Surprise TPT Sale: Today Only!

TPT Back to School Sale

   It's that time of the year for back to school sales start, though to bee honest they have already been out for like two weeks already.Am I the only one the is a teeny bit excited about the new school year?

   Looking back at what I had in my store just a year ago to now is such a big difference. At the time I only have free items and they were more management or decorations for classrooms. Now I have worksheets, activities, and games. All of which I am very proud of. 

Anyways enjoy the last few weeks a summer while you can!

Next Year: Star of the Week and Freebie!

  

   
   I have been thinking about some changes that I want to do in my classroom next year and I honestly can not wait until next school to implement the changes. 

   One of the things that I wanted to revamp was my star of the week. I just didn't feel it was quite special enough. I did some searching on Pinterest and Blogs to get some ideas. I finally found a few good ideas and realized that I was already doing some of things that teachers did too. 

   I really didn't like my letter to parents. The one I have know if your one of the other teachers and I just didn't like the layout on the letter. It was just so long and wordy and not eye catching enough. 

   I decided that everyday would be something special for the student:

Monday: The student will share their poster.
Tuesday: Have lunch with the teacher and two classmates.
Wednesday: Bring in an item for show and tell. 
Thursday: Bring in your favorite book for the teacher to read. 
Friday: Class will create book for student to take home. 

I also created a star of the week crown the student can decorate and wear throughout the week. 

You can get both of these for free at my teachers pay teachers store by clicking on the image. 

Next Year: Writing Binder/Folder and Freebie!

   This is something that I ended up implementing towards the end of the school year because it was really simple and I felt that I would be beneficial to my students.

   We had been using writing folders, but are folder were made from paper and were falling apart towards the middle of the school year. Now truth be told, some of this could have been saved if I had put their papers in instead of them, but then again that just wastes my time for doing other things. Also students need to learn how to place papers inside something correctly anyways. 

   I had seen on Pinerest the writing goals poster and I really loved the idea, though I decided to change that and place it as the front page in the student's writing binder to remind them what they need to be working on. I would meet with some of my students everyday during writing time throughout the week and we would check to see if they completed this goal or not. Their writing team would also look at that to help them when checking their writing. 

   Other writing tools in the binder included, alphabet chart, digraphs chart, vowels chart, writing checklist, sights chart, and color words.

   In my packet I have included different writing checklists as the year progresses because I start to expect more from my students. I also later in the year I will include the second sight word list, digraphs, and vowels chart. I add them after I have teach my students about them. 

   You can getting the whole writing packet for free at my Teachers Pay Teachers store. 

Teacher Appreciation Sale (Now Over)

I am excited to give back to the teacher community with a sale at Teachers Pay Teachers. This is a great time to buy products from your favorite sellers and try new products from new sellers. 

Everything in my store is 20% off!

Here are a few of my favorite products and that I personally use:

Today and Tomorrow TPT Sale!! (Now Over)

Starting today and ending tomorrow Teachers Pay Teachers is having a sale. This is a good time to try out my products to see if you like them. Everything in my store will be 20% off. Most of my products are only $1.00 already and then you get 20% which is a steal!

I hope everyone is enjoying the new year so far in and out of their classrooms! 

Christmas Fail and Winter Break

So I was a complete failure with my 17 days of Christmas and which turned into only 12 days. For starters I was late uploading things and fell behind schedule. I just could not keep up. Next year I need to start making things ahead of time like starting in October or earlier. 

Also I was so so so busy planning for the last three days of school before winter break. As a team we decided to do fun Christmas themed activities. So spent spent many of those days searching on Pinterest and then trying to get all of the materials ready. 

Sorry for anybody who was following along with that. I am thinking (no promises) that I might do another one sometime before the school year is over. Maybe. Will see. 

Anyways so far I have been planning and creating things to use in my classroom. We are getting ready to start word families, so be expecting that to be showing up in my store. I have been trying to get things ready like to center activities and worksheets. I have a new parent volunteer coming in to "help" and want to make sure that I keep her busy. In the copy room.

I feel very productive and relaxed at the same time because knowing that I am planning ahead makes me feel good. January is going to be a very busy month. I have to start checking students reading levels and then I have to do another assessment. Also sometime during the month I have my formal observation. The only I am not looking forward to is the lengthy doesn't seem very important lesson plan I have to type up. 

I hope everyone is enjoying their break while it lasts!

TPT Cyber Sale! Nov. 30-Dec. 1

Starting on Monday and going on through Tuesday, there will be a sale going on on Teachers Pay Teachers. 

I don't have too many paid products in my store, but come check out the few that are there because starting in December I will be adding new products every day (expect weekends) to my store for not 12 days of Christmas, but 17 days of Christmas. 

Everyday until Christmas eve, so be sure to check back a my store everyday in December! All the products will be FREE for just only the first day!

Planning, TPT, and Other Teachery Things

I have just been so busy, which I am sure many of you know how busy being a teacher can be let alone a first year teacher starting after the school year. I feel like no matter how much I try to plan ahead for the upcoming week over the weekend, that I always fall behind, though my team feels the same way since we have a new curriculum this year. 

Overall things have been slightly overwhelming with things at work. Like keeping up with county assessments, planning, meetings, emails, and events going on at school. It's all just a lot and I never know who to talk to about all of this. I kind of have a mentor, who has been really great, but there are just some things that she doesn't know or I find out that she told me wrong. I just worry about missing deadlines for all of the county assessments and getting in trouble. 

I have one assessment that needs to be done by the beginning of November and all I have been doing for the past two weeks is assessing students. I feel like I am not teaching them anything, especially during math because that is the time that I spend the most assessing students. It has gotten so bad that I don't even know exactly where I am even at in math. After school this Monday, we are going to plan for math and I am just so thankful because I feel just lost at this point. 

Then I have started my own store on TPT which has been an interesting and new process, so far I have only free items, but plan to add paid items soon. I know that it will take time for my store to grow and when I add my paid items that it could take time for it to sell. I post twice a week and thankfully I spent my summer creating items, so I just had to add it to my store and I do not have to worry about creating activities. 

I know my store comes second compared to my students, but I do want to take my store seriously and hopefully it will become a little something. I plan to move sometime the beginning of next year. My commute is about 50 mins to 1 hr. drive and it is starting to take it's toll on me. I will soon be driving in the dark to work and then back home in the dark. 

Anyways I better get back to planning for this week. Luckily we have a half day on Thursday and then no work on Friday. I could really use a three day weekend. Also I am not sure about a schedule for my blog, but hopefully I get everything settled with work soon and can atleast post once a week. 

July Wrap Up

It's the end of the month again. I can't believe how quick this month went by. 

This has not been going well and I can't seem to figure out the problem. About two weeks ago I decide to apply to another county because I have only applied to two counties. And I realized that the one county is very far away. I don't want to be to far from my family in case something happens. 

The county I applied to is pretty closer to where I am now. Of course wherever I go, I plan to move because I don't want to be communicating all the time and getting stuck in traffic. That is just such a waste of time and as a teacher time is so valuable. 

Just the other day, I thought about what is going to happen if I don't get a job. It's a long time until the next school year. My mom is making me nervous thinking it won't look good if I don't get a teaching job. I decided to apply to another county. I also have been thinking about applying to another for a county I don't really want, but I am worried. 

I just really wish something would happen sooner rather than later. 

I have not bought anything yet still for my non existent classroom nor has my mentor given me any thing else. Besides I don't think there is much more room in my parents house. About a week or so ago, I went through Teachers Pay Teachers free downloads section and got a whole bunch of stuff. I have a folder on my laptop related to everything about teaching and it has almost 2,000 documents. Almost all of that is from TPT. 

I have been binge watching Pretty Little Liars. It is pretty good, but again just like with House I got bored around season four. Though season five was really good and now I am all caught up. I guess I will have to go back to watching House and finish watching it. I only had two seasons left anyways. 

I am still ahead of schedule for a reading goal for the year. I have read 7 more books during this month. I thought that I read more then that, but I had trouble finding books I was interested in reading. There were three books that I enjoyed very much; Kiss the Girl, Forfeit, Revenge, Ice Cream, and Other Things Best Served Cold.