Last day of break and a giveaway

I'm loving this beautiful spring weather today, and right now I'm ignoring the fact that I have to wake up early and go back to work tomorrow. Someone did count out the remaining days though: 49. I can do that.

These next two weeks are going to be kind of weird for me because it's time for 3rd nine weeks benchmark tests. Does your school test every nine weeks? It takes up SO much instructional time! I'll be busy helping test students in small groups or individually, so I will barely meet with my groups at all. Did I mention we have about 5 weeks left before SOLs? Eek!

Anyway, I wanted to let you know about a great little giveaway you should check out over at The Frizz in First Grade. I'm offering winner's choice of one item, plus there are 14 other bloggers donating to it. She's so sweet, and I hope you will go check out her blog! I was happy to help out.

It's WAY too pretty of a day to be cooped up inside, so that's all for now (plus I don't have much else to say). Time to enjoy the weather some more with my little man!

Doesn't that happy face just melt your heart?

Five for Friday and a Sale

I feel like I actually had enough going on this week to join in on this fun linky, plus I won't be posting as frequently next week (thinking of scheduling at least one post though) because it's my SPRING BREAK!!

1. We had our Title I Night last night, and it went well. This will be another post that I am scheduling for next week (Tuesday?) because I have a lot to say about how we structured it. However, I will leave you with one picture of my favorite activity from the night. Check back to get the recipe that we used (since it was a reading night) and learn more!

2. One of my third grade classes that I work with has had a student teacher for the past few months (today was her last day). Last week, we had a book fair and she decided she wanted to buy some books for someone. Since her teacher and daughter's teacher had already had their wishlist fulfilled, she bought two books for me! It was so sweet of her, especially since I'm not a regular classroom!

       

Oh, and one of my sweet fourth grade students brought me a yummy chocolate bunny this morning because yes, we still had a full day today. I'm a little jealous of you teachers who got to start your break on Good Friday. 

I might have eaten it right after he walked out the door. Hey, I'm justifying it with my Insanity workout, although this might be part of the reason why I'm not seeing any results yet. At least I feel stronger, but the whole point was to lose some inches in the waist so my pants fit right.

3. Speaking of gifts, I got this sweet Easter basket complete with a Barnes and Noble gift card from my secret pal at school. SO excited! I knew I saved the email with a B&N coupon for a reason. Time to go shopping!

4. Tuesday and Wednesday of this week were Writing SOLs (Virginia's Standards of Learning since we didn't jump on the bandwagon and go to CCSS) for our 5th graders. This year was the first year that they did everything online including the prompt. It actually went better than we had anticipated, but the importance of teaching them how to type essays appropriately is that much more of a priority. I know they're glad it's over. Only 5 weeks after break before the rest of the SOLs start. EEK!!

5. I'm joining in with some other bloggers and having a sale at my TPT store! I chose five of my favorite products that will be 20% off through Sunday. 

Here are the items I chose. Click on the images below to find them, and I wouldn't mind if you wanted to pin them as well. ;-)

Have a great Easter weekend, and enjoy your Spring Break if you're starting it like me!

Guide word epiphany and VA Writing SOL help

We still have a full week of school left, so it's been business as usual here (with a few more stories and fun crafts thrown in for the regular classroom teachers...not me...boo!). This morning, I was working with 2 fourth grade students on guide words because they just aren't getting it. I tried a few different strategies that I use to put the words in order, but none of it seemed to help.

Then it hit me!

Why not put ALL of the words in order, underline (or circle) the guide words, and see what fits in the middle? So stinking easy! Most of the kids can put the words in alphabetical order. It's finding the word that fits on the page that gets them. So we tried it, and one of the two walked away excited and confident. The other still needs some practice, but he only did it for the last problem. We'll try again tomorrow.

Here's an example of what I mean for those who need a visual like me(or just like pictures):

I would have them underline the guide words (like I showed) and then circle the word in the middle. The nice thing about this is that if there's more than one word in the middle and shouldn't be, they can check the order and correct their own mistakes (this happened today also). I then had them cross out the wrong words and label if it came before or after (more practice!) before they chose the correct answer. I hope this helps!

I also wanted to pass along a FANTASTIC resource I found for those friends of mine who are taking the 5th grade VA Writing SOL. Sally from Fun with Reading and Writing went to the DOE website and looked at all 44 writing prompts that a VA 5th grader may receive. She then broke them down into categories based on the kind of writing they require. I HIGHLY recommend checking it out! I wanted to pin it from her site, but there were no graphics. So click on the picture below to check out her information. I promise it's worth  your time:

More TpT Products, Christmas freebie, and last day for the sale

I know this is the second post, but I wanted to have something more positive to say. Plus I decided to keep myself busy during my free time and uploaded a few more items to my TpT store, especially since the big sale ends tonight!

I started loading some science interactive notes that I made a few years back while I was still teaching 4th grade. We have Promethean boards in all of our classrooms, so I wanted to make flipcharts that went along with the notes as well. There are 7 different units (most are $3 regular - $2.40 right now), or you can buy the entire bundle for $18 (or $14.40 today only!). Actually, they would be even cheaper because that's just with my 20% off sale. Don't forget to add the promo code: CMT12 at check out for 10% off of that price! The sale ends tonight at midnight! I'm only going to link to the huge bundle, but you can go to my store to find all of the little units as well.

I may have mentioned this before, but I LOVE Christmas! When I was younger, we lived in south Mississippi - very close to Louisiana, where cajun culture is prominent. I remember every Christmas Eve, they would read this book called The Cajun Night Before Christmas on the news. My dad eventually bought the book, and it became a family tradition for him to read it every year. We LOVED it!

When Steven and I got married, we came across the Irish Night Before Christmas and bought it.

Last year, I decided it would be fun to read a few of these versions to my students and then have them create their own Night Before Christmas story. So I began putting together a little format to follow. Then I also searched Amazon.com to find as many versions as I could that already existed. I've found 27 so far! This item is a freebie in my store! Please pin it, share it, and rate me!

Have a wonderful evening! I'm on my way home to hopefully relax a little (and maybe do some online shopping).

Manic Monday freebie

I'm so excited to link up for my first Manic Monday! I haven't created any new freebies since the Dolch site words, but there are a few that I made this summer and thought were worth sharing since I switched over to this blog. I teach in Virginia, which is one of the few states that chose to NOT participate in the Common Core Standards. This means that I don't get to share in all the great resources that have been posted all over TpT. My school is also fully implementing CAFE and Daily 5 this year, and since I'm the reading specialist for grades 3-5, I wanted to create a resource that would help my teachers match our state standards (the SOLs) to each CAFE strategy. 

Enjoy!