New Product Roll-Out Promotion!

It's Sunday, my birthday time!!! 9:04!! {LOL, my birthday is September 4th, 9/04/??} and I have a huge new product to share with you!

I am so excited about this product, mostly because it took me the better part of July to finish and perfect! I am just IN LOVE WITH THIS! 

I have done my research...there are a lot of beautiful classroom decor packages out there, but they included a lot of extra stuff that I just don't need in my classroom. So I decided I would make a Classroom Basics classroom decor package. Click the images below to be taken to my store for more information!

PRODUCT ROLL-OUT PROMOTION!

Be one of the first 3 people to: 

1."Like" me on Facebook (see my button in the top right corner of this blog, the "f" button)

2. Leave me a comment in this post with your Facebook name and email address! 

And I will send you the entire package for FREE!!!!!!

Good luck!

Husband Summer Blues

Sometimes I forget how hard it must be for my husband to get up at 5am every weekday, get ready for work, and work a 10+ hour day, while I am at home in my PJs until...ummmm...noon? Working on school stuff, TPT stuff, organizing, pinterest-ing, catching up on my DVR shows that he refuses to watch with me, lol!

He is super supportive and always says "You deserve it!" "I am glad you get to relax!" But work has been busy for him this Spring and Summer, like busy, busy, busy! I can tell it is all taking a toll on him. So I thought he needed something fun to do! One thing we complain about is when we go somewhere for the weekend to "get away" we always come back needing one more day in our weekend to unwind from the traveling and whatnot. 

So I did some Pinterest research and started a board titled "Dating my husband" 

One of my favorite sites I have discovered so far is the Dating Divas. I just love their catch phrase: Strengthening marriages, one date at a time! 

What I love about their site is that they have tons of categories for their date night ideas: Just the two of us; four or more; romantic; at home... 

The "at home" category caught my eye and as we caught up on our DVR last night, I went through all 13 pages of their "at home" date ideas.

I decided on FRISBEE GOLF!!! Sound fun, right?!

The only problem was when I went to download the document, it wouldn't download for me. It is entirely possible that I was clicking something incorrectly, but I figured because it was relatively simple that I would just recreate the parts I needed. Here is it! Click the image below.

Print.

Collect 6 baskets.

Two frisbees.

Follow the set up directions and rules from the Dating Divas (remember this is THEIR idea, not mine!)

Then wait for your husband to come home. I planned for this to be on a Friday night. I wanted him to be as relaxed and stress free as possible. And who isn't relaxed and stress free on Friday nights?!

I also had dinner from our favorite Greek restaurant waiting and cupcakes from the cake shop that made our wedding cake ready for dessert.

And the feedback from the husband: Awesome, unexpected,  never would have guessed this in a million years, creative, thoughtful, LOVED IT!

Side note: The questions inside the baskets really made this date. It was so wonderful to have the little discussion, be flirty and flatter each other. It was also really nice to hear all of the nice things coming from my husband! Annnnnnndddddd....the husband was beating me by 2 the whole game... until hole #6, the last hole! He had a super hard time on this one, lol!! I came ahead by 3 to win the game!!!!!

Monday Made It! {Link Up!}

Back to school is quickly approaching. I have lists and lists and lists started. Next week I start my National Boards Jump Start class. It is a 4 day class, that is 2 hours away :( to teach me the ins and outs of what to expect and what exactly the hundreds of papers I had to print are all about. 

So the last week has been a busy one for me! As soon as I am finished with that class I will be going into my classroom as often as possible to get ready.

1. Cork Board Rehab!

Last Sunday my husband was gone all day fishing. And although I am happy that he has a hobby, by about 2pm I am ready for him to come home. 

I had a busy morning...I had cleaned the house, walked around the yard cleaning up things here and there, worked on some school stuff, then around 2 pm, when I was wishing my husband was back home, I decided that I would grab my mini, some water, and my dog... and we would sit out on the back patio enjoying our Washington summer :) It was almost 90 degrees!!!

So naturally I began my sit down with Pinterest. I actually told my best friend yesterday that I probably spend 2 hours of my life on Pinterest every day. I can't get enough!

I saw a super cute cork board on there and thought! PFFFT! I could totally do that! AND I knew I had a llllll of the supplies up in my craft room.

Perfect-o!

I grabbed four squares of cork board, painters tape, white spray paint, and plastic to go under the project.

This project was so easy and turned out really cute!

I did get a little paint on the grass, but thankfully I was on the grass and not the patio, right?! 

2. Work On Writing Rehab

One huge goal I have for myself this school year is to be a better writing teacher. I want to work on giving my students more opportunities to explore being a writer. 

I found the MOST AMAZING blog ever with tons of writing workshop ideas. The blog is called Second Story Window, and two amazing ladies manage the blog together!

I fully intend to keep these monthly themes going all year! It will be a challenge but I think so so fun! Every month I will find monthly themed list paper for students to practice list writing, I will have Heidi and Emily's monthly list ideas ready, I have started collecting the expert cards and will get the research going right away, and finally, instead of having a boring monthly journal calendar, I am using their list of journal prompts mixed with some of my fans, too. And something new that I will be adding is whole class journals. I have seen this idea on many blogs and I am excited to try it out!

I was so super excited to find chevron duct tape and a cute little chevron bag to hold the list papers in. This will match my new classroom theme (Bright Chevron) perfectly!

Well that's it! 

Advice is definitely welcome! Tips for helping me with teaching writing... anything! :)

Word Wall Revamp!

At the end of this last school year I made a list of things I wanted to do better at teaching next school year.

One of the top items was my Word Wall.

I started off strong last year... I created, printed, laminated, and cut out new letters for the Word Wall headers. I talked with first grade and got a list of words they focused on throughout the year, words my 2nd graders would definitely know and I turned those words into word cards to be added to the Word Wall.

And then October came, SPED, LAP, ELL, and RTi started, I my schedule got hectic and I lost track of my Word Wall. 

So how will this year be different? 

I started by making new headers to match my new classroom theme "Bright Chevron." I have a whole Classroom Basics pack coming soon soon soon! Included will be my Word Wall, ABC posters, a Birthday Bulletin Board, name tags, table numbers, supply labels, lots of bunting banners, and more!

I was at school today for a scheduling meeting and wanted to get something done in my classroom so I started with my Word Wall. 

I chose to put my Word Wall in the back corner of my classroom. This is going to be one of the main meeting areas for my class (here and in front of the SmartBoard). I thought about putting it up on one of the cross beams but quickly x'd that idea knowing that if something is too high for me to reach... even standing on a chair... then I am not likely to stick to it.  

I also want my students to interact with the Word Wall A-L-O-T this year, so putting it at a comfortable level for them to see will be beneficial, too. 

As I was putting up the headers, with my million little blue tape bubbles ready and waiting, I started to first worry...what if we run out of space for all of our words?! That got me thinking... Word Wall Master Board. Here is what I am thinking...

Let's say letter "O" gets full, we have no where to put anymore "O" words on our Word Wall, but we just learned a very important word in science "omnivore" and we desperately want to add it to our Word Wall!! What do we do?

How about we look through the other "O" words on the Word Wall and choose one to take off, one that we have MASTERED! We can read it, we can spell it with out eyes closed, we can use it in a statement, question, exclamation, we can find it in stories... WE.HAVE.MATERED.IT! So we sing our Word Wall Mastered It song (working on this...) and then we add it to a special poster or bulletin board, or something in the hall, front office, commons area... and every time we walk by our wall of Mastered Word Wall Words we feel proud, we smile, and maybe we even do a little dance :)

Just  a thought!

Pinterest gave me a great way to instantly get my students working on Word Wall words. Thanks to Jennifer over at DiaryofaSecondGrader I now have a little project to get on! Hurry on over to her blog and get your copy of her SUPER cute Word Wall Chants!

I would just love to hear what goes on in your classroom when it comes to your Word Wall.