Celebrating Literacy Giveaway!

Have you all seen this giveaway? I hadn't stumbled across this blog yet, but I'm so glad I did!

These giveaways are grade-level specific from kindergarten to high school, so there's something for everyone. Plus you can enter for multiple. Go check it out!

Oh, and don't forget to go to TpT today. Many stores, including mine are having a 20% off sale on everything in their store, but most end today!

It's Saturday and another sale!

Tomorrow is the end of September (can you believe it?), so I decided to join a few other bloggers and throw another sale!



You could pick up my Pumpkin Writing Craftivity if you haven't already. It's so cute and perfect for Halloween coming up. Don't forget I also have 2 boggle boards that are great for word work, and I also added two new graphic organizers that are regularly priced at $1!

And I haven't already mentioned my newest item. I finally finished my Bat Research Unit! I'm so proud of it! There's even a Venn Diagram shaped like a bat. :-)

I'm off to school. Did I mention I'm coaching Color Guard for our high school? Well we have 5 band competitions this fall (AHHH!!), so I'm off for day 2. Hopefully it won't rain because that will be completely miserable.

Have you seen this pencil sharpener?

I'm sure most of you have. The awesome little manual pencil sharpener created by a teacher? I actually got mine at the end of the school year, and it was like Christmas! The only bummer is that it was literally the last day of school, so I had to wait 3 months to get to really play with it and try it out.

We finally got back to school after Labor Day, and I started showing it off to my teacher friends. My para had MAJOR doubts ("I have to actually crank it?"), but after a few trials, she was converted quickly.

This was the first week with students (remember, I'm a reading specialist - don't hate me!), and my 5th graders have really learned how to use it. They think it's awesome, and I think they might break pencils on purpose just to use it.

 How does it work? Well, you have to put it together first when you get it. There's only 3 or 4 parts, and it comes with directions (at least online, I honestly don't remember if they had them in the package). Then when you're ready to sharpen, you pull out the metal part (see below), and pinch the black thingies to stick in your pencil for a perfect fit. Once the pencil is in, let go and it holds your pencil in place.
This is important because you will need both hands to sharpen. One needs to hold the sharpener in place, and the other to crank.
SIDE NOTE: I couldn't get it to sharpen one day, then I realized I was cranking it the wrong way. If it feels really lose, try the opposite direction. You have to crank toward you.

Once the cranking gets really easy, pinch the black thingies to pull out your pencil. Here's my favorite part, they are perfectly sharp! Look at these pencils below!

The whole sharpening process is very quick, even if the pencil is brand new, so you don't have to worry about your arm getting tired. And it really is very quiet. Not silent, but it's WAY quieter than an electric sharpener or the old fashioned manual ones. Plus it's so cute! They now come in green, blue, and red. You can order one or even put in a school order for a VERY reasonable price. I love my sharpener!

WARNING: I just went to the website to link up, and they are unfortunately sold out right now. However, I will continue checking and post again when they restock. I promise it's worth the wait to get one of these!

Happy Friday!

Happy Fall Sale (a little late), college football, and a giveaway

Sorry I've been a little MIA this week. I don't know what happened. We went on vacation to the beach the past two weekends, but we were baby free all week (Keagan stayed at the beach with his grandparents). I had all kinds of plans to be productive, but it just didn't happen. Anyway, Casey from Second Grade Math Maniac is hosting a fall TpT sale, and I wanted to join in! Click on the link to her blog to see a complete list of people participating.

Unfortunately, I've already missed half of it. To make up for it, I've set up my store sale to end TOMORROW at midnight. So you still get 2 days to shop my store before the sale ends!

Along with my pumpkin writing craftivity, which I'm SUPER excited about using, I also have two brand new Boggle boards that are $.80 this week! One of them I made especially for my UGA friends (I went to HS/college in GA and have a lot of DAWG fans, although I'm not one of them). There's red and white polka-dot and also a green and white wavy set. Go check it out!

Oh, and just for the fun of it (and in honor of college football), I made these cute little signs for UGA and also Virginia Tech (the colors were just right and I have good friends that like both schools). They have nothing to do with teaching, but I wanted to have fun making stuff. Click on the pictures below to download and enjoy!

One more thing! Heather's Heart is having a fantastic giveaway right now that you REALLY should go check out!

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!

Pumpkin writing craftivity

I'm SO excited about my newest product on TpT! This has been a plan I've been thinking about and wanting to create since the summer, and it's finally here.

Ever since I started teaching 4th grade, I have always done this writing activity with them for Halloween, and it's so much fun every year! Students pretend to be pumpkins in my pumpkin patch, and I am searching for a pumpkin to make my jack-o-lantern. They have to convince me why I should NOT choose them. I have to remind them to not write anything that they wouldn't want the principal to read, but they are usually pretty good about it. I've gotten the entire spectrum from just completely disgusting (one was a poopy baby pumpkin) to stalker-creepy.

After they finish writing, I make a big deal out of reading each one (without sharing names). Then I let the students help me choose the best - as in the ones we would be LEAST likely to pick. I narrow it down to the number one choice, and then I would always publish that one in the class newsletter on the week of Halloween. The kids loved it!

In the past, I've just given students a pumpkin shape and had them color it completely on their own, but I wanted to jazz it up. So I created this activity! The craft includes three sets of eyes and mouths for students to choose from and paste onto their pumpkin shape. Then there is a separate page for their writing. It's kind of similar to my Turtle Writing Craftivity I created for the beginning of the school year. Btw, I need to post pictures of that!

Please check it out by clicking on the picture below! And if you'd like to pin it, I'm not stopping you. Just sayin'.

I'm having to schedule this post because tonight is our first home football game, and I'm coaching the color guard at the high school. Silly me. Like I needed to add one more thing to my plate. I won't be posting on here over the weekend because we're going to be enjoying the beach, so have a relaxing weekend!

Tell me something good linky

I'm back! This week has been crazy. Tuesday night was Back to School Night, so I was at school until 8:00. Then during school I have begun giving running records to any students who failed the SOLs (Standards of Learning) or were below grade level on their word lists. I've given the first running record to all of 3rd and 4th grade, and today I need to start 5th. Then I have to go back and retest the students who were at frustrational. Thank God that Fountas & Pinnell assessments are pretty short!

So far, I've identified 9 kids in 3rd grade and way too many in 4th. This stresses me out because my numbers should get smaller as the kids get older. Right now, my 4th grade list could easily be 14 kids...craziness!! Oh, and did I mention their levels range from G to Q (Q's failed the SOLs, so I have to pull them until they show improvement)? Today the focus is on 5th grade.

Okay, enough focus on the stresses. I think it's perfect timing for this linky party that Jennifer from Rowdy in First Grade is hosting.

My Something Good From School: 

I have almost finished giving at least one running record to all of my "at-risk" kids! Now I'm just going back and giving another one to students who were at a frustrational level. One of the reasons this has gone so smoothly is because my wonderful parapro has been helping me. I trained her on giving running records (and taking lots of notes), and she's pulling half of the kids. Then all I have to do is grade it!

Also, we have started fully implementing Daily 5 and CAFE, and from walking around the school, I have seen a lot of great instruction and practicing!

My Something Good From Home:  

My sweet little boy, Keagan, can now sit himself up, pull up, and get around very well. He's still not officially crawling, but he sometimes army crawls. His preferred method is still the rolling pin, but I think he will be crawling any day now! Oh, and we lowered his bed this week to stay safe!

Another big plus is that we get to go to the beach this weekend! It's going to be a little cooler, but it will be nice to get away and relax for a little while.

Go link up!