Five for Friday

It's Friday my friends! Wahoo! Time for Five for Friday to check out what's going on in my classroom!

We read this ADORABLE book "A is for Musk Ox"

If you haven't read it yet, it's about a musk ox who writes an entire alphabet book about a musk ox. "A is for musk ox because musk oxen are awesome and live in Alaska." "B is for musk ox because musk oxen have black or brown fur." You get the picture.

After reading the book, my students got to start writing a book about them!! This is an ongoing project that we will work on all year long! Here is one student's letter "G". This is going to be fun!

If you'd like to snag this packet and do the activity with your kids, click on the picture below to download through Google Docs.

We also started our first research project of the year! They are so stinking excited! With the "Resident Expert: Research Process" packet {available in TpT, click on the cover page}, my kids are on their way to a successful research project!

We started off by doing a fun poem where the students listed out some of the things they'd like to do if they were in charge of their learning.

Then they went ahead and made a list of what they wanted to research. We will do this many times throughout the year so I wanted them to have a long running list to pull from through the year.

Next, it's time to plan! We wrote down what we knew about our topic and questions we had.

Then we took the questions we wrote, and organized them into sub topics so that our researching would not be so scattered.

After that we went to the library to check out books and then they will start researching on the computer next week. They are LOVING this!

I have made some fun posters and activities for teaching doubles! I hope this is something you could use in your classroom!

And this is a product you don't want to miss! It's a great set of print and go fall themed writing, reading, and math activities! A must have for the busy fall season!

And I must leave you with the cutest thing you've ever seen! She is sitting on her throne right next to me while I'm writing this post. I just love her!

Have a great Friday!

Falls of Fun

As we have all settled into school and you have implemented your reading and math centers, you may have also had to start making more and more centers. We do so much for our kids and those centers can take so much time!

Well I have the PERFECT thing for you! I have put together a set of math, writing, and reading PRINT and GO centers! Did I have you at print at go? Love at first sight, I'm sure!

There are great math worksheets that include practice in adding, subtracting, shapes, counting, graphing, and number words. Here's a peak at one of the math pages!

 Here in a sneak peak at two of the reading activities. I included Short Vowels, Rhyming Words, Beginning Sounds, There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed Some Leaves Sequencing Book, The Tree's Life Cycle Book, Orange Pumpkin, Orange Pumpkin Book, and ABC order

For the writing activities I included 5 writing prompts, a cloze activity, fill in the blank, and a fun fall mobile where they write their favorite fall activities! Check out the mobile.

Take a look at everything else included, and if you'd like to win a copy, head over to my facebook page! Just in time to print and use next week! Hope you have a great Friday!

First Grade Educents Bundle and Pin It to Win It

Classroom routines are settling a bit, students are getting into the groove of things, and we are really starting to dig deeper into our curriculum!  So I have teamed up with Educents and some other bloggers to offer you this great First Grade Literacy Bundle at a huge discount for a limited time!  (And keep reading for an opportunity to win an item from my store!)

You get 18 amazing literacy items to help your learners become better readers and writers!  Included are centers, printables, posters, readers, and even a little science and social studies because those are literacy too!

When I taught editing in writing a few years ago, I realized my kiddos needed lots of practice with editing marks! So voila! Crazy for Conventions was born! Because I was going to go crazy if my kids didn't start getting Conventions! :) My students loved having the posters to refer to during Writer's Workshop and they are also great for the teacher too during small group writing instruction.

There are 17 other products in our bundle to get your kids learning!  Hop along to Lisa's blog to see all the goodies you will get!    

But that's not all!   I am giving you a chance to Pin It to Win It (well you win any item from my store.)

Pin any image from my blog and enter below to win! Couldn't help but include some fun pictures for you to pin!

a Rafflecopter giveaway .

So head on over to Educents when you are ready and stock up on amazing literacy resources for first!

Leaving TpT Feedback {how and why}

As a seller on TpT, I thought it would be good to go over the reasons why feedback is so important in the TpT world.

Lately when I see this pop up on my phone, I'm hesitant to open it, because I never know what I'm going to see with the feedback left. As sellers we want to make our products better, but when poor feedback is left with no explanation why, it's hard for us to make anything better. Let me lay out how to leave good feedback as a buyer.

1.Leave feedback. First off, you earn credits towards other purchases of TpT. Why wouldn't you want to leave feedback? It's free money! Also, it allows other buyers to see how much you love the product you purchased. Most of my products only have a 1/3 of the buyers actually leave feedback for the item they purchase. Food for thought!

2. Leave constructive feedback. If you do not leave a 4.0 rating for an item, make sure to tell the seller why! I have seen so many buyers leave their feedback as "thank you", "great", "love it", but then leave less that perfect ratings. Sellers are totally fine with receiving less than 4.0 ratings (if warranted), but if we don't know how to fix it, then we are up a creek without a paddle.

3.Check it out. This happens before you even purchase an item. Look at it carefully. Read the description carefully. Look at the preview carefully. Get where I'm going? Do your research. Compare it to other items like it. If you buy something on a whim without really looking at it, you are possibly setting yourself up for disappointment.

4. When you are disappointed. I understand that sometimes you buy something expecting one thing, and when you download it, it isn't what you wanted. ALWAYS contact the seller before leaving negative feedback. We all want to help make your purchase the best it can be and most of us are willing to do that! But once the negative feedback is given, sellers are less likely to want to help.

5. Printing/downloading problems. When you have trouble with printing or downloading, don't leave negative feedback. The problem rarely lies in the sellers hands. Here is a great blogpost by Jamie at 2nd Grade Stuff to refer to whenever you come across an item that you are having technological problems with. If all else fails, contact TpT.

6. Feedback left for what it isn't. Don't leave negative feedback for something that the product never claimed to be. For example, if you wanted the product to be editable, but it isn't, and the seller never claimed that it was, do not buy it then leave feedback stating "I wish it were editable". Leave feedback for what the item claimed to be, not what you wanted it to be.

7. Think before you click. Once you click submit, you can't change that feedback. Feedback is very important to sellers and sometimes even if you rate it a 3.9, it weighs heavily on the overall score of the product. I've seen products that had lots of feedback left, and ONE rating of 3.9, brought the entire overall product score to 3.9/4.0. So make sure you are sure of your feedback before leaving it.

I hope you found this post useful as you continue leaving feedback from the amazing sellers you are buying from! Now, off you go! Go leave some amazing, constructive feedback and earn some TpT credits towards other purchases! :)

Five for Friday

I apologize for my blogging absence! But Five for Friday is such a great way to let you in on what's been going on!

Since my title 1 tutoring position doesn't start until October, I have taken on a GT (gifted and talented) position until then and I am LOVING it! Hanging with small groups all week and getting to work across the grade levels! I haven't taught the older kids in a few years, but oh my goodness! I have missed them! I really do love the older ones!

#1 Here's a look in my new classroom! I had to decorate an entire class in 1 week! The room was bare! And apparently I had enough border to decorate an entire classroom without having to buy any. Can you say border hoarder?

 This is my favorite part of the entire room! And the kids LOVED seeing their names this week as they entered the classroom for the first time. I loved how they reacted when they walked in. They said the room was so fun and inviting! From the mouth of babes.

#2 I work with grades 1-5 and pull each of my grade levels once a week and this week was the 1st week for them to be pulled. We read the book "My Fantastic Elastic Brain". Such a fun book that talks about how the brain works and that it's ok to make mistakes because it's training your brain!

#3 We spent time talking about how this class would be a place to challenge ourselves. If we can't do something, we just can't do it "yet". Yet is a big word in our GT program! We want to have a growth mindset, not a fixed mindset! I introduced the word mindset and we talked about the M standing for motivation.

Then in the upper grades the students had to make up a skit showing what motivation was. The skits were hilarious! Then they had to come up with a symbol for motivation. Here are a few.

Then I took all of their symbols and displayed them on our mindset board. We will make our way through the whole word throughout the year.

Check out my "Change Your Mindset" unit in my TpT store if you'd like to implement to growth vs. fixed mindset in your classroom!

#4 And of course I've been working on some fun fall activities for all of you!

 My firsties LOVE doing this activity and it's a great way to teach or review ordinal numbers in word and number form! It is on sale this weekend for $2 AND if you head over to my facebook page, you have a chance to win a free copy!

#5 And last but not least, I finally got my silhouette portrait that I won from Hope's from Second Grade Shenangians giveaway! Now to learn how to use the darn thing!

And to leave you with a little humor... Are you ready for some football?!?!

September Currently

It's my favorite time of the month! It's time for Currently with Megan from Oh' Boy 4th Grade.

Take a look and what's currently going on in my life!

Listening: Honestly?! This is the THIRD currently in a row that I've been listening to Law and Order: SVU while doing it. I think it may be time for an intervention...

Loving: My Erin Condren planner will be here by Wednesday and I can't wait! I haven't even gotten it yet and I am already in love!!

Thinking: I am blessed. Bottom line. Life may not go according to plan, but God has blessed me in so many ways that I can't ignore it. "I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord." Yes he does!

Wanting: The heat in Texas is so stinking hot! I'm ready for it to start cooling off. Like tomorrow, please.

Needing: There are some things coming up within the next 2 months and I'm ready for them to be here! I'm needing time to go by quickly please! :)

Personal Goals for Sept: My personal goal for September is to have a consistent schedule for myself. Since I am not back in the classroom until October, I am having a hard time not waking up and watching TV for a couple hours and then half my day is gone. I'm working hard on making sure I get up, work out, work on some amazing resources, and get things done around the house. First week down and I did pretty good. Hoping to keep it up!

I hope you enjoyed my currently! Can't wait to read everyone else's! Have a nice day off tomorrow!