Grin and Grab These Friday Freebies!

Grin and Grab it Freebie Day

What is Grin and Grab it Freebie Day? Today only, several TpT sellers are offering one priced product for free. Please see the product cover pictures and links, below, to Teachers Pay Teachers to get your freebies. This promotion ends tonight, but please leave feedback while the products are still free as it can't be added after the products are priced again.

We are having a give away of a $25 dollar gift certificate for Teachers Pay Teacher for our first Grin and Grab it Day! See the Rafflecopter information, below.

2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th,7th, 8th, 9th, 10th	Tiny World of Insects Magnified by a Scanning Electron Microscope This Powerpoint slide show and PDF printable file includes images of insects and insect parts.
7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, Homeschool	Persuasive Speech & Visual Aid Project with Rubric Argumentative Oral Presentation Project, Rubric for Grading, Argumentative Speech
Kindergarten, 1st, 2nd, Student PDFs includedThis product is updated each year with more calendar years, so check back and re-download each fall.	Calendar Math, Birthdays 2013-2016 and Printable Student PDFs For 2013 thru December 2016 SMART Board, Power Point, and PDFs
	Breakfast, Lunch, Desayuno, Almuerzo Vocabulary Practice Cloze“Cloze” sentences give clues to breakfast and lunch vocabulary words in Spanish.
6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th,Adult Education, Homeschool	Three Ways Authors Reveal Characters Authors reveal the physical descriptions and the personality traits of the characters they create by using either direct or indirect characterization.

Thank you for reading!
a Rafflecopter giveaway

Fall Freebies and Back-To-School

 Hi, everyone! Have you been getting back into the swing of things at school? Maybe you are still enjoying your summer vacation!! I'm back full force now, and I cannot believe how fast the summer came and went. (Then again, it usually does...) I guess you could say I've spent my vacation doing things totally unrelated to school or teaching, like focusing on that never ending to-do list for around the house. Making progress, slowly but surely.
Nevertheless, once school starts back for me, it seems like its Fall (A VERY HOT ONE) instead of Summer. That brings me to the Fall Freebies I wanted to share today. 

    

 Maybe these items can help get your room off to a good start. I like to use the Class Library Check Out with my students so that they can enjoy the novels I have in my classroom library while I easily keep up with who has what checked out at the time. Another is one of my resources for organization-Classroom Organization Labels. We all love to start out the year organized, right? And the third item contains borders to use--Fall Harvest Frames. 

Each of the three above items is in my TpT store. So, if you head on over to grab these freebies, be sure to stock up on teaching resources for the remainder of the semester or year during the fabulous back to school sale!! 
Teachers Pay Teachers' Back to School Sale is August 18th and 19th, with tons of stores putting items on sale in addition to TpT's 10% off at checkout. I'll have the majority of my store on sale for 20% off too!

Dry Erase Pocket Folders...They're Fantastic and So are Teacher Appreciation Sales!

Heads up: Be sure to see all of today's post...hint, hint.

Visit MyBinding Blog!

Dry erase pocket folders are great for a multitude of things. And, thanks to MyBinding, I have them!!! 

They are fantastic tools to have for getting students' blood flowing too! 

In my mailbox about a week ago was a nice surprise...a set of 9 x 12 reusable dry erase pockets to use in my classroom...THANKS TARRAGON! ;) You rock!
Visit MyBinding to see more about them, or just go ahead and order them...you know you wanna...Check out what I did when I received my pocket folders from MyBinding!

So, since I just finished creating a new resource for pronouns, I decided to try it with the new folders I got this past week! It was great!

I just slipped them right into the pockets! Of course, to create a little twist, I tied some yarn on them, hung them in "stations" around the room, and had my students pair up and work each set while I played music...when the music stopped, they shifted to the next station. It was fun for them and such an easy way to get middle school busy bodies up and moving --trust me, they need it.  
(I didn't use pics of actual students while they were doing it since they were moving station to station/standing up--I didn't want to worry about photos of students and such.)
Anyhoo, there are 101+ things I can think of to use these handy pocket folders for, so I am looking forward to utilizing them more and more and more. ;) They are universal...great for all subjects, grades, skills, students. And, honestly, what student doesn't love to play with your dry erase markers? Mine always do!

Here's the resource I used with my new pocket folders-- Working with Personal Pronouns-Cases and Functions: Nominative, Objective, and Possessive Cases
I just uploaded it in my TPT store and in my TN shop too, just in case you want to grab it there. See my post about it on Blog-K-12.
And, last, BUT DEFINITELY NOT LEAST, I'd like to mention  shout out about is the big TpT Sale going on May 7th-8th! TPT APPRECIATES YOU! 
Don't forget to enter the promo code at checkout: TAD13

(Don't you just love the cute graphic, designed by Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah Designs)

I'll have the majority of my digital resources on sale for 20% off both days. TPT will be throwing in another 10% for a total of up to 28% off all sale items! Happy Shopping!

Have a great week, FABULOUS TEACHERS!!! 

YOU ALL ROCK, and you are appreciated!

Exchanging Positive Comments with Classmates on Valentine's Day

I love Valentine's Day! 

Along with Valentine's Day comes the exchanging of little "love tokens" ("love tokens" especially in middle school...) between those who "like" each other, have boyfriends/girlfriends, crushes, admirers, etc. But, we also know plenty of people (children, teens, adults too) who like to receive sweet little notes on this fun day! (Cupid does not absolutely have to be involved, right?) Sending a sweet note, positive comment, or smile someone's way is a great idea for the students (teachers too ;) ha!) 

That's why I ended up making this resource to encourage my students to exchange little notes with positive comments to each classmate--there's something positive in all of us and those positives should be acknowledged. It's a way to lift spirits, put a smile on a face, or just to let someone know you've "noticed" something good in him/her. 

So, why not have your students do the same. It's an inexpensive way to exchange "valentines" or "kind thoughts" on Valentine's Day! Grab the free resource in my TpT store! 

I'd love to hear your ideas for encouraging and promoting a positive environment in your classroom--for Valentine's Day as well as any other normal day at school!

We can all use these kinds of tips/ideas to boost the morale and warmth surrounding us each day at school. 

Happy Valentine's Day! (early..)

I LOVE Pretty Books and AWESOME Books!

Anyone that knows me personally knows I have a bad habit of collecting books...especially the ones with the pretty covers!! Don't ask...

Anyhoo---I'm forcing myself to declutter my entire home!!! That includes eliminating some of the books in my personal library. 

I'm letting go of numerous books, many of which I have obtained multiple copies of over time!

While I may end up donating them should teachers not end up getting them from my store, I've loaded them on TpT under used goods in the meantime!

Titles include:

The Hunger Games Trilogy

Mockingjay (hardback)

Catching Fire/Mockingjay (paperbacks)

and various others...

Take a look if you are interested!

I know many teachers, like me, enjoy building classroom libraries!

Score Big on Teaching Resources Galore...Sunday Super Sale

Announcing a kickoff of a sale! Teachers Pay Teachers is holding a site wide SUNDAY SUPER SALE! Tons of awesome sellers are putting their stores on sale--including me! Get up to 28% off in my store on lots of digital items and resources in many other stores! 

Be sure to use the PROMO CODE: SUPER 

This SALE is FEBRUARY 3RD! So, go load up your shopping carts and have a SUPER Sunday!!!

Stash your cart with items including these fun resources:

Multiple Grammar Skills
Assessments

Subject/Verb Agreement Cards!

Novel Pack for Mockingbird

Expository Text Structure Cards!

AND---There's a Super Sale at my Teachers Notebook Shop today and tomorrow! All items are 25% off February 2nd and 3rd! Score BIG on Teacher Resources of all sorts!!!
Score with these fun resources and MORE:

Test Prep for English Language Arts

Word Wall for Literature Terms!
Test Prep!!

Vocabulary Pamphlet!

While you are here, join my blog and tell me what you found while browsing TPT and TN! I'd love suggestions for teaching resources you have found in other shops! Sellers are buyers too ya know!

Happy Shopping!

Homemade Ornaments to Match Our Winter Poetry!

I love doing this activity with my students. The beauty of this lesson is that you can assess students on use of vivid language but on their appropriate levels! So, this fun and festive assignment is great for a variety of ages!

Should you be hunting a writing activity to go along with the Christmas or "Winter" season, this is a great one!! 

You'll find guidelines, suggestions, a grading rubric, a pre-writing template, and a rough draft handout to help guide the students through the very important writing process!

Pre-writing Handout! 
What I hear, see, etc...

The focus is on writing, obviously, so an ornament is included in activity only to serve as a visual supplement. So, the ornament creations are left entirely up to the students -HOWEVER they choose to make them should be JUST PERFECT. 

Grading Rubric &
 Rough Draft Handout

Eliminating any limitations leaves the doors wide open for creativity and imagination, encouraging students to utilize available materials they have at home. I discourage store bought items in order to cater to student imagination and it helps with those who are unable to go buy materials to make ornaments. The purpose of the added craft is to create a visual supplement that is totally homemade by gathering items lying around the house...the result being a creation representative of the child's Christmas/Winter term assigned! 

Guidelines/Suggestions

A super festive idea is to string some colored lights across the top of the dry erase board, a tree, or just across your classroom wall, hanging the ornaments on the lights (or hang them on fishing line if you are afraid to hang them from light strands... lol). 

Poof! Automatic Christmas/Winter display, student work display, and festive fun all crated by the students...no work on your part! 

In addition to the ornaments on display, you can put their poems up too, under the lights/ornaments or on wall around a tree, depending on which way you'd like to display it all! 

Oh, just a little tidbit...I use the terms "Christmas" and "Winter" because many students in my classes over the years have different beliefs and/or religions and I do not want to single anyone out or offend anyone--so if considering it our "Winter Poetry" writing assignment handles that issue.

---AFTER ALL, the purpose is to write a poem about an assigned word, stay on topic, and dazzle the reader with vivid language in connections with an assigned term. And, the visual display (craft) is supposed to represent the student's term! So, it hardly has to be dedicated solely to Christmas, which allows us all to take part in the fun writing/craft activity! You can find this item in my Teachers Pay Teachers Store or in my Teachers Notebook Shop! (Those links are on the top right of blog--or click images to go straight to the TPT product!)

I ASK YOU...

What do you incorporate as seasonal fun into your lessons? 
Please share some ideas below!! Who knows, if enough ideas are out there, we could keep the kids involved in seasonal fun until we are on Winter Break!

Happy Writing,

Woot! Woot!! CYBER Monday Sale!!

Super brief but important post...

WAIT for it... WAIT for it.....  :)

CYBER MONDAY PLUS TUESDAY SALE 2012!!

We are throwing a huge Cyber Monday Plus Tuesday Sale on Teachers Pay Teachers November 26-27th! 

You can get up to 28% off 1000s of products. 

Have you decided what different things you might need for December? January? Maybe now is a GREAT time to stock up on cute and fabulous activities and lessons for your classroom!

Thanks to Michelle (The 3am Teacher!!) for creating our OH SO CUTE graphic for a linky! If you'd like, check out all the other great stores linked up too!
HAPPY SHOPPING!!!