Liebster Award

I had been nominated for this award in July, but was recently awarded it again from Caitlyn at Fourth Grade Lemonade and the rules were slightly different, so I decided to play along (Plus - I really like her blog and am honored to be nominated again!)  The rules for this one are:

•You must post 11 random things about yourself.


•Answer the questions that the nominators set for you.

•Create 11 questions for the people you nominate.

•Choose 11 blogs you love (with less than 200 followers) and link them in your post.

•No tag back, (but please leave me a comment on this post with the URL to your Liebster post so that I can learn more about you!)

Here are some random things about me:

1. I have an accounting degree and a teaching degree - both from University of Nevada, Reno

2. I have 6 boys - yes all boys!

3. I serve on my city's ciy council - I am currently serving my second term.

4. I direct children's theater.

5. I grew up in Lake Tahoe.

6. I hate seafood

7. I have a major slight addiction to Starbucks -- two words -Chai Latte - yummy!

8. My three youngest sons and I are hooked on Dance Moms (they have crushes on the girls and I can't help but stare at the train wrecks that happen between the moms).

9. I cannot function without my iphone (it is my mini-brain).

10. My hubby has several tattoos - but I could never get one EVER! I am deathly afraid of needles.

11. I have lived in the same city for the past 12 years - but as a child I moved a lot!  I have lived in four different states and actually went to school in all four different states in my 6th grade year.

Happy Thanksgiving and SALES!

Almost time to get off the computer to get some Thanksgiving cooking done!  But... I did want to wish everyone a very Happy Thanksgiving and let you know that I am jumping on board the Cyber Monday train with sales at both my Teachers Pay Teachers and Teacher's Notebook stores.

Both sales are a great opportunity to save some money on items you have been coveting!  My wishlist already has 32 items and growing :) 

Here are a few of my favorites from my store:

My newest unit for The Best Christmas Pageant Ever

My recently updated Officer Buckle and Gloria unit

My new third grade math journals

I am also linking up with the 3 AM teacher where you can find a ton of TPT sellers who will be joining the sale!  Plus - she has some great clip art!

We Are Thankful Writing Prompt and Craftivity FREEBIE

I am not one of those lucky ducks who gets all of next week off - we have school on Monday and Tuesday.  So... I was trying to come up with a few fun learning activities, and I came up with this We are Thankful writing prompt and craftivity.

I have posted the template and graphic organizers as a freebie on my TPT store for anyone who is in the same boat as me :)  I will post final pics from the kiddos when they are complete, but for now hopeful my sample gives you a rough idea of what it will look like.

We Are Thankful Writing Prompt and Craftivity

Two Bad Pilgrims Freebie

If you head over to We Give Books, you can read this fun story from award-winning author Kathryn Lasky and illustrator John Manders that reveals the lives of America's first troublemakers - as well as tons of fascinating Pilgrim facts-with kid-friendly humor.  It would make a great listening center or a whole group activity on a Smartboard.

Please Don't Eat The Turkey! Fun Writing Prompt

This week we were inspired by this book to write a persausive paper pleading with readers not to eat turkey for Thanksgiving.

This post contains affiliate links. I earn a small commission each time someone makes a purchase using one of my links, which helps to support the blog.  All opinions are my own and I only promote brands and products that I have used myself and truly love.  

We pretended we were the kids in the book, and are working on persuasive essays asking people not to eat turkeys for Thanksgiving.

Our school uses Write From The Beginning, but I have found it challenging for my students to use the circle map and tree map to write an essay - it just wasn't scaffolded enough for them.  So, I created graphic organizers for this prompt - and so far it is working great!  I can really find the areas that they need help on, and it has helped focus the students as writers.

Here are a few samples of the graphic organizers from today -

And the final product:

I updated this resource in 2021 and the new pictures are below:

I have the packet on sale in my Teachers Pay Teachers store here if you would like to try them with your students.

Morning Message

Every morning I post a morning message that reviews something we have been learning, or showcases something we are about to learn that day.  In the message I purposely make errors that I see the kiddos making in their own writing (not capitalizing proper nouns, forgetting to indent, etc.). The kids have to find my mistakes, and when they do they earn a sticker in our sticker economy.

Here is our message from today - pre-corrections: (Excuse my yucky handwriting - I was in a rush this morning)

I tried something a little different today with a find a word activity.  I had the students see what words they could make with the word "veteran". I had some interesting results (just a few shown below) and some teaching points to work on.

Do you use a morning message with your class? What things do you include?



Thanksgiving Gift Card Giveaway!

Thanksgiving is a great time to show appreciation and a few of my favorite blogs have gotten together sponsor a "Thanksgiving Thank You- Gift Card Give Away"  

They will each be sending the winner a $20.00 gift card.  Here is what the winner will receive:

Teresa at Fun in K-1 will be giving away a $20.00 Gift Card to Target. 

Cindy at Granny Goes to School will be giving away a $20.00 Gift Card to Old Navy.




Rikki at  The Hive will be giving away a $20.00 Gift Card to MAC Cosmetics.

Megan at Mrs. Wheeler's First Grade is giving away a $20.00 Gift Card to The Limited.
 

Ash at Pixy Stix and Teacher Tricks is giving away a $20.00 Gift Card to Target

 

Head over to Granny Goes to School to enter now!