It's my birthday, It's my birthday ...FREEBIE!!

I have a 4 GREAT reasons to celebrate.  

1. I'm so excited that my little blog has 100 followers. Thank you all for your kind words, comments and support.  This is such a wonderful experience with so many amazing people willing and ready to share and collaborate in the name of kiddos.  I have been so inspired by so many of you.  I only hope that I could give back in some way.
2. The second reason is tomorrow is my birthday. A lady never tells her age but I'm going with stuck on 30ish.  (Check out the freebie below...)
3. The third reason is I actually got to sneak some stuff into my room (that is if you call sneaking - being spotted by your principal in your room when nobody's supposed to be there-OOPS!)  I truly hope she doesn't hold it against me - I am a TEACHAHOLIC.  
4. The fourth reason is I finally finished my first unit to go into my TPT store.  I took  the advice of Farley at Oh Boy Fourth Grade and decided to create something that was true to me.  According to CSCOPE (Texas' version of the Core Curriculum) one of our first genres is traditional literature, more specifically fables. I created a mini-unit that I'll be using this year with seven different activities including a craftivity.

I'm  working on a giveaway to celebrate all that makes me giddy (4 reasons listed above).  Calling  All bloggers - I am in desperate need of ideas about what I could do to put together my 100 follower giveaway. I would so appreciate advice, ideas, and donations.  I really don't have a clue how to do this or how to do a rafflecopter?

Anywhoo- since it is my birthday tomorrow I am going to let the first 30ish people to comment on my blog download my unit for free.  The only catch is that I would greatly appreciate feedback about the unit. Please be sure to leave an email address if your email address isn't on your profile.

Thanks Ya'll

What!?! NO Teachers....

I was able to peek into my classroom Monday.  My room is done but our new principal said NO teachers are allowed in the building (can you hear my heart break....).  My house is in serious overload not to mention my stuffed storage unit. See look....

Well, that left me at home looking at all the great stuff that's happening in the blogosphere.  Anyone that knows me, knows I'm a bit addicted to Pinterest and with just a pinch of OCD.  Thus ANOTHER project....  I found inspiration on Pinterest to organize my drawer organizer with bulletin board borders.

Well, it didn't stop there. I decided I could do the same thing with my teacher binders and use transparencies to make cute and color-coordinated binder spine inserts.

 plus....

This is my finished product.

What do you think?

Must Have Picture Books Linky Party and Freebie of course!

The Teacher Wife  is having a great linky party about "Must Have Picture Books."  I love picture books so it was so hard to come up with only a few. I narrowed itdown to my go-to classics that I use EVERY year.

Oh, the Places You'll Go!
I love to give this book to new teachers and read it to my class at the end of the year while I'm sending my babies on to their new teachers. It shows kids that they have the potential to do great things











 
Where the Wild Things Are
I used to read this book to my son (complete with sound effects) almost everyday.  This book is a family and classroom fav.  It's great for teaching inference and cause/effect.







Chrysanthemum
I'm sure this is a fav for a lot of people.  I just love how Kevin Henkes relates to kids real-life "drama."  I admire how her teacher, Mrs. Twinkle, influences the children to be more accepting.  I always use this at the start of the school year.






Click, Clack, Moo
I just adore Doreen Cronin.  I met her last year and she is so REAL.  She gets parenting and teaching kids to love reading. I like to use this as an introduction to letter writing - not to mention that the duck cracks me up!







 
The Giving Tree
This book is a classic.  I love the simple illustrations and story line.  This book is my go to book for Earth Day and how we should give to and receive from nature.   

Make sure you link up with The Teacher Wife to share your favorites!

 

Click HERE to snag a freebie Reading Skill Book List 

I sometimes use this list to find books for a specific reading skill or mini-lesson. 

Enjoy!!

More labels...

I'm so jealous of all of you that have already been in your rooms getting ready.  In the midst of all my projects, I've been sorting through all of my stuff at home and in my storage unit.  You have no idea what I have accumulated in the past 12 years of teaching.  I have been inspired to streamline and organize this summer.  My new philosophy is if I buy something new, something old has got to GO! At least this way I can label everything so that I can find it when I need it.

Well, as promised here are the labels for my monthly thematic topics (units).  I store all of my activities related to that month in one box.  The boxes stack nicely above my cabinet and make planning easy.  I just take the whole box to our collaborative planning meetings. You can visit my TPT store to get the freebie.

I also have boxes for each of my ELA skills (inference, story elements, author's purpose, etc).  I also use large clear boxes from the container store for these activities.  For the past 2 years I have been team teaching, so most of my most current boxes are for ELA.  Since I'm organizing all my "stuff,"  I'll soon post the ELA, Math and Scienc topic box labels as well.  Enjoy!

So what if I'm labeled...

I got a comment request for the labels that I used to organize my files.  I separate my daily papers in file boxes for the week but I also keep activities in my monthly theme boxes and in reading topic boxes. I'll be posting each set of labels soon. Today I'm posting my daily box labels.  Click on the picture below or visit my TPT Store to get the labels.

I decided to revamp my monthly theme box labels and will post them soon.  Here's a sneak peek....

 Of course this is just an excuse to go to one of my favorite places - The Container Store!  I use large men's clear shoe boxes to store the monthly theme and topic materials.

My First Award!!!

I am so thrilled to announce that Heather at Read and Black and Learning All Over awarded me the Versatile Blogger Award . Thank you so much Heather!!!

There are seven rules for this award.

1. Thank the blogger who nominated you!  Much luv to ya Heather :)
2. Include a link to their site.  See above...
3. Include the award image in your post.
4. Give 7 random facts about yourself.
5. Nominate 15 other bloggers for the award.
6. When nominating, include a link to their site.
7. Let other bloggers know they've been nominated.

My random facts.....

• I'm addicted to Pinterest
• I'm a HUGE nerd and love reading vampire books like the Twilight series and Charlaine Harris books
• The beach is one of my favorite places
• I LOVE chocolate and Caramel Macchiatos from Starbucks
• I went to school to be an engineer. After 7 years as a systems engineer and 2 kids, I decided to teach.
• I've taught both of my children in school (Instructional Technology)
• I was born in Vicenza, Italy

And the Versatile Blogger nominees are (drum roll, please).....

1. Create-Teach-Share
2. The Creative Crate
3. Confessions of a New Teacher
4. Cardigans and Curriculum
5. Teaching in the Early Years
6. What the Teacher Wants
7. Miss B Busy Bee
8. 2nd Grade Frosting
9. Crayon Bits
10. Mrs. Guntorious' First Grade Class
11. First Grade Factory
12. 2nd Grade Bliss
13. Mrs. Schmelzer's First Grade Class
14. Tangled With Teaching
15. Chalk Talk (I know April's already gotten this award, but she's just that AWESOME!)

 Please go check out these blogs, they're great!  :)

 

5 Dollar Treasure at Walmart!

I'm always changing my mind about what colors I want for my room so I decided why not have them all.  This year I'm going to have a Polka Dot Rainbow theme (hmmm that reminds me of skittles).  With the decision made I went to look for things to create and decorate.  I found fabric for a bunting banner at Joannes.

. 

While at Wally World, I found large plastic treasure boxes in red, blue and lime green for only $5.00.  I paid 3 times as much for mine :0(  But I did find their 88 cents section for teachers.... SCORE!!!

I also discovered that Michaels has a sale on acrylic paints, foam brushes, ribbon, duct tape and clearance plastic tubs.  We'll that's the makings of a project!  I decided to create a tub similar to one I saw at the Polka Dot Patch because I needed a tub to hold student lunches.  I found the perfect lime green color to match my new Rainbow classroom theme. I''m going to cut out rainbow colored dots from duct tape to put on the bucket and make ribbons to decorate the handles.  I had a weak attempt at making a bow with ribbon scraps ....
   

My Inspiration

My attempt

That led me to my next project - a painted canvas for my classroom door.  Again, I had no luck with the ribbon but I'll try my luck on Pinterest for ideas.  This is my progress so far....

I'm almost finished painting my bookshelves and I hope to get into my classroom soon so I can start unloading all the stuff I have crammed in my house. Wish me luck!

Pinterest Love and Blog Hop!

I now have a Teacher's Pay Teacher's store open and a Pinterest Board.  I added some free stuff at my store just in case you're having trouble getting things here.  I'm just in love with Pinterest.  It's my new obsession and curse.

I found so many cute projects for the summer. I'm already painting things for my classroom so why not add another project?

I know I'm a little late in the game but I decided to BLOG HOP.  I never realized that the same list of blogs will appear on everyone's page.  So here I go....

I hope I did that right?!!?

Skippyjon Jones to the rescue!

Well, I'm back at it.  I went to the bookstore and bought a few must have books.  Then, I couldn't resist going by Kohls and picking up the Skippyjon Jones stuffed animal to go in my library. He inspired to finish labeling my class library book boxes. I'm going for polka dots and calming colors this year (can you imagine that). There are blue nonfiction labels and green fiction labels.  Here take a look...

Click on the picture or HERE to snag the labels and enjoy!

Just saw the cutest thing for my fluency station from Learning Resources.  Have you visited Life in First for her microphone raffle?  
Life in First Grade

I'm Baaaaack!

    Wow, this has been an exciting year!  I have been swamped with papers, projects, and people pulling me in 15 different directions.  Now that summer's here I finally get to breathe.  I think I spent most of June in workshops and sorting through my classroom junk. I feel like my summer is just now beginning.  This past year was AMAZING!  I was voted teacher of the year at my elementary and I discovered I'm in luv with second grade.  I was in overdrive teachaholic mode all year and  spent excessive hours trying to learn the curriculum, develop engaging lessons and figure out realistic expectations for my kiddos. (sadly :(  I had not time to blog)
      This year I'm excited about getting to be a regular blogger and improving on last year's lessons.  I can't believe that I'm already getting ready for next year.  I've been secretly stalking the Target Dollar Bins looking for teacher stuff and painting yard sale furniture finds. I'm currently painting a stool and two bookcases. Here's a picture of my progress.

Before:

Now:

Of course I didn't think about adding magnetic paint until now but second bookcase will be magnetic.  Next, I want to paint designs to match my classroom decor on the sides and top.  I sure wish I could find an author's chair while I'm in paint mode.

Anywho...I'm glad to be back!  Thanks for the kind comments, messages, and emails.