Love me some Giveaways!

I have just recently started to get involved with giveaways and participating with other TPT stores! Honestly, I love this idea and I think it is so much fun! It is such a great way to spread the word and really network with others.

Today I am celebrating with Countless Smart Cookies for her Birthday celebration!

She has so many wonderful TPT sellers taking part! You should definitely check it our and enter!

I am of course part of the first and second grade bundle. It is winner's choice from my store PLUS a bunch of other TPT author's have contributed items as well!

Here is the Raffle Copter to enter!

http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/25e3b6f36/" rel="nofollow">a Rafflecopter giveaway

Looking for other grades as well?! Here are more bundle giveaways!!

http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/25e3b6f35/" rel="nofollow">a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/25e3b6f37/" rel="nofollow">a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

So many great offers here and I wish you all the best of luck!!!

Only a couple more days to go, so enter now!

I shall be returning soon with some more posts!! I am preparing to head down to Springfield Illinois for the Illinois Reading Conference! I'm excited to see what all it has to offer, and I will definitely fill you all in on the details!!

Ta ta for now! 

Working on Wednesday!

I am linking up with Middle School Math Moments to share what we are working on, on this Wednesday!

What am I NOT working on is the question! Currently in my personal life, I am trying to get things ready for my sister-in-laws baby shower on Sunday! My new little nephew will be here in early November, so this weekend we are celebrating with the shower. So trying to get the favors all set and finalize what I am doing for appetizers!

I am also procrastinating on writing my 6-8 page paper for my grad class! I just have no motivation to write this paper. I feel that we are currently doing a lot go repeating ourself in our current coursework, and I feel like this action plan I have to write, I have already written a variation of it twice, in my other classes! So hopefully at some point today I can get that started!

Finally, I am working on finishing up my smart board for our new ELA unit! We just started our new ELA unit with a them of WILD, WILD, WEST!

I think this unit is going to be a lot of fun, and is definitely different from anything I have done before.  Being able to incorporate informational articles, poems, and fictional stories, all with one main theme. I'm really excited that my district has started to implement this, and I am even more excited that I am on the committee that gets to write them! It is amazing how with the right timeline and methods and questioning, what you can guide and teach your students to do. I love to watch them light up as they make the connections as we move through the unit. Hopefully I can get the next couple weeks done in the smart board because next week, I am off to the IRC! (Illinois Reading Conference)

Happy middle of the week! Have a wonderful 2 more days of teaching!

Sunday Scoop!

Happy Sunday!

Today I am linking up with The Teaching Trio with this great Sunday Scoop!

Here is my Sunday Scoop! Enjoy:

3 Things I need to do:

1. We just started to implement Jolly Phonics in the second grade. It is completely new to us, and we have been given some professional development on it. However, as any teacher knows, it can be overwhelming sometimes to organize and start to teach something brand new in your classroom! The only bonus is that our students have been receiving this program since kindergarten. So I am just trying to organize my lesson plans that we created as a team, and am trying to create a visual smart board to help when teaching! Happy to say I am half way done, just need to finish up some loose ends!

2. This year, I am teaming up with one of the other second grade teachers and we are creating a second grade news cast!  Our students will be in charge of the filming and creating, and we will work with them to put together a final news cast to share with the rest of the school. The students will have the opportunity to interview other students or teachers in the school and come up with their own news segments within their media teams! We finally voted on the name of our news station! Now I just need to create a couple different logos to have the students vote on so we can keep this moving forward! I can't wait to see how cute these turn out to be!

3. I am currently in a cohort for my masters in Teacher Leadership! (This is the first step toward my type 75.) My current class has been put online, and sometimes it can be overwhelming to keep it organized! Every week we have a couple discussion questions due, as well as responses to other students. But then of course this coming week, I also have a paper due, and I am not really sure on what. So it is probably a good idea to organize what I need to get done this week for my class, to make sure it all gets done!

2 Things I hope to do:

1. GET ON TPT! I like to check out the forums and network with other TPT-ers! These last couple of weeks at school has been so busy with new curriculum, coaching basketball, going on a field trip, and just trying to get things done! So I really hope today I can sit down and see what other TPT-ers are doing and do some networking! It is so much fun and I wish I could do it more.

2. RELAX! Yesterday I was up and going all day running errands and getting things done. I got to spend some much needed time with my nieces too! However, it is always nice to have some down time to relax before starting another busy work week!

1 thing I am happy to do:

Write this Blog post! Like I said earlier, this school year has just been so busy so far this year. I always feel that once I get ahead, I find another way that I am falling behind! I have not been able to update this blog nearly as much as I would like. So I am very happy to make time to get this done and link up with other great bloggers!

I do hope I start to find more time to blog! I have some great activities planned for my classroom that I really want to share with all of you! So fingers crossed I start to get things done so I can share more with you all!

Check out all of the other great bloggers linking up with this! Have a great beginning of a new week!

RedditGift Goodies!

So today I want to share the program I was very fortunate to participate in! RedditGift is a website that holds many many gift exchanges throughout the year. It is really a fun way to share some cheer and get a surprise in return! In the beginning of August, they held a teacher event! Any teacher that wanted to join could share their story and hope to be matched with a donor!

I work for a fantastic district! However, we are not given an "allowance' or spending limit each year. Sometimes, things add up! So I gave it a try and entered the Reddits for the teacher gift exchange! Then, BAM, I was given a match, and then a found a box of goodies on my door step one day!

I really think it is a great event, and urge anyone willing to help teachers out to take a look, or any teachers looking for some help to take a look! Here is a picture of the goodies!

I urge you to check it out! Click here to Check It Out!

I also just want to give a huge thank you shout out to the person who made the donation! They were very generous and I can't express how grateful and appreciative I am! The little and simple things are what count the most!

Here is to another great week! Have fun everyone!

September Already?

I hope everyone has had a wonderful holiday weekend! So sad that it is considered the last official weekend of summer... even though here in Chicago the 80+ degree weather is telling us otherwise. But now it seems everyone is back in school and back to routine!

With that being said, as every school year begins, come an open house of some sort! So I am sharing with you today the All about me puzzle that I created for Open House! My open house was Thursday August 28th, and let me tell you, it was one heck of a day! I had about 70% of my class show up which isn't too bad! It is always fun to meet the parents and actually get to talk to them face to face rather then through notes or those sometimes stressful conferences. Plus it's a great way to get parents in to see where their children are spending most of the day and meet the person their spending most of the time with!

So of course you always have student work up, an all about me for the students of some sort. I know that in second grade, the students love to do ones where the parents have to guess which one is theres. they always find it so funny when they're parents try to figure it out. There are plenty of these out there, but I wanted something a little different so I am up with this all about me puzzle!

The students write on the puzzle pieces different facts that make them unique! We then take a picture and put it behind the puzzle pieces. The parent then have to "put the pieces together" meaning try to figure out which puzzle pieces add up to their student. The enjoyed it. My whole second grade team actually used this activity and it went really well. Here are some pictures from my teacher example!

You can get this in my store here!

All in all, as the year progresses and I get to know my students more and more, I am really excited for what this year has in store! I am lucky to have such a great group of kids!

Hope this sparks some ideas for your open house!

Enjoy the Short week! Be Back Soon!