Whirlwind!

It has been such a whirlwind of a month this October!  My husband and I celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary at an amazing blow out of a hockey game (with a HUGE thank you to my parents for watching baby girl!).  I've also been on the job hunt with two interviews, one coming up tomorrow for a Pre-K room!

I'm excited about learning from each new experience that comes my way.

I've also been creating for Teacher's Pay Teachers!  It's been an amazing journey to see how many lives I've touched with my lesson plans!

Here's a quick freebie for the upper grades!

Visible Accomplishments!

I'm taking a step back in time to my days as a student teacher.  I learned so much in such a short amount of time!  College really can't prepare you for being alone with 20 six year olds.  Really.  It can't.


One thing that my cooperating teacher did that has stuck with me throughout the years was use die cuts to show student progress on the lockers in the room.  Every other day or so in math, we had a "math minute" where students had to complete as many addition (or later on subtraction) problems as they could in one minute.  Math was at the end of the day and we had a final recess (I think) before they got ready to go home.  During that recess we would quickly grade all of the math minutes and award students who successfully got X amount right.  Take a look at the pic below!

If students got 5 addition facts correct, they got a +5 frog.  If they got 20 subtraction facts, they got a -20 frog!  Students LOVED cheering each other on when they received a new frog on their locker.  It was a daily reminder of their progress and gave them something to strive for each day we did the math minute.  The best part was seeing struggling students achieve their next frog -- gosh, the look on their faces was priceless!

Clip Art Letter, Number, Symbol FREEBIE!

Heya guys and gals!

I have spent far too much time with Adobe Photoshop this past month and a half.  I think we need some time apart, really, I do.  But until then..

A freebie for the first 5 comments!

I love love love LOVE these letters and hope you do, too!

The stats:

77 total images!
300 dpi!
Resizable!

You can even use them in your TPT products! (free and for sale!)  Enjoy, and thanks for stopping by.

Here's a link to these letters at my TPT store!

Make sure to leave your e-mail address below!

Flying into September... Wait, What?

I can't believe September is already here!  It seems like just yesterday I was celebrating a birthday and enjoying fun in the sun with kiddo!  Now it's time to buckle down and get back to business.  My toddler is starting her terrible twos earlier than expected - it's her way or the highway!  I'm struggling with ways to divert her attention when she gets mad about not getting her way.  Sigh.  Live and learn, then give in!

RTI Organization!

RTI can be both a great experience and chaotic for all parties involved.  Students who get pulled out for RTI usually get pulled for other services (though not all do) and classroom teachers have a tough time keeping track of who is where  and when!

I found that during my time as an RTI literacy teacher, I rarely could find the time to talk to the classroom teacher about what was going on with their students.  My schedule left me about 3 minutes to make it between two different elementary school buildings with my "classroom on wheels" (aka, my HUGE tub of stuff I rolled around between each session).

What's a teacher to do?!

Well, I created this half sheet RTI documentation sheet for classroom teachers and RTI teachers to use to get on the same page.  It highlights strengths and subjects the student should be working on to increase their knowledge in the 4 areas highlighted by CAFE!

Click on the image to grab it!  It's free!

Happy planning!

First Grade Pointalism!

Over the summer I had the joy of teaching over 100 first grade students during summer school! I also got to team teach with some wonderful first grade teachers. One of the activities we did included Q-tips, paint, and a book! What a combo, right?

The students loved reading Eric Carle's Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do you See? as a group. The text is predictable and encourages young aspiring readers to chant along as they catch on to the pattern. After reading the book, we encouraged our kiddos to create what THEY saw by using 4 Q-tips to paint. There was a catch, though! The students could only paint using dots from the tip of their Q-tip!

I must admit, my cohort and I were nervous about giving each student their own paint and Q-tips - who wouldn't be? But the results turned out great! We created a web of different ideas that we could paint before sending the students off to create their own works of art. Here are some pics of the results!

Teacher's Pay Teacher's Back to School Sale!

What a roller coaster ride!  I have been chugging away trying to create products, pin like mad, AND revise my old products to make way for the HUGE TPT Back to School Sale!

I am doing fairly well with sales (considering my store is still in its infancy!) and am so excited to be apart of such a great community of wonderful, creative, supportive and inspiring teachers.

Here's a link to my Teacher's Pay Teacher's store to check it out.  Be sure to enter code: BTS13 for a total of 28% off the items in your cart through the end of August 19, 2013!

Pool Saturday!

If you didn't know, I have a nearly one and a half year old daughter.  My husband and I finally took the proverbial dive and purchased her a small baby pool!  Talk about fun in the sun.  Kiddo took to the water like a fish and splashed/waddled around for about an hour before I had to drag her away (literally kicking and screaming).  

How's your summer going?

Start your Engine!

Wow.  Finally.  Starting a blog and jumping on the band wagon!  I've found over the past two months that I have become obsessed with all the TpT (Teacher's Pay Teachers) things!  I want to download, I want to create, I want to sell!

But I'm Lost.

Did I mention I'm not a designer?

Did I mention I'm only slightly versed in Microsoft word, and even less-so in the ever popular go-to-tool PowerPoint?

I've been feverishly searching for answers!  And yet while some of my questions have been answered, several have not.  That is why I created this blog.  To bring forth the power of creation to those teachers that once stood in my very shoes!