Product Revamped - Candy Awards

One of my first products when I began my TPT store about this time last year were my Candy Awards. I had seen some that were cute, but they weren't exactly my style. Plus I wanted more options. So I made my first big seller (and when I say "big seller", I mean I sold about 10, which was awesome, especially right after I opened the store).

I've learned a LOT about making products look their best since then (the biggest being that Powerpoint is WAY easier to work in than Word), and I've been meaning to breathe new, more colorful life into these awards. Well, the end of school is coming quicker than I realized, and I've noticed these have started picking up in sales again. So I made it my mission to finish the upgrade. What do you think?

Before:

After:

TN or TPT

It's amazing how a pretty background and border came make a world of difference! I kept most of the images the same, but it needed an extra umph to make it stand out. I'm in love with them all over again!

Now if only I could motivate myself to finish my next set of literacy centers - anybody a fan of camping?

Instagram, oops, and random other

I have a little bit of free time before I head home, so I thought I would update quickly.

Have you heard about this? I started instagram a while back, but I'm not the best at using it. This sounded like fun, though! Now I just need to remember to take pictures while at school.

Follow me: @dalton_gang

So my sweet hubby reads my blog, and he was very disappointed with me last Saturday. When I posted about him finishing grad school, I made a big mistake. He graduated from the University of CINCINNATI, not Connecticut. In my defense, I've never been to either location and they both are long names starting with a "C". Still, Cincinnati is #3 for their Criminal Justice program, and he is very proud of that. 

I did know that their logo looked like this and that they're good at basketball. I just got the places mixed up. Sorry, babe!

In other news, I'm so excited that May starts this week! We'll be busy, but it's time for fun busy. This week we're having a yard sale, then every other weekend to the end of school is full of some kind of celebration/relaxation. Plus I only have 2 1/2 more weeks of teaching before SOLs start. We test May 16-31 because everything is online and we only have 3 labs. The nice thing is that every grade has a break before they take another test. The downside is that's a LONG time to test. After testing, I will help with running records for the end of the year while packing up my classroom for the summer. Still 33 days left for us, but that number is dropping quickly. It seems like last week I was saying 49, but obviously it wasn't!

All kinds of goodness rolled into one

I thought this week would be calm, but I was sadly mistaken. So here I am at the end of the week posting everything that's happened so far. I decided to just make one big post AND to focus on the positives. We all know this time of year can be stressful. I don't need to remind you.

I thought about doing Five for Friday, but not much happened this week other than Tuesday when the  Reptile Man came! We have this assembly every other year, and I live for it! The man has been coming to our school for over 30 years, and he's hypotizing - something about his voice. Our assistant principal described him as a "happy Eeyore", if you can imagine that. This is the only thing I took pictures of all week, and they're not the greatest because I was in the back, but this was SO much fun! If you live in Maryland or Virginia, see about trying to get him to come to your school. You won't regret it.

This snake's name is Lipstick, and we got to pet her at the end. 

Moving on to the linkies that I am participating in: 

At Home: Steven finished his Master's degree on Sunday, and his graduation was earlier today. We didn't go because he was a distance learner with University of Cincinnati, but I'll have to make sure we celebrate. This means that we will have a lot more family time (and he can keep his job next year when he's teaching college level classes)! I'm so proud of him!

At School: I've been really focusing on test-taking skills recently because we're 2 1/2 weeks away from the start of ours (that's not the "something good"). Anyway, I've been so pleased with how well my kids are doing with highlighting to prove their answers! I've been complimenting them so much, and hopefully they can remember to apply that to the actual test and not burn out. I think they've got a fighting chance, though!

For this sweet linky, I decided to share a book that I discovered last year after my librarian recommended it.

I know I've mentioned it before, but it's so good that I want to shed light on it again. Our school has a VERY high special education population (like we think there might be a sign on the interstate - there are about 17 in 4th grade alone), and I had the inclusion class for a few years. This book is about Patricia when she was in school (Did you know she was dyslexic?) and how her teacher showed them that everyone is important and has a purpose in life. Be ready to cry! I used this book to work on questioning because it does make the kids stop and think about so much. I found a very simple thinkmark (don't remember where - please let me know if you've seen it) that you can download here. Students simply write the page number and their questions. Then we talk about them later.

If you work with students who have special needs, this is a must-read. Even if you don't have students with special needs, it's so important for all of our kids to realize that different doesn't mean you're just a "part of the junkyard".

Tried-it Tuesday - Painting Class

Two weeks in a row! I'm so proud of myself. Last week, I shared about my first attempt at clipart, and I need to put together another post soon explaining how I got rid of the white background. Super easy, and I'm so excited that I now know how.
But what I want to share for Tried-it Tuesday this week has nothing to do with teaching. I've been seeing friends of mine from other places go to these classes where they all paint the same thing and get to take it home, and I've wanted to do it ever since.  This is just a random cute example from Spirited Art - Richmond
The problem was how to find those places. (FYI, googling painting class doesn't work very well). Well, a few of my co-workers found one a while back, and I've been eyeing their website ever since trying to find the perfect class for me. If you live near Richmond, Chattanooga, Huntsville, Little Rock, or Scranton, check out Spirited Art! It was $35 a person (and considering you'd pay at least that much for a piece of art, that's amazing), and then you can bring food and drinks to enjoy while you're there. The one in Richmond is attached to The Wine Loft, and they served flatbreads, sliders, and wine. Then they also had cupcakes from Frostings which I wish I had gotten. They are YUMMY!!
Anyway, you choose what night to come based on the pictures and schedule which is posted online. Then you come, and an artist walks you through the steps to make a beautiful painting. I went with the girls from my small group and we were thrilled to learn we got to trace our crab before painting (that doesn't always happen) because none of us are great artists by any means. I think our paintings turned out really cute, though! I'm going to be hanging mine in Keagan's bathroom. It goes perfectly with the colors, and we already had a nautical theme going on anyway.
From left: Kelly (The Caddell Family), Liz, Grace (The Whitlock Family), and me
Kelly and I had Entertainment books and were able to use BOGO tickets, so we actually only paid $17.50 each, which is a steal. Then Grace (a former fourth grade teacher - taking a break with her 2 adorable kids) actually won another free class! I think we need to make another trip, don't you?
This is actually only half of the class - sold out night. So glad we reserved our spots ahead of time!
If you've never done this, I highly recommend it! And you really don't need to be an artist to come home with a decent piece of art to hang in your house.

Product Swap #4

I believe this is the fourth product swap, and each time has been a very different experience for me! This time I was paired with Kristy from 2 Peas and a Dog. She is an 8th grade teacher and was very helpful to work with.

When I began to browse her store, I saw that she had a variety of book reports for different genres. Since I'm not a regular classroom teacher, I don't actually assign book reports. However, I saw potential for using the realistic fiction reading assignment in class with my kids. Here's a thumbnail of the item.

Now, let me note that this was created for middle school. Since I have grades 3-5, I did not use this assignment the way it was intended. We did the activity as a class with a picture book, and we did not write a paper, at least not yet. I will say that using the format, I believe even my third graders could come up with 4 basic paragraphs. Honestly, we just didn't have time to do all of that with testing coming up.

Here's the book we used. So sweet!

Reading the book with my adorable 3rd graders - I don't know what my face is about. It was actually a very pleasant day!

The assignment focuses on 4 R's: Retell, Relate, Reflect, and Review. Kristy directed me to a freebie that is related to this packet found here. I used a graphic organizer in this packet to help students organize their writing. In the first packet Kristy sent me, there were instructions on how to guide students through each section. After we read the book, students began to fill out their graphic organizers. They were able to do this with very little instruction from me past the quick explanation once they began each section.

Working diligently! 

We need to work on handwriting and spelling, but I think he did a great job with the 4 R's!

Another sample: Why DOESN'T the old woman name her purse and clothes? For the record, he decided she should name the purse "Lorraine". How funny! Oh, and Rex is the cat he kept feeding.

I loved how this assignment covered four very important areas for reading, and I feel like this is something you could use for multiple genres. Plus the kids enjoyed it! They were very excited about sharing their reflections and connections.

Alright, go check out Kristy's blog, and then follow the linky party to see what products other people are reviewing! I can't wait to find some more new treasures!

It's finally finished!

I'm not doing Five for Friday today because I'm tired and lazy (well, not too lazy because I'm about to do Insanity since I slept in this morning), but I wanted to let you know that my Cinco de Mayo clipart is finished, white box free, and posted on TPT for sale!!

It includes all 21 of the items pictured above PLUS 10 blackline masters for people like me who want/need to print some things in black and white.

I will be posting a tutorial later explaining how to get rid of that annoying white box, but that's it for tonight. I have my product swap post scheduled for tomorrow because I'll be busy all day with a baby shower AND pageant. Have a great weekend!

Writer's Workshop - My Favorite Minilesson

I'm participating in my first Workshop Wednesday to talk about my favorite mini-lesson for writer's workshop. I have made attempts to start writer's workshop before, but I could never quite devote enough time to make it work. However, I have a great writing mini-lesson that I really enjoyed!

I had to buy this book when I was doing my Master's, and it's become a go-to book for writing. TONS of great ideas. You really do HAVE to have this book!

Anyway, one of the ideas in there is to show students this poem "Love Song for a Jellyfish" by Sandra Hochman (I found a link to it here, but it's also in the book. I typed it up in a flipchart to show the kids). After we read the poem, we discuss how strange it was that the author chose to write a love song to a jellyfish. Then we use the poem as a model to create our own "love song". I challenge the students to pick an object (I'm very firm that they cannot pick a person, and I prefer that they avoid pets as well), something that cannot love them back. Then I model brainstorming using a web and listing descriptions, characteristics, uses, etc. that show why or how I love this item so much (i.e. my favorite book has many dog-eared pages and discoloration. If I wrote about an eraser, I would write that it fixes my mistakes.) I spend a lot of time walking around and helping students brainstorm because that's the BIGGEST part of this. I stress that if they can't come up with anything, they should probably choose another item that they feel more strongly about.

After students have enough ideas to move forward, I don't give them rules for how to organize the writing. Most follow the model of the Jellyfish poem, but some have made acrostics. I even had a child one year change it up and write an apology to a jack-o-lantern. I WISH I had a copy of it to share with you. Actually I wish I had any to share, but we did this about two months ago in one of the classes I push into. The students never cease to amaze me with how creative they can be and what interesting poems they make. It's a very fun lesson, and I've done it with 3rd and 4th grade.

Follow the link to Jessica's blog to check out more ideas for writing minilessons!