Happy Holidays!

I love the holidays! It means time spent with my family, time to relax, and time to catch up! My hubby and I spent Christmas Eve and Christmas celebrating with his family and mine. Our puppy Rosie is still exhausted from all the fun!

This was the picture on our Christmas card. Rosie was kind enough to stand-still for a few minutes for me to quickly snap this picture.

My husband gave be a Silhouette for our one year anniversary (get it… paper!). I have really enjoyed crafting on the weekend with it. It is super simple to use! I have made several banners… my specialty. I am thinking Etsy may be a venture I should look into.

Winter break means I have the time to do what I love.

I decided to update some of my older products… some really needed a face lift! If you already own my Types of Nouns pack or my Spring into Learning pack make sure you download the updates. I plan on redoing a few other items, so look out for updates.

 

 

Click the pictures to see the products in my store.

Can you tell I am loving the polka dots and chevron banners?

What else have I been up to?

I collaborated with a friend and coworker to create two amazing products. Jessica Zaninni is a mother, teacher, and  very creative TPT seller. She has more experience in the upper grades than I do, so I asked for her help with two 3rd and 4th grade products. Check them out in my TPT store. I think we make a pretty fantastic team.

This product has been requested by many of my TPT followers. Jessica did a fantastic job, every ELA, Reading, Writing, Speaking/Listening vocabulary word you can think of is included in this set. I hope you all enjoy our labor of love.

 

 This is another product that I had several requests for. I  am so grateful for Jessica's help and expertise with these 4th grade ELA EQs and I Cans.

 

Now, what should we do for New Years Eve? I guess I need to make some plans.

Filling My Time

At the end of the day when my husband comes home and asks what I did today, I often think WHAT did I accomplish? WHAT did I do with my valuable time off? I manage to fill my summer days keeping busy. Between laundry, cleaning, playing with the puppy, or reading the latest Mary Kay Andrews book, I often find myself in my office. I’m either making banners & things on my Cricut or sitting behind the computer. Either way, I am constantly doing something!

After I finished scanning all the files I brought home from my classroom, I moved on to my next tech-savvy project.  I started using my old iPhone and iPod in my classroom toward the end of last year. Well, I found this fabulous idea of Pinterest… convert your listening center tapes to MP3s! Here is the link to the original idea. So, I ordered an AGPTEK USB Cassette Converter off of Amazon earlier this month. It is so easy to use! The only con is that you have to listen to the story while it is recording. (I usually blog-stalk on my phone during that time).

(Here is my recording studio/ office.)

 

I LOVE how Molly at Lucky to be in First has her iPod listening centers set up. If you are thinking of converting your tapes check out her post about ditching the tapes and moving to MP3s.

 

I have also been creating a few new Common Core items! I don’t know about y’all, but I LOVE LOVE LOVE chevron! I have created a few chevron themed items for my TPT store. Check them out:

 

 

 

 

And here are a few other items I have created recently:

(click the picture to visit my TPT store)

 

Common Core Galore!

Wow! It has been a long time since my last post!! Needless to say I have been busy, busy, busy! I have spent my summer moving into a new house with my fiance, going to the beach and to Nashville, working on wedding details, and creating new items! I still have a good bit on my to-do list, but I did not want to neglect my blog any longer.

Georgia is switching to Common Core this year and I have spent a lot of time getting familar with the new standards. After attending a math training early this summer I decided I needed to create some SNAZZY common core items. The first thing I wanted to make was fancy vocabulary cards for my math word wall. Once I posted these on TPT I recieved requests for matching Essential Questions posters and "I Can" statements! I had never recieved requests before.. but, boy did it feel great! So, EQs and I Cans were my next task. Both sets come with black and white full page posters and color half page posters. I also created ELA EQs and I am in the process of creating ELS I Cans.

Click on each title page to get your own set!

                                                    This is what the EQ posters look like in black & white and color.

Just a sample of my vocabulary cards! This set includes over 90 WORDS!

    

OH! And in case you have any first grade friends, I have created a set of 1st Grade Math Vocabulary cards too!

I am not done yet! I said I had been busy this summer and that was not a lie! I also have matching word wall sight words for Pre-Prime, Primer, and Kinder in my store, as well as, a set for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Grade!

That's all of my updates for now. Hopefully I will get ELA "I Can" statements up soon. I hope everybody has enjoyed/ is enjoying their summer!!