Five for Friday!! (Oct. 10th)

Happy Friday everyone!!!! It's an EXTRA happy Friday for me since I'm on fall break for 2 WEEKS!!!!!!! :) I've been wanting to link up again for Five for Friday for A LONG TIME now so I thought what a great way to start the break! So here we go!!

SUNDAY SAVINGS CIRCULAR!!!

Do you LOVE reading the Target ads on Sundays as much as I do?!? Well, I've wanted to do some sort of fun Sunday sale for a while, but I just couldn't think of what. Then, as I was looking through my weekly Target ad in my email, the idea dawned on me! A TEACHER SAVINGS CIRCULAR!! :) So last week, I started my very first linky party!!!! SUNDAY SAVINGS CIRCULAR!!! 

Now, I have to be completely honest with you guys!! I was sooooooo nervous that it was going to be a PARTY OF 1!! haha :) It ended up being a PARTY OF 17!!! I think I did a happy dance EVERY time I got the email that someone linked up!!!!! So fun you guys!!! You can link up with me for this weekend's Sunday Savings Circular starting tomorrow at noon!!! OR, stop on by to do some perusing for great deals and sales for Sunday!!! Best thing is, you can do it with a cup of coffee/hot tea/hot chocolate, and a blanket all cozied up on your couch! :)

We started with a new reading series this year, Reading Wonders. Well, the passages are all way higher than where my kids are right now minus a hand full. So when we're trying to practice a skill, it makes it a little difficult when every passage has to be read to them. With that, I've been trying to find/create activities that allow explicit practice with the reading skill of the week. We do literature circles which are at their levels so when we do the reading skill practice, I want to really focus on learning the skill and being able to then transfer it to longer passages. For the past 2 weeks, we've been working on analyzing the author's point of view, or opinion. Not finding much specifically for this, I set out to create a set!! I'm sooooo excited with how it came out that I couldn't wait to share it with everyone!!! Click here to check it out!! :)

This week I made it to 1000 TPT FOLLOWERS!!!!!!!!!! 

I cannot tell you how grateful and excited I am for this!!! TPT, blogging, and instagram came into my life just as things started to get a tad bit crazy in the education world with evaluations changing, testing changing, etc. The people I've met through all of these communities have truly helped me push through these times coming out as a better teacher!! I've learned SO MUCH from everyone, and I have had the absolute JOY in creating, sharing, and blogging with other teachers around the world!! So a HUMONGOUS THANK YOU to all of you for making such a positive impact in my life!!! :) 

OHHH, and I'm having a HUGE giveaway coming up soon so stay tuned!!!! 

I am absolutely LOVING our writer's workshop time this year!!! After I read this POST by my friend, Catherine, at The Brown Bag Teacher, I really wanted to get back to conferencing in THEIR writing space, not mine! Let's face it, when I asked them to join me at the u-table, they had to stop, get up, come over, sit down, open their journal up again, and then conference with me. So much interruption! AND I found myself not monitoring as much when I was stuck to my u-table. Being VISIBLE for the other kids to see helps keep everyone focused and on task. As I sit on the floor, chair, etc. with them, I can join in on their writing without interrupting their thought process. They really like it too!!! In my Writer's Workshop Conferencing Toolbox, I have everything I need to DIAGNOSE my student's writing strengths and weaknesses!

My students LOVE the toolbox! haha They want to look in it, touch it, use it!! It's a great motivator, and it keeps everything with me which makes it much more efficient! Then, when I'm ready to move on to the next student, I can quickly monitor others as I go. My kids are easily writing for 20 minutes, and I mean EVERYONE is writing! We have 45 minutes for writing, but it's split into 35 and 10. So I do my writing warm-up and mini-lesson for the first 15 minutes, and then they write for the next 20 minutes. I seriously almost fell over when one of my most reluctant writers since last year (I looped to 3rd with my class this year. :) came up to me and asked..."Are we going to write today?" I said, "Yes, of course!" This student along with several others, mainly boys have you, CHEERED..."YES!" I stopped in my tracks and looked around at them! TEACHER CHILLS ALL OVER!!!!! :) Don't you wish you could bottle up those moments to keep forever and ever?!? I'll make sure to blog more about this next week!!! 

Finally, I have 2 good friends getting married the next two weekends. The one tomorrow is a friend that I've taught with for 11 years now!!! I was so excited when she asked me if I would make some cards for her bridesmaids!! I love creating for friends, and I love how it turned out!!! This picture is my friend on the left and her sister!! Can't wait to celebrate with both of them!! :)

Thank you so much for stopping by and getting through this extremely LONG post!! :) Have a great weekend!! Don't forget to link up or stop by for the 2nd week of the SUNDAY SAVINGS CIRCULAR!!! :)

Five for Friday!!!

Hi everyone!! I hope you are all enjoying summer!! I finally am starting to relax after a month out!! hah :) I haven't gotten a chance to link up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for a few weeks so I thought it was a perfect time!!

So here goes...

1. This past week I finally completed my new theme for my classroom this year!!! I've always wanted to create my own theme with all the materials, and I cannot be more excited!! I am doing a Community Theme next year to help reduce the gap in background knowledge that my students come in with having to do with where they live and the area around them. Sooo...I cannot wait to get it going!! I even have driver's licenses made for them when they are able to remember their addresses and phone numbers!!! My groups are going to be City Living, Country Living and Suburb Living, and almost every material has a community scene as a background!! Can you tell I'm excited?!? hah :) I made 11 parts to my theme so I put them on TPT separately and in a bundle! :) I blogged about how I'll be using it so if you're interested, feel free to take a look! Click on the picture below to check it out in my TPT store. :)

2. I'm in ARIZONA!!! My family and I just made it to Phoenix, AZ last night for our family reunion!! We're going to Payson, AZ which is in the mountains for the next week! It's so interesting to see how different the US is by area! I love learning about it all! I have to admit, though, I'm really scared to see a scorpion!! hahah My aunt found one this morning! hah AHHH! We midwest people don't have those! I'm super excited for the week!  I love my family so much!!

Side note: I'm on my aunt and uncle's PC, and I have a Mac. Needless to say, even being pretty tech savvy, my cousin and I could not figure out how to rotate the photos. We rotated them in the photo program, but when I upload onto here, it goes back! hah So, I apologize for the upside down photos!! haha :)

3. So I decided this week that I need to do something about my landscaping at my house! haha I absolutely love my house; however, I cannot stand the landscaping! It's like a wildlife preserve! So I think my sister and I are going to try to get it ready to put rocks in and buy potted plants! Then I want to put down some bricks to outline it! If you have any suggestions or advice, I'm all ears!! :)

*I promise it's the last upside down photo!! haha :) Also, don't be fooled by how pretty the poppies are! hah They only bloom for about a week in May, and then they don't look so pretty anymore!! :)

4. After all of the posts and instagrams about the book Teach Like a Pirate, I just had to get it!! Well, it came on Monday!!!! Yay!!! I will hopefully have a little time to start this while we're up in the mountains!! Can't wait to read what it's all about! If you have a second, I'd love to hear what your favorite part was in the book or how you liked it!! :)

5. Finally, for my last post, I just wanted to put a quote that I love! After some events taking place, I am reminded how important friends and family are in your life! It's so important to have a strong support group around you, and I am just so blessed to have so many wonderful people in my life! 

Thanks so much for reading my Five for Friday!!! Have a wonderful, relaxing weekend!!! :)