Hello from Rapid City, South Dakota!

We are making great time and the cats are doing amazing!!

We are in South Dakota for the night!

I had a great 2 hours with my friend in Peoria! I miss her so much and wish we could see each other more! 

Drove through Iowa and had a rough time:) Hubby got speeding ticket and our hotel had fleas! We wanted out of Iowa as soon as possible! We left this morning, drove though Iowa, Minnesota and now almost through South Dakota!

I had a chance to stop at the famous Wall Drug! 

I got their homemade ice cream and their famous donuts! SOOO good!

Tomorrow before we start back on the road we are going to go to Mt. Rushmore since we are about 25 minutes away! SO fun!

I miss you and I miss making things. I just can't in the car...it is really difficult for me!

Friday Freebie:)

Happy Friday! Welcome back for another Friday Freebie!

Happy Friday everyone! 

I am so happy to be here on Tonya's blog. I've been stalking blogs for a long, long time now and I LOVE this blog, it is one of my all-time favorites! Tonya is just so incredibly generous, I am so happy to be here. 

You can normally find me over at my blog....

I have been teaching Grade 3/4 for most of my 14 year teaching career and where I teach that means Grade 3 testing in Reading, Writing and Mathematics. 

Every year in June we go through the same process and every year in June I tell myself I must teach "equations" better next year so that my students do not have such a hard time with these questions. But of course when this happens it is June and I am exhausted and just want to survive the last few days, pack up and head home for the summer. But not this year, this year I am actually doing something about it. 

Each year on the test there are addition and subtraction questions that ask the students to apply their knowledge to balance the equation. Here is an example: 5 + 7 = 3 + ? But of course they are never that simple. They usually look like this: 57 + 21 = 68 + ? or my favorite: 321 + 59 = 761 - ? and the last two years they added ones that look like this 28 + 14 = 20 + 10 + 8 + 4. Our textbook does not cover these skills explicitly and I have no resource that addresses these skills so I am doing what we all do, I am making a unit so that I can teach these skills throughout the year (not just right before the test!). 

I just started this unit (I wanted to start it before I lost my motivation and just chilled by the water) so click here to pick up a four freebie pages from the unfinished unit : ).

 Thanks again to Tonya! Now that I am finally on summer break I am looking forward to getting some of the items on my to do list done!!

Hello from West Virginia:)

Sorry for not blogging over the past few days. I have had to put things on hold as we began our move! All day Monday we packed the pod...I got 3 hours of sleep in 48 hours! Then Tuesday we finished the POD in the morning, I had to take the car to the shop, and then dinner with our neighbor. Yesterday we cleaned and did all the final run through stuff! We had SO much stuff that didn't fit into the POD...I mean, a lot of stuff!

So I put on Facebook and Craigslist a FREE moving sale and within an hour, everything we had was GONE! Otherwise, we would have had to take at least 15 trips up to Goodwill!

We are getting ready to head out of the hotel in West Virginia and make it 10 hours to Peoria, Illinois. I have a friend who lives there and it will be great to see her and stay with her since we are driving though her town!

The cats are doing GREAT! I am surprised. They were soooo quiet in the car. I know they were stressed because of all the moving and people in and out of the house over the last few days!

I hope you all have a great day, and I hope to be back in the next few days! I do have a Friday Freebie for tomorrow! Make sure you stop by!

Want to proof???

In between packing and cleaning today, I am going to be working on my new classroom management unit!

I NEED to have it done today, so I can print and laminate before my printer and laminator goes in the POD tomorrow:)

I probably won't have this done until late tonight! But I would love to have 2 people who would like to proof this and hopefully use it in their classroom too! It would be great to see how well it works in other classrooms!

Let me know if you're interested!

AND, I just hit 800 Followers! I will be back with a surprise soon:)

Sneak Peak at my New Classroom Management Plan and some Scratch off Revisions

The packing has not ended...tomorrow my husband and I have one more day to pack up our townhouse because on Monday we are loading the pod! 

Today we both said goodbye to some dear friends. First was our hairdresser. We both got our last haircut today! Good thing my hair grows slow so I can get settled and find someone new to cut my hair! Then we went out to lunch with our neighbors! I am going to miss them!

We ran some errands after that then came home! I took some time to work on a few things! And I want to share them with you!

I have had a few requests to make my scratch off reward tickets editable! I was able to start on those!

I started on my Hawaii set first:) HAHA!

So what you will find inside are the different rewards I've made

Then I added the same images but blank, so you can use them to make your own rewards!

I will be doing this for each of my scratch off reward tickets!

Here are the ones I have made!

I will work on making the editable files a little each day! 

On another note, I have been putting a lot of thought into my classroom management for next year. I will explain more later, but I wanted to give you a sneak peak!

Happy Saturday!

Friday Freebie

Welcome to week 4 of Friday Freebie!

This week I bring you

Hi everyone! My name is Amelia and I blog over at Where the Wild Things Learn

I teach 4th Grade Language Arts and Social Studies and absolutely LOVE my job. The day to day excitement makes me really appreciate my job! 

One of the things I strongly dislike hearing from my students is, "I HATE to write!!" I want my students to love writing. I want them to see it as a form of expression, reflection, and just a fun way to share. 

 

I do Daily 5 in my classroom for Language Arts, and Work on Writing (my kiddos call it WOW) is one of our stations. In the beginning of the year I set the tone for a positive and exciting experience at this station! I introduce many different creative writing options to get students excited about writing! In this way, they are beginning writing in my classroom with a positive attitude that will hopefully keep for the remainder of the year as we get into more complex writing tasks.

One of my, and my students favorite writing activities is the "Blind Pick a Story" activity. 

 

I cut up and laminate strips that have character, setting, and plot ideas on them and put them in separate little bins that have lids. 

 

 

Students lift off the lid and blindly pick up one of each. They then use the task card and follow the directions to build a story with these three story elements. 

They LOVE the element of surprise, and are really forced "out of the box" in their writing to be creative and expressive in their writing! 

I hope you are able to use this freebie in your classroom and your students enjoy it as much as mine do! Happy Friday and Happy Teaching :)

 

If you would like to be featured in my Friday Freebie! Just sign up here! PRETTY please??? I would love to have you!

 

Winners and some new frames and fonts

I am knee deep in boxes! Anyone want to come over and help???

After running some errands with the hubby today, more packing, I was able to sit down and try my hand at something...making some chalk frames! 

Well, and another doodle frame:)

I don't know...not sure if I made the chalk frames right.I am really not in love with these as I want to be! 

What do you think?

I am debating on adding them to my store...

On another note, I made a new front! I need to get back into this!

If you have my fonts, I will be adding this to the bunch soon! Just make sure to go back and redownload! I plan on making some more this weekend!

Last but not least...my Attention Grabber Winners! 

I am talking to my best friend in the whole wide world, Lori, and I asked her to pick 3 numbers! 

So....here are the winners...

Deb

Suzy Q

Constance

Check your inbox:)

And for those of you that didn't get the attention grabbers...I am marking them on sale 20% off for two days! Snag em' up now while they are on sale:)

Back to work I go! Have a great night!

Classroom Management-Attention Grabbers:)

Last year I found Whole Brain Teaching and just fell in love! I had the best class community last year and I give a lot of that credit to Whole Brain Teaching. I put a lot of work into building that community in the beginning of the year and it really paid off! 

So this year I plan to do the same! I love using different attention grabbers other than the traditional "Class, Yes" model.

So I took a look at my last years attention grabbers I made and beautified them:) I wanted to make them POP! I also added a bunch more to my collection! And I really like the way they turned out!

I made each attention grabber it's own page and also a page with smaller cards!

I have printed mine and already laminated them:) I think I am going to do the smaller cards and use an attention grabber of the day! But on the other hand, last year I could call out ANY of these and they would know what to do. They just had to keep their ears open for any of the sayings!

Would you like a copy? I would LOVE to give away THREE copies of my attention grabbers. Just leave a comment (with your email please) about one way you like to get your students attention and I will pick a winner tomorrow!

If you can't want and just have to have them, you can get them at my TpT shop and my TN shop!

Pack to packing I go!

Update on Color Labels, winners, and an Attention Grabber Preview

I want to say I am sorry for not picking a winner the night I said I would for my color labels! As you all know, I am going though a HUGE transition in my life, in just a matter of days and I am trying my best to fit some school/blogging time in between! Especially since once I get to Hawaii, new teacher trainings start and then its back to work I go! Summer??? What's that this year?

I have updated my Color Labels Set by adding two more types of labels! I really like these!

 I really LOVE Krista Wallden's clip art! She is extremely talented! I can't wait to hear back from her on the paint chip pencils! I have updated my TpT and TN shop to reflect this new addition!

I have randomly selected my two winners...and they are...

Check your email here soon!

So I have started to make a list of what I want to make, revisit, fix for next year. it is hard because it is a new school and a new grade. I have yet to see my room so I can't picture things. So I am doing what I KNOW I want to do!

One thing last year that worked SOOOOO well was Whole Brain Teaching and the attention grabbers! 

I am making some new posters and updating the ones I made before. Check back tomorrow for an attention grabber giveaway!

See you tomorrow:)

Monday Made It Flash Freebie:)

Monday is almost over...and to be honest, I am quite happy about that! It's been a draining day! I sold my car this morning:( I have had her for 12 years! I keep looking outside for Reba but she is not there!

The pod came! Yup, this move just GOT REAL!

Then I took all my clothes and placed them on my bed. I had to sort them into 3 categories

1. whats going in the pod

2. what's going in suitcase A (the one we are not opening until we get to Hawaii)

3. what is going in suitcase B (what we are living out of across country)

Mind you...suitcase B my hubby and I have to SHARE. I was trying to pack clothes I will need right away fro work in suitcase A, relaxing clothes for suitcase B, and what I won't need for 2 months in a box to put in the pod. 

Tomorrow...going through my school stuff one more time to see what I can box up and mail to my inlaws. This way I can have some stuff ready for my new room!

Speaking of new room. I decided not to change colors this year. I really don't have the money and I have a TON of great stuff. So, I bought some new paper to brighten up some old stuff:)

So with this new paper I made something for the Monday Made it with Tara at 4th Grade Frolics! And it is a freebie for you until Wednesday!

Last year I pinned this awesome classroom community idea! 

This is for sure happening in my new classroom for a few reasons! 

1. overall it is a great way to bring HOME into your classroom! I have always felt that the classroom should feel like a home away from home! 

2. but the big reason why I really want to do it this year is because of where I am going to be working! The school I will be at is on a military base with 99% of the population having parents in the military! I think having pictures around will make life at school a bit easier!

The other day I watched Lilo and Stitch for the first time...yes, the first time. It was SO cute! I just love the Ohana quote used a few times in the movie and I instantly thought of this picture frame idea!

So I did some looking around on Pinterest and found this cute picture!

But I really wanted to make my own! I plan on printing it out and putting it in it's own frame on top of a bookshelf with all the families pictures!

I think this quote can be a great one to live by in the classroom! We are a classroom community where groups work together and never leave anyone out.

If you would like a copy of this, you can get it HERE:) for free until Wednesday!

Thanks for stopping by! I am off to check out some Monday Made it's!  

PS...if you haven't visited my Facebook page yet, pretty please go like it! Freebies for my fans will starts soon;) wink wink