! Sorry it is not school related, but I had to keep you updated with what has been going on in my life! Thank you for all your support! =) I am off to start a big and busy day in my life. your prayers and wishes are greatly appreciated and loved! Thank you! I hope all of you have a SUPER Sundday!

To be honest my husband was over the moon excited that I was not talking school for a good two weeks. Don't get me wrong, he is definitely my biggest supporter but I turned the tables on him and took the time to do things he enjoyed the most. I felt it was definitely needed since we are always doing this with school in mind. If you haven't taken some time to really put school on hold…. I mean no pinning school, no reading teacher blogs, no buying school items, no creating school items, you should. It gives you time to focus on things that sometimes get the back burner. Take a look at some of the fun things we did during my 2 weeks of R&R!

We started off by going to the midnight premiere of the Hobbit. I am not sure if I have confessed my husbands love obsession with Peter Jackson, The Lord of the Rings Trilogy and now the Hobbit. Leading up the the release, we had to watch every video update of the Hobbit in the making as soon as they were posted. I will have you know that I definitely had to watch each video more than once. So naturally I expected to be going to the midnight premiere of the Hobbit. Since then we have went back to see it AGAIN in HFR  (High Frame Rate). I think I earned myself tones of brownie points for all of this. But really it was nice to return all the support that my husband gives me every time I post or create a new unit! He definitely deserved all this and probably more.

We went to dinner before the movie to celebrate my sister in law's birthday! It was a great start to the long night ahead. It was a beautiful night!

I listened to the Hobbit on tape whenever we drove in the car! LOL that is the only way he could get me to read it. =) Then the night before the showing, I surprised him with the original Hobbit move when it was first released. It is in cartoon… I can't believe kids watched this, Gandalf in this movie was kind of scary! So after I listened to the book on tape and we watched the original movie, I can honestly say we were ready to see the first of three movies for the Hobbit!

Here we are right before we left for the Hobbit! It was 11:15 at night! Looking a little tired but ready to go! I know what your thinking, we are just a little bit nerdy! I agree, we are! =) We didn't get home until 3:30 am!!!

Another great  night out I had recently is when I went with my sister in law, Megan to see Mary Poppins the Musical. It was a lot of fun but definitely different from the original. I will admit that I found myself thinking this is not supposed to happen, or why didn't they do the part when…

All in all it was a great show and if you like Mary Poppins you should go see it. 

We are waiting for the show to start so what better to do that take pictures of well, us! =) We had to use the flash because of the lighting but it is a tad bright. So I made it black and white! It really fixes all bad pictures!

In mist on all the fun I still had to decorate the house for Christmas and wrap all of the presents we bought for all of our family and friends! First I will show you some pictures of our Christmas tree. This year we purchased an artificial tree! Usually mark is nothing but against this but having to clean it all up made him want to try something different this year! Mark's Grandma (she did all the painting) and Grandpa (he did all the wood cutting) made us the same elf on a ladder that Mark grew up with! Isn't it so adorable! He climbs up a step for every day that passes until he reaches the top step, which means Christmas is here!

Our little elf is making his way to the top!

I also bought this Santa at a local craft show to add some Christmas spirit to our tree area! One of my best purchases I think! =)

I thought this was a fun picture that I took of the tree! I laid down and then looked up the tree! =)

So i think we bought too many presents! They are over flowing our tree area! My poor Santa was forced out so the presents could fit under the tree. These are not just presents for each other. I think we enjoy giving gifts the most. =)

I almost forgot about this one. After we finished putting all the ornaments on the tree, we started to take pictures. My sweet little puppy decided she needed to be in the photos and laid down right under the tree! Isn't she too cute?!

So I did manage to take some photos of some activities I did with my students the past few weeks. We really had some gingerbread fun!

The first thing we did is make gingerbread ornaments for our students! I forgot to take pictures of them decorated but we used mini buttons, puffy paint, ribbon, and mini bows to make them look like gingerbread. Each student could choose to make a girl or boy. Then we rolled out the "special" dough and placed their cutout on to wax paper. We wrote their names at the bottom on the wax paper so we kept track of who the gingerbread belonged to. Then we let the dry. The room smelled so delicious, full of fresh cinnamon! We even put on our gingerbread aprons!

Here are my lovely teammates all dressed up! Can you tell that we love our gingerbread unit? =) You can get these aprons from here!

In writing my students we working on creating their very on gingerbread stories! They turned out soo cute! They created final drafts that were complete with a house cover, character inside and story that had been edited and written on nice paper. They also had to create gingerbread sayings for their stories and some of them were really adorable and creative! Here are some pictures of a few!

I am almost done putting together my gingerbread unit! I know its a little late but better late than never right? It will have all the resources for creating your own gingerbread stories as well as reading materials and some little extras. I promise to post about it all when it is done. Then we watched the Polar Express before we went to Winter Break! The day was tons of fun. Since Diana and I teach together we used my room as the "train" room and hers as the movie room. I wrote a cute little saying on the board for them and moved their desks to kind of resemble a train!

We put a Polar Express word search and crossword puzzle for them to do when they boarded the train! They thought this was tons of fun and they were pretty excited when they walked in the room. If you click on the words Polar Express at the beginning of the paragraph, you can check out some freebies I found!

We set up hot chocolate buffet and served it throughout the movie! They got to pick marshmallows to drop in as well as a candy cane. They were stirring, slurping and sipping down the hot chocolate. Then we also made a cupcake buffet where they iced and decorated a red and green Funfetti cupcake.

They loved getting to decorate their own cupcake! They turned out pretty cute! The little gingerbread men came from Target! I was really excited when I found them! At they end of the day we filled their bags with treats and sent them off to break in their PJ's!

With all this gingerbread fun my team and I just could help but create some gingerbread t-shirts! We were even able to recruit a few other teacher friends to make the shirts with us! Check out our shirts!

The best part is the saying we put on the back! Check it out… it makes me laugh every time I read it!

I hope you enjoy this as much as I do! It definitely had the kids giving me that little grin of laughter!

Okay, so two more things to share and then I wanted to link up with Hope King! I promise I will make it QuIcK! I gave all my teacher friends cute little gingerbread gift boxes! I just wanted to show you all since they looked too festive to not share!

Then my adorable little girl painted her nails again! So of course I had to share them. I just don't see how it is possible to get these details so small and still look so good! It just amazes me every time! That little foot is from one of my boys coming in to take a closer look! I mean it is something when even the boys are amazed. =)

Alright, well since I started visiting blogs again, I could not pass up the opportunity to link up with Hope King! Her blog is seriously addicting and I was definitely having withdraws, I am pretty sure of it! So here is her cute little sign which you can click on and check out her post.

Well I am just in love with scarves! I think my obsession started last year and since then I have accumulated quite a few. I really didn't have any way to store them all until my mom gave me this amazing Christmas gift.

These are great because they don't take up a lot of space in the closet. They can hang under each other using that nifty little hook in the middle of the hanger. They are also felt so the scarves don't fall off the hanger. No more scarves all over the closet!

As far as for my classroom I have been on the lookout for a way to organize my guided reading lessons. I have found and love the current way I organize my materials for each group! I use chair pockets from Really Good Stuff. However, I have wanted a way to organize my lessons. So here is a few ideas I have found. If you have any ideas or can point me in the direction of a great teacher that has a great way of doing it, I would love you forever!

So this teacher has a bin for each book from her curriculum. Inside each drawer there is the lesson as well as the materials she uses for the guided reading group (I think this picture came from the Scholastic website but I am not sure). I love this for two reasons:

1. It is separated by book so you can grab and go.

2. I can put multiple resources in the bin that belong with the book.

Okay I have one more reason 3. She labels the bin with the book title, comprehension skill, phonics focus, and level! Talk about at a glance.

I have also found this idea from none other than Jessica Meacham. She types out her lessons and then laminates them and stores them in a index card box. I don't think I am going to store them in index card boxes but I think laminating them would ensure they are not lost and last a long time.

Instead I think I am going to use this easy label idea. The label goes on the outside of the folder and it simply says everything that the lesson will focus on. It has all the elements of the lesson on the label. I do however think I am going to use two pocket folder instead of file folders. They seem to make me get messy, so I am leaning towards two pocket folders. You can check this idea out here.

Again if you have any suggestions I would love to hear them! I think this is going to be my goal for the year! It is a big job but I think I am ready to take it on!

Also Just a little FYI

That's right you read it correctly! I am having an End of The Year Sale until the 31st of December! Everything in my store is

20% off!

Also if you click on the image above you can visit Khrys's Keeping it Kool In Kinderland to see other teachers that are having a sale right now too! Thanks Khrys for the cute image! Have a great weekend!

Like I mentioned quickly before in another post, I am trying to structure my reading instruction so that it fits into a 30 minute period (reading focus, skill lesson, and phonics lesson). Let me just tell you that it has been harder than I thought! The students are loving the new phonics lessons and they are even translating the spelling focus into their writing! I get so excited when they do that! My phonics booklet unit is coming along. Here is what is in it so far.

I organized the phonics booklets by their vowel sound. Then I related that sound to the word families that have that vowel sound in them. This was time consuming to organize. But I am proud to say that I have successfully organized this part of the unit!

Then I wanted to create mini cards that have the word family on them as well as a word and picture to relate to the word family. These can easily be hole punched and placed on a ring to be used as cards for small group instruction. You could also use them to post on a bulletin board after each family is taught. Let me just tell you that finding clipart for all of the words has been tricky and time consuming! I can't wait to finish this unit up! I am hoping that next weekend I will be able to post this one.

As far as our reading lessons we have been focusing on retelling. During the beginning of the year I always teach/review the story elements with my students. I do this because I refer to them consistently throughout the year.  That is just what I did when I started to teach retelling. We read the book titled The Hat by Jan Brett! I just love her stories and there is such great picture support in them as well.

Since I have been working closely with my school's reading coach (2-5 grade will  have to take on the Common Core Standards next year, so I'm trying to get a head start) I thought I would share her great idea!  As we reread through the text for the rest of the week we focused on small "chunks" of the text each day! They had a copy of the story typed up so that they could practice giving their evidence of why that was important as well as why that was the next correct detail in our retelling. When the students came up with their evidence we recorded it onto a class anchor chart. This anchor chart was organized using a T-Chart.

On one side of the T-Chart we wrote the characters in the story then on the other side we recorded the important details that went with that character. These details were not in sentence form. They were also not allowed to underline the entire sentence in the text! I want them to be accountable for their thinking not the authors! It went great! Then as their evidence of learning we had them write one to two sentences from our anchor chart of notes in their H.E.R.O. (reading) notebook! I am going to offer all these resources in my newest unit that is going to have resources for retelling as well as for using transitions in writing! However, I am most excited about the fact that it is all things gingerbread!

I also am hooked on ELF on the Shelf! It is so stinking adorable and there are so many cute ideas out there! I recently found this blog with tons of cute ideas for The Elf on the Shelf and thought I would pass it along. There are 25 ideas and all have clickable links to their resources! It is pretty darn awesome! The blog is called Over the Big Moon and Lisa and Pam are the fantastic bloggers that put this resource together. So if you are in need of some ideas make sure you click on their cute little button below!

Okay well that is all I have for you all tonight! Have a great week!

So cute, right?! Anyways, let me get down to the real reason I am keeping it nice and short tonight, it has to do with one word, shopping! I get so excited for the TpT Thanksgiving sale. It is that time where so many amazing teachers put all their products on sale and then TpT offers an additional discount to boot! This cute little graphic is from Ashley Hughes. I mean, I can't wait to look at all the products so I know you probably feel the same way too.

I did post a new unit yesterday. It is flipbooks for seven different habitats. But what makes these flipbooks so cute, but definitely educational as well is that they are a craftivity! Each habitat has templates for a different animal which makes that 7 different animal temples in all. Yep that is right, you get all the printables for each animal! Check them out!

I think my favorite is the zebra!  I really am proud of his stripes! =) You also get all the templates for each flap of the 7 habitat flipbooks. I even made different line styles to fit your students needs. But to add in a little extra, there are habitat themed writing paper incase you choose not to do the flipbooks but want to use the animal temples. This unit has tons of choices. If you want to pick up a copy of this or any of my other products you can check out my TpT store! I hope every teacher out there takes full advantage of the sale going on because I know my cart is full of products I cant wait to purchase! Happy shopping and I hope everyone have a great week with their students!

Anyway, I wanted to share what my team was for our Story Book Parade! Every year second grade does an author study with Kevin Henkes. We use all his mouse books. The kids always love it and I have to admit I love getting dressed up as a book character too! It is our tradition and we are always the same character. LOL! I think it is a teacher thing, if not then we are all just that OCD. I am Shelia Rea The Brave. I wish I could show you the kids all dressed up, but I have the next best thing, me and my team as mice! Check us out!

So much fun right! Well in spirit of all things fall we started a new unit in writing! It is monster theme. We have a few kids this year that don't celebrate Halloween so we have to be a little more careful than usual. So we called it "Learning how to write scary stories!" =) Awhile back I shared a book with you all called "I Need My Monster." I discovered it last year and have fallen in love with it. It was so perfect for our scary stories because lets face it, children's picture books aren't that scary. But I wanted them to be descriptive and also review adjectives. This book was PERFECT!  It has taken us a little over two weeks to complete this unit (I added in the editing process!) and I will admit that they are putting their finishing touches on it this week. I just posted the unit so I will show you what I have included and also show some finished projects!

Here is some of their monsters and stories published! They are adorable…. I hope you enjoy them!

Okay, so besides teaching I have also been diving into some book studies as well as trying to get my reading instruction down to thirty minutes! I know, I think I might just be going crazy! Here is the problem we have exactly thirty minutes to teach phonics and our reading skill. I am having a REALLY and I mean really hard time doing this! So we (me and my co-teacher Diana) brainstorming with our reading resource. So far I think we are onto something! We are using poems to help teach phonics which seems to be working. We review it every day and they read it independently during read to self as well! In order to make the connections for the students in other areas we want to have them practice it during work with words. So I have created a little file folder to help with this!

I am hoping this will make practice efficient and easy to keep up with! If you are interested in this activity you can click on the product cover and pick it up in my TpT store.

Here is how it works!

So in order to manipulate the words a little more I want them to be exposed to them in small group! So I am in the process of putting together a "Working with words" booklet! I need the words that we teach through the poems to connect to the text in small group! Also because it is a 10 minute phonics lesson I need more time with it in small group! I am not finished with this resource yet! However, I will show you what I have done so far!

That is all I have for now! I am linking up with DeAnne over at First Grade and Fabulous. You can click on the cute little image below to check out her blog!

The recipe that I am going to share with you is one that my husband loves! He can not wait for the fall because that means lots of leftovers and pot pie! That's right….pot pie! He loves them. So if you have lots of left over turkey you might want to check out this recipe!

I hope everyone has a great week.

First up I have to show you a better picture of my Daily 5 wall! I could not believe that the one I last shared was blurry! I felt so bad I could not show you a good picture! So here you go… a new and might I add, clear picture!  I even added my shoe pictures around the I PICK poster so the kids remember to read books that are a "good fit."  If you want to know where you can get these I added them to my Daily 5 Classroom pack for FREE a few weeks ago so make sure you grab the updated pack if you haven’t!

I have also started adding poster to my anchor chart wall. Right now I  have had a ton of reading anchor charts because of the Daily 5. So this flip chart storage idea has really come in handy.

Speaking of Daily 5 I wanted to show you some of my D5 rotations and set up. Two aspects that I struggled with when reading the Daily 5 was that 1. I have computers as part of centers and I have to have my below level students do Istation every week as part of an intervention and 2. I only have 3 listening spots. So to solve this dilemma I decided to make a rotation for computers and listening center then allow the students to choose the other centers throughout the week. The idea of choice was important to me because I want them to know that I do trust them to make good choices however my interventions are really important and I felt like I needed to make sure the students that needed the documentation were getting it. I took some pictures of the organization.

I have each computer labeled and then I made a chart with the days of the week and then two spots under each day. If the students name is in the first spot they go to computer 1 and if their name is in the second spot then they go to computer 2. A piece of cake! It make me feel so much better knowing I am getting the documentation I need. Behind the rotation chart is the computer program sheet (must do – can do).

For listen to reading I did the same rotation chart as the one for computers. I put it in a folder at the center. I also added the poster for how to set up the tape along with the response pages. I do not copy the response pages for the students, instead I just have a spiral notebook at the center for the students to record their responses to their listening. It is a good comprehension check since all the words are read to them.

I still have a bunch of pictures to take of the other centers so I will be sharing more with you soon.

As far as reading instruction goes my little second graders have been visualizing, making connections and learning about nonfiction in the last 3 weeks. I have been so proud of their thinking. My teaching buddy Diana Patrissi has a super cute anchor chart for visualizing that we used. We both made one two years ago… mine was a scuba mask but the letters for visualizing feel off so we used hers! Its so cute! If you are wondering what inspired us to make them it was our room themes! You need a scuba mask to see in the ocean and you need binoculars to see in the Jungle. I know we are pretty ridiculous!

One of my favorite read alouds to use for visualizing is The Salamanders Room by Anne Mazer. The words used to describe the story are amazing for visualizing! Also to get them using their 5 senses I use the book Hello Ocean by Pam Munoz Ryan. If you want to check them out click on the images below!

After visualizing we moved into connections. We started off teaching connections with some concrete examples. One of the activities we used involved puzzles. Yes puzzles, but not the kind you are thinking of. We wanted then to see and experience the pieces connecting in the puzzle however what makes a great connection is when students use the text. So I created 4 different puzzles with sentences on them. Each sentence evoked a different feeling the students can connect to. Let me just tell you this lesson worked! I think it made them really understand how to make connections! After that we did some thinking and recording in our HERO notebooks.

They referenced this page throughout our week with connections. It really helped them make meaningful connections and provided them with thinking stems for connections.

If you are interested in the materials I used for teaching connections you can click on the product cover from my Concrete Connection unit and it will take you to my TpT store.

After Connections we moved into nonfiction. I just love teaching nonfiction. We started off by using a resource from Scholastic! If you don't have this resource I really suggest getting it. It is basically a nonfiction book that you use to teach nonfiction! The book has every nonfiction feature imaginable in it. If you click on the picture it will take you to the Scholastic listing.

We also made a chart that I found on Pinterest for before, during and after reading. I changed it a little because i wanted the students to be writing and responding to our reading, so I added symbols for sticky notes so i knew what strategy the students were using in their responses. It worked out great. Here is my anchor chart and some samples of their work.

Look at my good little reader! She asked a question and then when she found the answer she wrote it down! AWESOME!

I am in the process of putting together all the resources I use to teach nonfiction so I will have them available soon!

Speaking of available, I wanted to let you know that I updated my CAFE Pack and it now includes the expand vocabulary section. Just click on the product cover below to update your copy!

Before I go I want to share a little writing activity that I did a few weeks ago! It really got the kids up and moving. We started learning about nouns, verbs, and adjectives. We took our kiddos and split them into the 3 different parts of speech groups. We each took a group (Diana, Ms. April our Speech and Language specialist, and myself) around the school and found nouns, verbs, and adjectives. We took pictures of the things we found around our school that they found! They were so cute posing with their finds. Then they had to write a sentence with their word once they found it. Everyone was definitely focused on their team's task.

Team adjective rocked! It was tons of fun! If you are interested in this unit you can click on the product preview below and pick it up at my TpT store.

I have so much more I want to share! With that being said, I have already shared a ton, so I will be saving more for later. I hope everyone enjoys their weekend! Until the next post.