Five for Friday

I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching again this week! Love Five for Friday. A quick and easy way for me to make sure I've got a blog post even if I feel I've got nothing to share! This week was easy to crank out five things to share...

Did a little shopping for DIY Halloween costumes for me and three other teachers. And if you saw my insta post, you know we're going to be ninja turtles!!!!

The hubs and I had a nice Sunday date at the apple orchard and pumpkin patch two minutes from our house. As a born and raised city girl, I fall a little more in love with our country living everyday!!! We got pumpkins, apple cider, and homemade apple donuts. Heaven!

A bit of science fun with circuits. Thank you Five Below for the $5 all included (minus the batteries) science experiment! Don't mind my energy drink...it was one of those mornings!!!

My newest creation...autumn mix place value. Stop back tomorrow for a more in depth look and a first day to purchase sale!!! The kids loved it and it helped them to figure out the skills we were learning the much easier!

We had our first two classroom birthdays this week and both of my boys loved their treats from me!

Hope you e had a fabulous Friday! Check back tomorrow for a first purchase day sale and a look at autumn mix place value!

Double Linky and My Winner Reveal!

So last weekend I had a giveaway and then this week got CRAZY! New students and field trip paperwork and all sorts of crazy, plus a field trip yesterday! With all that being said, I've yet to name my winner for the giveaway I had! And so, my winner is...Crystal G! Congrats!

Now, onto the linky portion of this post.  I am linking up a bit late to both, but refer to the above paragraph for my excuses :P
I am linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday and with Oh Boy Fourth Grade for Currently...and here goes!

1. My mom loves star gazing and all that goodness, so the moon eclipse was a big deal! And since the hubs and I have the perfect location for observing, my parents drove out.  We had a nice fire and some s'mores too!

2. My class size has doubled so far this year.  I started with 14 students and have since made my way to 29! It's been a learning experience for all of us.  My kids have become very good helpers when we gain a new student.  They are good at helping them to learn the expectations and jump in to our Daily 5 rotations! But I think it has also been tiring for us...especially me!

3. Since we have had such an addition to our classroom, we have added in a bit of community building so that we are making sure everyone feels like they belong in our classroom.  This week we worked to complete puzzles in our table groups. It was great watching the kids work together. Even my few second language learners with minimal English skills joined in. This is the puzzle of the first group to finish!

4. We had our first field trip of the year yesterday...holy paperwork, Batman! The field trip went really well...we walked around for five hours! There were no complaints until the end. I think we were all tired of walking by the end and were so ready for the bus ride back to the school!

5. It's October! I love October it means that it is time for pumpkin spice, apple cider, and all other things fall! Plus it means it's time for Currently...

Listening: well, I was going to watch Pitch Perfect 2 while I got work and tpt stuff done. And then I put it in the player and it will play everything except the movie.  So I will be heading back into town tomorrow to get it exchanged! Instead, I got onto Netflix and am delving into How to Get Away with Murder!

I'm loving fall, but I could live without the crazy wind that is here with it. The weather went from higher than normal temps to lower than normal temps in less than a week.  I love the sweatshirt weather, but I could totally do without the wind!

I could totally go for a pumpkin spice latte right about now! It would be a great boost to my productivity since I have so much to do today.

I love that my husband takes time to ask questions about my day! It's very sweet!

Currently...where did August come from?

So it's August...how did that happen? I cannot believe how fast the summer has gone and I still have so much I want/need to do still!

Anyways, I'm linking up with Farley From Oh Boy Fourth Grade for her currently linky! I love completing these every month, except it always ends up being a reminder of how quickly my month has flown by.

Here's what I'm up to, currently...

My husband and I are on the very last season of How I Met Your Mother on Netflix and just found out who the mother is and of course netflix is freezing up now! Ahh!

We bought a house at the beginning of the year so we would have a place to live after we got married! I am so very blessed to have a husband who is a great handyman.  We've had a few issues within the past month...sump pump, lack of back or front door steps. But this man is absolutely wonderful and has taken on all of the issues we have come across!

I am so not ready for school to start back up.  I am switching grade levels this year and had to move everything out of my previous room, but cannot do anything in my new room until the 17th. My dining room and basement are a bit of a school storm at this point.  I feel like I have so much that needs to be prepared, but on that same token there is only so much that I can actually do at home. I am very jealous of those of you who are able to spend time in your classroom over the summer as you wish!

I really want this summer to slow down. I am needing a last little bit of summer fun...not sure what that will entail seeing as the hubs is super busy at the farm during this time of the year.  But I want one more little summer hoorah before we are both super busy! And I absolutely MUST go through the last of my upper elementary boxes so I make sure I have all the things I need before school starts!

I love the idea of Random Acts of Kindness. I try and do something like this throughout the school year because I think we as educators sometimes need a little pick me up. So this year, I am planning to put fun little notes and pick me ups out for my colleagues especially during the first week when we have tons of meetings and then the crazy grind of starting back with students!

So on all those little notes, I'm off to enjoy a little Sunday Summertime!

Monday Made It!

It's not often that you'll hear me say I'm excited for a Monday! But you'll hear me say it today because I'm linking up for Monday Made It with Tara from Fourth Grade Frolics!

This week I've been busy in the garden and kitchen along with preparing some stuff for my classroom. So here goes...

My garden has been supplying me with an over abundance of zucchini. 

This of course may have something to do with how my garden started and needing to replace some plants that died with new very healthy plants!! So we've been eating lots of good zucchini recipes at my house...anything to get extra veggies, right?  This week I made this wonderful recipe (found on Pinterest) for zucchini bread. If you're looking for a super moist and healthy zucchini bread recipe, you must try this!

My second made it is also from my garden. I love pickles, so I've been growing pickle cucumbers this year and they're coming in wonderfully (like the zucchini). 

So with all of these, I made five quarts of garlic dill pickles using a wonderful recipe I got from a teacher friend years ago! It was so great to use the recipe myself, finally!

My next two made its are things I've been wanting to do for a couple years and I figured now was the time since I'm changing grades this year. And these two items go very nicely together. I got to bust my vinyl and cricut for these classroom made its.  

First, I ordered a straw dispenser, and after exchanging it for a non-cracked dispenser, I got to work! Some vinyl letters and pencil cutouts and it was done!

And to go along with my new pencil dispenser, I got a wonderfully used (and from my childhood!) gumball machine.

A little vinyl and some pencil top erasers and I now have my own eraser dispenser!!!

That's all I have for this week. But I'll be back for next week as I already have a few ideas and creations in the works!

Make Your Masterpiece!

Week Three of the TpT Sellers Challenge really gave me the push I needed to start thinking about transitioning over to fourth grade activities! For the past few years, I've been creating for younger kids (as I've been teaching younger kids).  But since I am moving up a bit next year, I need to get back into the mind set of teaching older kids (thankfully I've taught older kids before, so I am not totally new to all this!)

So here is what I made for this week's challenge...

I am going to be using this activity in my classroom for fast finishers and as part of our centers.  I already bought bags (3 for $1 at Dollar Tree), so I will be printing off the colored pictures

 and placing them in the bags for the students to have something tactile to use in their narrative writing.  Of course, I will be laminating them for durability!

But there is always the black and white option that would not need bags...

After creating Narrative in a Bag, I thought I'd make something to cover opinion writing as well.  So I also made Opinion in a Bag! 

Same concept as the Narrative in a Bag, but with opinions. So of course, I made sure to buy enough bags to have some of both sets in use! Check out both sets, on sale today and tomorrow! I also bundled them for people who are interested in both sets!

And now off to the land of doing dishes and unloading/organizing boxes...blah!

Currently July!

July...how did you get here so quickly? Since it is July 1, I am linking up with Farley for her wonderful Currently linky!  Here goes...

Listening: I have been binge watching Netflix on and off this summer. Right now, my go-to is How I Met Your Mother! I've seen some of the episodes, but missed a lot and watched out of order! So it has become my go to as I'm going through boxes and doing some TpT creating!

Loving: I love our house and the fact that I can add personal touches to it. I really want to do a gallery wall, but I am having a hard time choosing which wall I want to do! So for now, I will settle with decorating our mantle, which has quickly become one of my favorite things to decorate in my house!

Thinking: I have so many things on my to-do list for this summer.  Some days I'm really good about working on that list, and other days I would rather do anything but my to-do list items. So I'm trying to find a happy medium of getting things done and doing what I want to do!

Wanting: The first part is pretty self explanatory...I cannot be the only one feeling this way! The second part is something I wish I could do away with or create something to do it for me! I feel like I am constantly cleaning something in our house, but that could have something to do with the boxes in the basement and all the teacher boxes I just brought home at the end of the school year! Which leads me too...

Needing: To go through, reorganize and get rid of some of these boxes. Some of the boxes have house stuff in them (although most of those have now been gone through. And the rest of the boxes are all the teaching things, resources, books, and such that I own from having taught so many different grades over the past eight years!

AllStar: I am a good listener.  I can listen and just let people get out the things they've been needing to tell someone or I can give my advice and two sense. I let the person decide. I understand that sometimes, it's just nice to have someone to listen to the things that have been swirling around in your head!

So that's my Currently!  Here's to slowing down the summer and getting all the boxes gone through!

TpT Seller Challenge: Week Two!

I am so excited about the TPT Seller Challenge being put on by Third in Hollywood, Teach Create Motivate, Peppy Zesty Teacherista, and Sparkling in Second. For the second week, these fabulous bloggers have instructed us to dream big!  I have several hopes and dreams tied to my TpT store and now I am going to share them with you...

My first dream is to supplement my income for my family and to help cover some of the house renovations we have begun. I recently got married AND bought a house. So it would be great to use some of the extra money to be able to renovate the house in the way that we want in the now and to have extra money for children and all that entails in the future! 

My second dream is to be able to vacation.  Even if it is just mini weekend trips or fun family trips in the future.  I am hoping that my TpT store can help with that!

My third dream is to pay off my student loans. I am actually getting pretty close, but it would be nice to just be done with it!

My last dream is to create things that I can use in my classroom to help my learners grow, but to also help other teachers in this same endeavor!

This week was a great reflection about why I do what I do! Now I am off to read about others and then go through some teacher boxes...changing grades is a tall order for summer!

Share and Prepare

I'm linking up (yay summer linkys!) with Once Upon A Classroom for her Share and Prepare Linky.

This linky is such a great idea.  You get to showcase one of your products that you use at the beginning of the year and others get to come and find great ideas for the beginning of the year and can start to prepare a little at a time! How great!

So I am showcasing Create A Setting. This is a great tool for Kinders. At the beginning of the year, most kinders have a hard time when it comes to writing. Either they don't know what to write about, or they are unsure what writing should even look like.  We always start the year off with narrative writing, it's so much easier for them to connect when they can write about themselves! So we start off talking about characters and settings. We discuss and draw different body styles of characters. And then we move on to setting. My kiddos know when it comes to writing, our picture needs at least one character and a five part setting. We discuss what things can help us to know what the setting might be and how having those things can help our reader to understand our writing even more.

So with all that in mind, I created this product so that my kiddos could practice creating different settings and practice our five part setting rule as we grew as writers.

Each setting has two versions, one that is a box like what may be on most writing papers and one that is in a polaroid picture frame that could be used for a writing bulletin board! I am putting this item on sale for the rest of today and tomorrow!

Come check it out as you prepare (at least a little) for the next school year!

Twoish for Tuesday!

I am linking up with Chalk One Up for the Teacher for 2 for Tuesday because I have some great updates and overhauls I have completed thanks to the #tptsellerchallenge!

Because of this, I have four things that I have put on sale, but three of them are just different versions of the same thing.  So I'm counting it as Two for Tuesday! And here is what I have been working on and marked down for you!

First update was to my Color, Count, and Graph Packet. I gave the cover a facelift and made it a little more appealing.  I used this with my littles last year and they loved it! Click on the picture below to check it out...

The next update and complete overhaul is my teacher notebook/binder.  I have this item in three different colors and use this in my own classroom. I just updated it to include different calendar set ups and an option to print and save your colored ink! Check each of the three colors out below...

These items will be half off through tomorrow! I hope you will check them out!

Monday Made It

In linking up with Tara at Fourth Grade Frolics for Monday Made It!  This Monday Made It is not school related, but I love how it turned out! Since yesterday was Father's Day, my Monday Made It is actually my dad's gift from yesterday.

I got married earlier this year, and as I was planning I came across an idea on Pinterest and thought I'd pin it and maybe come back to it after the wedding...and I'm so glad I did! Here's the original inspiration from Pinterest

And here is what I made!

I absolutely love how it turned out and my dad loved it as well! I bought the unfinished picture frame from Michael's along with the paint and a sponge brush. After the frame was dry, I cut out some vinyl with my cricut and attached my words. Easy peasy!

Now I'm off to read what others made this week! Happy Monday!

Makeover Madness!

I am so excited about the TPT Seller Challenge being put on by Third in Hollywood, Teach Create Motivate, Peppy Zesty Teacherista, and Sparkling in Second.  I have been needing to revamp and freshen up my teachers pay teachers store and items for a while now.  This was the kick start I needed!

So I started with my Color, Count, Graph: Independent Work. The activity itself is something that I used in my classroom.  Sometimes I would leave it for a sub and other times I left it in one of our math centers.  The kids loved it and did a great job completing it independently or with a partner.

With that being said, the cover needed an overhaul.  This is not an item that has seen many sales, and I now wonder if that was due to the cover.  It may not have been all that appealing.  I am hoping that the change of cover may give this item a little more life!

Here's the before...

And here is the after...

I love the change of change of graphics and the increase of color.  But I also love that I was able to use my own font...I'm hoping to do a little more font making this summer!

I am marking Color, Count, and Graph down for a couple days! So feel free to check it out here!

Have a wonderful Wednesday.  I'm off to check out some of the other makeovers and get things ready for a garage sale this weekend!