Free Stuff

I love getting free things, it just makes me super happy!! Scholastic is having their Dollar Deals and I found a coupon code that was posted on Teaching in High Heels. The coupon is good for $10 so I got 10 e-books and got them completely free!! That just makes my Sunday morning a little bit better today! Here are some of the books that I got:






The coupon code is 10THANKS

How do you organize your e-books that you buy? Do you print them out and put them in a binder or do you leave them on your computer?

Happy Shopping!!

Checking In

WOW!!! I can't believe it's been so long for me to post something on here!! Between the start of school, and my daughter's cheerleading practices my time is all gone! We get home around 8:00 and then it's dinner, homework, showers, and bed time!

My class is coming along, they are getting better and better with our procedures and we are working real hard on behavior still! Academically I feel like I have a very LOW class, so we are having to take our time on some of the skills, especially in math! I have been doing DRA test on the kids to get their reading levels, and it is taking a long time, but it so worth it! In reading we have been working on my version of the Daily 5 and the kids are loving it!! I'm just still trying to figure out how to cover everything that I have to cover each week for our weekly test. We use the reading series Treasures and there is a ton of stuff each week to cover! Any suggestions or ideas on this would be greatly appreciated!!

Ok, next time I will try to have some pictures or something a little more interesting to say! Have a great week!

Back to School Top 10 List Linky Party

Tunstall's Teaching Tidbits is hosting a fun linky party! Top 10 reasons you know summer is almost over and school is about to begin!

So here are my Top 10 list:
10: Starting to get my sleep schedule adjusted to going to bed early and waking up early. No more late nights for me!
9: Starting on Wednesday afternoon's I'm looking for the sneak peak on the Staple's ad to see if they will be having a penny sale for the next week. Cause we love those penny deals!
8: My printer is working overtime, printing out all the cute things I've pinned on Pinterest and must have in my classroom this year.
7: The teacher edition for Reading has made it's way out of the closet so that I can start planning now.
6: Cheerleading season has started so that means school is just around the corner, trying to figure how I'm going to be in 3 spots at 1 time when I go back to work.
5: All I want to do is go to the school and start decorating and organizing my classroom.
4: The school dreams have started! All I can say is they have all been bad so far :(
3: Everytime I walk into a store: Target, Wal-Mart, Walgreen, it really doesn't matter I HAVE to walk down the school supply isle. I guess just seeing if there's anything new that I have to have!!
2:The trunk of my car is getting fuller and fuller as the days go by. I can't wait to unload that stuff!
1: My to-do list is getting longer and longer as the days goes by!!

Team gift

I decided that this year on our 1st day back to work I wanted to give my team a little gift to kick of the school year with! However there are 7 people on my team and well right now money is a little tight!! So I have been on blogs and Pinterest (of course) and found some fabulous ideas! I will be making some Smore's snack mix and putting it in a baggie and attaching a cute label for them. I hope my team likes them, it's not much just a little something to make them smile the first day back at work!

Here's the label that I will be attaching to the baggies with their snack mix in it!
Enjoy!!

S'more tags

My thoughts on AR

Ok, I know a lot of schools use the AR reading program to motivate the kids to read and I think it is a good idea. Sometimes I like the program and sometimes I don't!! Yes it motivates the kids to read, but sometimes it makes them want to read easy books all the time! I think it is good for the kids to read easy books sometimes, so they can practice their fluency, or heck they can even just read the book because the enjoy the book!! With taking the quizzes the students are VERY concerned with what level it is and how many points that book is worth! I try to have all of my books leveled and with the AR quiz on the label to make it easier for them to find the quiz, but I also have a couple of buckets that I just labeled "Fun Reading" and those books in there do not have an AR quiz and I see so many kids go right past those buckets because the are not AR books! This makes me very sad to see that they are missing some good books just because it is not an AR book! But one thing that I find funny is I have some books that I was able to find the level too, but not a quiz so I level it and put it in the right spot and kids will read it and then go to take the quiz, and when they get to the the computer to realize there is no quiz I have a bee line straight to me with a very concerned look on their face telling me there is no quiz!! They get very upset that they wasted their time reading the book, so I try to stress that it's ok to just read to enjoy the story! After I talk to them they usually tell me it was a good book and they did enjoy it, but very disappointed that there was not a quiz to take on it to get their points!

I would like to hear your thoughts on this!

WOW if you are still reading this then you deserve something!! I decided to make a punch card to help motivate my kids to do well on the quizzes not just take them to take them, so I made some punch cards the kids will have! The first one is for 5 punches and the kids have to score an 80% or higher. I will use these at the beginning of the year to get them use to it. The second card they have to score a 100% and get 10 punches to get a prize, probably a trip to the treasure box, or lunch in the classroom. I have made them very general so almost anyone can use them! I also don't have a spot for their name I'm just going to have them write it on the back of the card.
AR 5 Punch Pass

AR Punch Pass

My first post!!

Well I took the plunge and have decided to start a blog about my teaching experience! This will be my 3rd year teaching and I have been in 2nd grade the whole time. I will be taking on a new challenge this year as I will be the team leader this year. I'm excited about that, and I work with an awesone team so it should be pretty easy!

Once I'm able to get on the regular computer I will share with you a label I will be attaching to a treat for my team on the first day we have to report back to work. I hope I keep up on this and that I get some followers. I hope that I will have something interesting to share with all of you!