First Week is complete!

                             

It seems like the first week of school is always the most stressful and tiring, but its' done!  One week down.  This past week we did do a lot of rules and procedures but we also talked about our special friend of the day.  Each day we will introduce a friend.  We take their name and do several activities with it.  Here are three things that we do with our friend's name.

When the students are friends of the day they absolutely love it!  It is their special day.  We do cheers, interviews and their name goes into a class book that is kept in the reading center.  It's a long four weeks of names, but the students enjoy it.  

First day of school fun and some new technology

First day of school was a success!  I had a class full of smiling children who are ready to begin their kindergarten adventure!  To make the day even better I came home to a sweet Target box on my door step.  

I ordered four mini ipads for my class a couple weeks ago when Target had $100 off mini ipads.  I quickly purchased them. I had been waiting for Target to run this specials since June.  They ran it for Father's day and I waited to order and they sold out!  My students are going to be thrilled to have their own ipad center.  Now, I just have to work on getting the otterbox cases.  

Hope your first day of school was a success!

Back to School Sale and My Little Detectives Fun

It's that time of year that teachers look forward to....the TPT back to school sale!  I have been looking all summer for things that I have wanted to buy.  If I could wait I did, if I couldn't, of course I bought!  I have two days to fill my cart, take things off my cart, fill my cart again and check out.  Yup, this happens at least two to three times during the sale.  The sale has already started so I am going to get hopping and head on over. Click on the picture to take you to my store, I'm having 20% off all items in my store.

I had added a new item to my shop, it's a literacy center with Little Detectives.  Click here for more information on these cute little guys!

The beginning of a wonderful year

Today was the day...the day that makes summer seems like it is almost over.  Today was the day that I went into my classroom for the first time since the last day of school.  It's bitter sweet to think of not staying home with my boys every day, but I must say working with a great group of people makes everything better!  I LOVE IT!  Of course every teacher loves this time of year.  The time where you can walk into your classroom at whatever time you choose, you can leave whenever you choose and you can relax and talk to your friends through out the day.  However the more you talk the less you get done, but I'm not complaining. When I walked into my room this is what I saw...

EEK!  Tables everywhere, boxes stacked up and things randomly placed.  So let the preparation begin for the 2014-2015 school year!  I can't wait to show you the finished room.  I already have the furniture placed where I want it so now let the decorating begin.

On another note, I wanted to share with you my new packet that I'm working on.  It's a Detective mini packet for literacy centers.  It's going to have alphabet and beginning sound matching, letter and word sort, sight word decoding and sentence building.  The little detective kids are so cute, I had to do something with them.  

Keeping my fingers crossed the finished product will be completed soon!

Sight Words complete!

I finally did it...the sight word cards are complete!  It took a little longer then I wanted, but I am so happy they are done.  I made two sets to match each word wall header that I have in my TPT store.  Click each picture to see them in my store.

Chevron Word Wall

  

Polka Dot Word Wall

Now I need to print my cards out and laminate them. However, I'll have to wait on that until my ink is delivered. I  bought a new printer last summer and I LOVE IT!! It it is the best thing!  It is a hp colored laser printer and I am so happy that I made the purchase.  I like the way it prints and the best part is I am not buying new ink every other week.  The last time I ordered ink was about 7 months ago and we all know how often teachers lover their colored printers!

                                               

Oh...and whatever you do, don't look at your calendar!  I did that today and realized that it is the end of July!!!  EEK!  Where did this month go?

Fresh 20

This is off the teaching topic, but I wanted to share something that I have fallen in love with this past month. My sister introduced me to The Fresh 20 meals and it is AMAZING!  It's a meal plan that gives you a weeks worth of meals, prep guide, grocery list and nutrition facts.  Most of the ingredients are used in the same meals through out the week.  The ingredients are fresh and it reduces your grocery bill..BONUS!  I prep all my meals on Sunday and when it comes time to make the meals during the week there is little preparation that needs to be done.  

There's no more what's for dinner questions, no more 50 item long grocery list, no more sitting on the computer looking for 5 dinner recipes, although I didn't really mind that.  However everything is done for you with Fresh 20!

The meal plan has meals for everyone!  You can choose to sign up for dairy free, vegetarian, gluten free, kosher or classic.  I subscribed to the classic meal plan about a month ago and love it!  My entire family is making the classic meals and we love to compare notes and see what we liked best.  I am even thinking about purchasing the e-book for lunch.  It would be nice to have a variety of lunches during the school year as opposed to sandwiches and salads.  

If you try it I would love to hear your review!

Facebook and a Freebie!

I am excited to have my own Facebook fan page! I hope that you join me on this new adventure of mine.  I love making things for my classroom and am excited to share them with you!  If you like my fb page make sure to check out the freebie tab.  There was a lot of hair pulling, annoyed facial expressions and sighing involved, but I am excited to have figured out the freebie tab.  Make sure to snag up my Robot Measuring activity for FREE!  I will be posting fan freebies every once in a while.

Click on the robot picture to take you to my facebook page.

It's July already!

I can't believe it is already July!  The summer is going to fly by now.  My June was rather relaxing and seemed long.  July is going to be over in a blink of an eye...NO!!!  I am going to enjoy every bit of summer that we have left...oh and squeeze in whatever school work I can.  I just completed my first handwriting packet!  I have added it to my TPT store.  If you click on the picture it will take you to my store.  I know my students are going to love this packet.  I plan on starting handwriting early in the year and I'm excited to focus on the motions of writing and not the lines.

Have you all checked out this awesome clip art freebie from Creative Clips?  It is filled with 33 awesome images.  She is wanting to reach 2,000 reviews and she will post another awesome freebie! I have a little clip art addiction...but when you have great clip art there it's easy to get an addiction.  

Slowly getting things ready

Why is it that teachers are always thinking about the upcoming school year in the summer. I  feel like my brain is always thinking about my classroom and I know many of you are like that because every blog I go to they are mentioning next school year.  I always have the questions: how am I going to set up my room?  Is it going to be the same layout?  What new lessons am I going to incorporate this year? What centers am I going to add to the chart?  I added this packet to my room last year and I wanted to share it with you.  My students loved it!  Click on the picture for more info.

Sneak Peek...

I am excited to make a handwriting packet this summer that I am going to use with my students first semester.  I have decided to revamp my handwriting lessons for next year.  I have started to create a packet where I can teach the students the writing strokes in the letter for the first half of the year and not worry about the lines on the paper. Here is a sneak peek at what they packet will look like when it's completed.

But for this morning I'm going to finish sipping my latte from my favorite nespresso machine.  I am in love it!  I bought it for my hubby for Christmas and it has become my best friend  It works with any type of milk and it tastes so so good!  

Enjoy your beautiful summer day!

Hippity Hoppity Bunny Fun

Oops, I had this post ready to publish on Thursday, but it never happened.  So here it is, just a little bit late.


Wahoo...it's Thursday!  This week Thursday means my weekend has started and I get to hang out with my hubby and sons for three days! My son has started baseball so that is what we have been doing every Saturday.  I must say I like being a baseball mom!  Here is a picture of my cutie playing baseball.

Here is what my students did this week to prepare for our spring bulletin board.  They really enjoyed picking their own bunny ears and bow.  This year my students love writing and having a craft to go with it.  So I was super excited to create this bunny craft.  I made it into an Easter writing, but you can always have your
students write about spring.

Goodies Galore

I just love a good sale and a TPT sale is the best!  It took me several times to decide what I wanted to purchase.  I loaded up my cart, deleted items, added new items and finally made my purchase.  I did this twice!  I can't wait to use these packets in the classroom and the clip art I bought is adorable!

I also purchased TONS of clip art.  I.Love.Clip art!  I don't think I can get enough.  Thanks to a friend I found Educasong that offers 50% off of their products for the first 48 hours!  Say what?  The clip art is too cute!

I hope you took advantage of the sale and purchased some goodies! Check out the linky party and see what other bloggers bought!

Teachers Pay Teachers Going Strong Sale

Who doesn't love a celebration!  Teachers Pay Teachers is celebrating Three Million Teacher Members!  So get comfy and start taking things from your wishlist to your cart.  TPT is offering 10% off when you use code TPT3 and I am offering 20% off in my store.  For a total of 28% off.  Come back tomorrow to see what great things I bought!