HAPPY SUPER BOWL SUNDAY!!! I am so not a sports type of girl, so I am not sure if people actually treat super bowl Sunday like a holiday but I am!!! My poor husband has to put up with a wife is completely clueless about football and one who says things like "Why don't they buy pants that are see-through and why don't the coaches tell them to cut that long hair? The only reason I watch football in general is for the snacks and when I wasn't expecting a beautiful baby girl for the adult beverages. So for me to have a real question about football is usually far fetched.

I have decided that I am going to celebrate the Super Bowl like it is a holiday. I am taking part in the HUGE TPT super sale that is going on today. Jump on over to my store and see if there is anything that you need for the remainder of the school or get a head start on next year!!! My sale is going to have a 5th quarter and doesn't end until the end of Monday, so if you are busy being with family and eating lots of yummy snacks today, then you won't miss out on my sale!!!!





I have doubled down and have taken part in the super sale on TN as well. Same rules apply as the TPT sale. My sale on TN will not end until Monday night.


My new informative writing packs are just one item that is a must have from my store that is on sale. Also my most popular item, which is my Research pack is also on sale. The majority of my items are on sale, so go stock up on some great items!!


 

The wonderful blog Teaching First is having a February Freebie Linky Party. I have linked up with this party and I am offering my new Valentine's Day ABC order center. Click the link below and go check out all the wonderful bloggers who have already linked up and maybe even link up yourself. There are lots of freebies up for grabs.
                             http://www.teachingfirst-abc.blogspot.com/

Here is what my Freebie looks like. I hope you enjoy this great center.
      
This freebie includes the directions page, 12 cards that need to be placed in ABC order and a Recoding sheet. I would laminate this center so that it last longer.

As I have been getting back into the swing of things now that I am in my 3rd trimester and have been feeling great for several weeks now, I have caught up on some blog reading and have gotten back into creating for my classroom and my TPT and TN stores. I came across on blog post about Visual Lesson Plans. I am not over clear on what they are but by the looks of the plans I have seen it involves placing pictures and visual cues into your lesson plans.

If you are curious what they look like jump on over to Fabulous Firsties. I know she created hers based off of a different blogger. Here is the other blogger who has talked about these visual lesson plans Erica Bohrer's First Grade.  I am so in love with these plans. I have purchased the template that Erica uses for her plans. I am going to give it a shot for this up coming week. I will post how it goes after I create them.

I can't believe today is the last day in January. Where has the time gone. Only 2 short months until I get to welcome my daughter Lily into the world!!!!

I have just added my newest items to TN and TPT in a long time. I am very excited about these products. In our district we have started using Common Core Standards and with these new standards comes new writing genres. To help myself and my fellow 2nd grade teachers teach the Informative/Explanatory genre I created a writing pack. The pack includes different planning sheets and final draft paper. Also I found non-fiction articles on the Read Works website to go with the sheets that I created.

After finishing the pack I showed it to a friend of mine who is our curriculum coach at our school. She loved it and suggested that I make a pack for first and third grade as well. Each pack has the same sheets type of sheets but each one is tailored to fit the needs of that grade level. I was super nervous about making something for other grade levels so I bugged the teachers at school to look sheets over before I finalized each pack.

Lets talk about a giveaway!!!! I thought I would give away one copy of each pack. The person from each grade level to leave me a comment and follow my blog. Will get the pack that matches their grade level. Make sure to leave your email address in the comment. I have packs for First, Second and Third.

Hope on over to my TPT or TN store to check out the packs! I hope you like them. 
   

I am back with an update! I am in my 5th month of pregnancy and feeling so much better. I am feeling more like myself each day. I have been able to get back to a normal eating pattern and taking less naps. I am excited that I have the energy to start teaching and planning like I normally do.

If you have read my last post then you  know that I have been reviewing products for Creative Teaching. I have finished reviewing my 2nd product. This product is the Animal Group Mini Bulletin Board Set. Like the Plant on it could be used in many different ways. I used it both as a bulletin board in my classroom while teaching the topic. I also have plans on pulling it back out to use as a review center towards the end of the year.

I was truly pleased with this product and every other product that I have purchased from Creative Teaching. I would highly recommend using them from anything from boarders and posters to these bulletin board sets.

Keep your eye out for a giveaway soon! I am hoping to get a new product done shortly so that it can be added to the giveaway. Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. 3  more weeks and then it is Christmas Break....I need it!!!!

   I am back! Sorry for the long break from blogging. Well actually it has been a long break from just about everything. Right when school started back in Mid-August I found out I was expecting our first baby. With the wonderful news can morning sickness and needing to nap all the time. I have barely been getting my normal school work done let alone anything else. Now that I am into my 2nd trimester I am hoping that I will be able to blog more regularly and get back to creating. People keep telling me babies aren't cheap so I guess I better start selling more on TPT and TN!

Right before the morning sickness and all the naps I agreed to review a couple of products for Creative Teaching. As everyone who reads my blogs I used their Black and White collection to decorate my room this year. I really think that Creative Teaching puts out some great products.

The first product is the Plants mini bulletin board set. I am in LOVE with this product. It can be used in so many different ways. Here is how I used it in my classroom. I punched it all out and had it laminated. Then I when I was teaching a certain topic I would pull those pieces out and use them in my lesson. Students and I would talk about the pieces and would place them on our focus wall. We just kept building out focus wall throughout the whole plants unit. Sometimes our whole lesson was placing items on our focus wall. For example we had been talking about plant parts you can eat, so we went and did a sort on our focus wall.

Other ideas I had were place them in centers and make the pieces self check. This would be a great way to review the concepts through out the year.

Creative Teaching has offered to give this product away in a giveaway on my site. Please stay tuned for more details on this giveaway!

Yay for being awake enough to blog!!

Last week I presented at my school district's summer conference that they had to help teachers prepare for common core. Back in April I applied to be a presenter and well I was picked but I am not sure how strict they were since there were over 600 choices to pick from. I still felt honored and well terrified. My partner and I worked all summer on our presentation and we decided we would do a fun make and take session with Math Notebooks.

We took our math series which is Pearson's Envision Math and created foldables and journal entries for each lesson in the first two units. Along with the foldables there were I can statements for each lesson, directions for each activity and a grading sheet. After hours of creating and talking about what we wanted to say and making our flipchart it was D-day. I had never been so nervous in my life. I was terrified that they would hate it or that I would say something that wasn't right. To my disbelief everyone LOVED it and were so excited to use them this year in there room. They were so happy that it was a make and take session. They all left with the whole first unit done in their notebook.


As with any good PD session we had giveaways. This was in place just in case they didn't like our session. One of my giveaways was my I CAN posters to go with every lesson from the math series. This was a huge undertaking alone. I thought I would debut these poster here on my blog.  Here are a couple of the posters that I made.

Sorry for the photos. I took it on my phone from my computer screen. These are available at both my TN and TPT store. Keep an eye out because they will be on sale SOON.

I hope everyone is having a great summer....well I guess summer is pretty much over. I started on Tuesday but students don't start until this coming Tuesday. I am almost done with my classroom and once that is done I will post some pictures.