MLK Craftivity, more main idea, and squirrels

Today was back to school for me. Boo! Actually it wasn't bad at all. I just love my time at home with my bed Steven and Keagan!

I did some more main idea practice with my 4th and 5th graders today. No 3rd grade because they needed more time to readjust after break (especially since one of the teachers was out the two weeks before break after she fell and had surgery on her arm AT SCHOOL), but that gave me some extra time to finally make my writing craftivity for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. It's so cute, and I love that I finally have my own template for kids to use with other crafts later.

Here's a bigger picture of how the craft looks:

I didn't use colored paper to make mine, but I separated parts where you could print on colored paper for more ease. Since we don't get to do many crafts in my classroom (and I have NO money this year), I only have pink construction paper. But it works to color it just as well if you're broke like me.

*** Okay, hold on! SQUIRREL!! (as Farley would say) ***

I'm watching Mobbed, and the teacher they hired for the kid actors/dancers just screwed up BIG TIME! Is anybody else watching this? A wife is trying to tell her hubby that she's expecting. So right now he's sitting at a table with this "random" girl (child actor) who's mom had to run and check on her son. The wife left him to sign some papers, and they were JUST ABOUT to start this whole dance sequence where they would eventually reveal the sonogram picture. This teacher walks over to talk to the girl and is explaining how she's her welfare worker and she was hired to teach her. 

Whew! Finally back from commercial break. Fortunately the kid listened and has pulled her away. So cute! He's very confused standing in the middle of dancers with baby carriages! I might cry...

*** Sorry, I'm back. I know that's not normal for me, but I couldn't think while watching that and I HAVE to know if anyone else saw it. ***

Anyway, I also made a snowman main idea packet, but my computer at school apparently decided it was time for a break. So it's ready, but I'll have to post it on TpT when I get to school in the morning. It's really cute though, and I'll blog about it this weekend. I plan on using it with my 5th grade class I push into tomorrow, so I'll be sure to bring my camera.

Now it's time to finish watching Mobbed and go to bed!

Guys Read

Technically this is another linky party, but this is a topic that I feel is VERY important and couldn't resist joining (plus Courtney is giving away an Amazon gift card for extra incentive). I see WAY too many boys who are either low readers or just don't enjoy it very much. As teachers, we need to be actively searching for books that will catch their attention and help them want to become better readers. There's actually a whole movement that was started by Jon Scieszka (author of Stinky Cheese Man) called Guys Read (hence my post title), and they have a lot of great resources you should check out!

For the past few years, I've invited my hubby to come read to them and share his love of books so they can see a male role model who values reading as much as I do (if not more). I highly recommend that you bring in strong male readers as well.

But this linky is about specific books that boys seem to enjoy, so let me get started. I chose to focus on books for older elementary since that's what I'm most familiar with.



Since my library began with books from my own personal collection (and my sister's) growing up, I knew that I needed to work on building especially with guys in mind. My first "guy" purchase was a set of Goosebumps books.

These were really popular when I was growing up, and they still are. They were my most read books and showed it! But I learned that they loved pretty much anything I deemed "scary", especially if there were ghosts. Mary Downing Hahn has some books that some of my higher readers enjoyed. This one was recommended to me by a student my first year in 4th grade. I bought it, and it's been popular ever since.

ALL of my kids loved pretty much anything by Roald Dahl (possibly because I told him he was my favorite author, but his books ARE awesome)! The only one I might avoid for boys would be Matilda. The rest are winners though.

If you're into sports, I have a few. My favorites are the Tiki and Ronde Barber books. I originally bought these because we did a Famous Virginians Wax Museum every year, and the Barber twins are from VA. I let some of my lower readers use these books (and other resources) to do their project. 

Matt Christopher books are also a good choice.

I love Magic Tree House books, especially the nonfiction research guides. They are great for meeting the needs of those kids who just don't like fictional books.

My personal favorite choice for history books (especially if you live in Virginia and are teaching VA History) is this one. It has EVERYTHING a boy would love to read about - death, poop, fighting, Native Americans, blood, you name it! Plus it's based on facts. I told my students the parts that were made up were basically just the conversations with the boy telling the story. 

Some classics and other books that they tend to enjoy:

I hope this helps! Go check out Courtney's linky by clicking on the image above, then check out the guysread.com website. It truly is a great resource!

Is it really 2013? January currently

I really am still in shock that we're already here. The year has FLOWN by! I now have a 1 year old on the verge of running, and I'm almost halfway through my first year as a reading specialist. I'm excited about what this year holds!

And with the new year comes Farley's first Currently of the year. I tried to minimize what I wrote in the box and will explain more below.

Listening: This seems so simple, but I actually haven't been able to watch the news for a few weeks (like since the day of the Connecticut shooting). We cancelled Dish, and the antenna we had wasn't strong enough to pick up ABC, CBS, or NBC. I never can catch FOX or CW news at the right time, so I was very unaware of what was going on in the world (unless, of course, it made it onto facebook). Today we finally made it out to Walmart to get a stronger antenna. I'm thrilled to have my 3 main channels back, but very bummed I missed the finale of The Voice during this. I need to check online and see what I can watch there!

Loving: I mentioned yesterday that we were probably going to buy a car, and we did! We only ended up getting $700 for my Tribute (poor Trudy really went down quick at the end), but I'm now the proud owner of a 2007 Chevy Equinox! It's so pretty (I haven't taken pictures myself, but this is from the dealer website)! It's a deep plum color with gray cloth interior. Now I need to come up with a good name. Any suggestions?

Thinking: We had dinner with friends last night before celebrating the New Year, and we were supposed to cook a duck to bring. However, we spent WAY.TOO.LONG. sitting at the dealership yesterday and didn't actually leave with the car until 30 minutes before we were supposed to have dinner. Duck takes much longer than that to cook. So we're having them over tonight (they'll be here any minute) to eat the duck with us. I've been curious to try it ever since I saw it on Food network, so we'll see how I like it. (P.S. I finished this post after dinner. Not a huge fan...I'm not quite brave enough. Everyone else, including Keagan, seemed to love it though!)

Wanting: I ordered the Zumba dvd (just the main one from Ebay) Sunday night, and I can't wait for it to get here! I have between 5-10 pounds left to lose - lost 21 pounds last year! I want to lose it by the summer (earlier would be better though) especially because we booked our summer vacation last week to Puerto Rico! I want to be swimsuit ready by the time we go.

Needing: My hubby and I seem to disagree on when would be best to take down all the Christmas decorations. I feel like it would be easier while we're both on break (tomorrow's the last day), but he wants to wait until the weekend and relax the whole break. Since he's the one who needs to get the boxes down and everything, he wins. Oh well. I guess this weekend will be full of cleaning. I won't bend over backwards tomorrow to get the house clean then.

OLW: I need to be better about meeting with teachers to plan ahead of time instead of coming in the morning of to see what we should work on. I'm so used to just having to depend on myself to make my lesson plans, so the idea of planning with other people and working with their schedules has been a difficult adjustment for me. I know it will get easier with time, but I'm going to have to work hard to improve it.

Go link up!

End of year sale and a giveaway

Not a very long post today, but I decided to throw a sale (20% off my entire store) as a last hurrah for the year and an opener for 2013. Part of me just really wants to reach $300 for the quarter. I'm sitting just shy of it. The sale will end tomorrow night, so go shop!

Then I also found an AMAZING giveaway that I had to share. The Peanut Gallery is giving away 4 gift cards! Barnes and Noble, Hobby Lobby, Starbucks AND Target. You don't want to miss this!

Steven's out car shopping for me as we speak, so I may have a new (to me) car by the end of the year! We weren't quite ready to do this, but my car is DEAD, so we need something. Prayers that we can strike a great deal (like payments under $200)!

Then tonight we're heading to some friends' house to hang out and ring in the new year. Nothing too crazy. Just a fun night probably playing some board games and hanging out. Maybe we'll even break out the Wii for some Just Dance!

New Year's Linky

I know, I know...I've been a little off the radar for the past few weeks. With Keagan's birthday and Christmas activities, I just didn't really have time to post. Keagan's new toys (and some online shopping/browsing) were just way more fun! But I'm back, at least a little bit, and I figured I'd ease back into the whole blogging realm with a simple and appropriate linky party or two.

Both of these linkies are pretty much the same, so enjoy checking out what other people resolve to do for the new year. Jen recommends listing one personal and one blogging, but I also wanted to add one professional resolution as well.

Personal: This one is a continuation of my resolution from last year. I gained somewhere between 40-50 pounds with my pregnancy, and I'm thisclose to losing it all (or being at a weight I like again). I'm between 5-8 pounds away depending on the day. Before all the Christmas festivities started up hard core, I had actually gotten within 3 pounds for one day, but that went away quickly. I just ordered the Zumba videos and will be working hard to get back down to size. In the meantime, I did actually buy myself some cute clothes that fit me a little better right now.

Blogging: I want to host my own linky party, but I've got to come up with a good idea.

Professional: I want to create more TpT items (keep your eyes open for more literacy centers especially), and I want them to have to mail me a check next time! I way surpassed my previous quarters and made just under $300 so far, which was super exciting. But momma has a lot of college loans to pay off. Plus my car just went ker-put, so I need to buy a new one (to me). We're looking at local auctions because this is NOT the year for us to buy a new car. Steven's job is still part time until next school year, and he's working on his last semester of grad school. Oh well, we'll find something.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas! I have still been doing a little bit of blog stalking in between my online shopping sprees and play time. I still have three more days of break to relax and enjoy, and I plan on juicing everything I can out of them! When do you go back?

Winter Sale

Hooray! Today is our last day before break, AND it's pajama day for 5th grade, so I joined them. There's nothing better than just throwing on a clean pair of pjs to get ready for the day. My agenda today is pretty easy as well. I'm reading to two classes, and I MIGHT pull one group this morning. Otherwise, I'll be party hopping around the school! ;-)

I know I just threw one of these the past few days, but I didn't realize that a lot of other bloggers were throwing their big winter sales this weekend. Plus I don't think I did a very good job advertising mine because I only had one sale for the past few days. So I'm extending my sale to join with a bunch of other people. This sale starts today and will end on Sunday, so stock up! Plus I'm almost finished with another Magic Tree House packet (Twister on Tuesday) and hope to do two more this weekend (maybe even today since I have to be here but won't be seeing most of my kids anyway). Keep an eye out!

TpT Sale

I'm having a sale in my TpT store today and tomorrow only! Go check it out!