Traditions Book (Writing)

This time of year I really start thinking of traditions.  I personally love them.  I love the special routines surrounding a certain holiday. So, the time between Thanksgiving vacation and Winter break I have my students create a book that includes all their special family traditions.  Last year I had the idiotic idea of trying to have them do the entire book in a 2 day span to be able to submit it to Student Treasures on time for...

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End of Unit Review, Ordering Owl Pellets, and I WON!

This week we are finishing up the end of Unit 2.  Every Monday the kiddos write their definitions and draw pictures that go with each of their vocabulary words for that week's story.  They each have their own composition book.  It's nice and neat.  It's a routine.  This week is the end of the Unit and they are getting ready to take their Reading Lions vocabulary test tomorrow.  Yesterday they created vocabulary cards...

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Thinking of Teaching - Follower Feature

Beth picked me.  That makes my day.  Click here to go visit her and read about me.  :)Hope you have a great Monday!  It was SO hard to get up this morning... 3 weeks until Winter Break... but whose counting?!? ...

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Elf Task Cards (Freebie)

I finally made something cute.  Well, with a lot of help from Melonheadz and Kevin & Amanda.Here is a freebie for you.  It's a set of 8 Elf Task cards.  My classroom has been filling buckets since the first day of school and I wanted to incorporate a little Secret Santa type of thing during the last 2 weeks before vacation.  8 cards that as a class we will do together before we reveal our secret identities to each other.  Everything...

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Did You Enter? Part 2

The other day I mentioned a bunch of giveaways that I've entered, but I messed up royally since I forgot about even more of them!  Yes, I've been going a little crazy between entering giveaways, buying stuff online from Black Friday, and getting ready for Cyber Monday...not to mention all the mom stuff and house stuff that I've been trying to accomplish around here.. Vacation you know... These end tonight!!  Tara from 4th Grade Frolics...

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3, 2, 1 - Week #3

Last week my 3 goals were to get prepped for December, to clean out the home clutter, and make good food choices.... Well, as of this moment my school bag has yet to be opened for the past week, but my home has been cleaned out, and I'm happy with the decisions I made.I did have a wonderful week of vacation.  Of course I did.  I love vacation!  It was an eventful week.  We took the boys to Chuck E. Cheese to play the games, had...

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Did you enter?

It's the last day to enter Tori's 5 days of giveaways.Today's gift is...  Jessica at Mrs. Stanford's class is also having a giveaway - connected to Donor's Choose.  Go check her out too! Amanda at Teaching Maddeness is having a week long giveaway.  She posted yesterday about Brag Tags, but she has other prizes as well  including today's talk bar from Learning Resources.Tonya is giving away her Monthly Writing Prompts to a...

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Day after Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving was a success.  Family time, thankful time, eating time... it was all good.  I was in a little food coma when we headed home at 6 pm... had to head home to let the dog out or else a little nap would have been perfect.  Then the fun of online shopping really started.  Picked up some good deals at JcPenny, Target, and Amazon.  Not as many as last year, but that's okay - I don't need to spend a lot to still have...

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Every-Day Edits

Today I cleaned.  The house is clean.  The boys are relatively clean.  The clothes and dishes are clean.  Hopefully everything will stay in its place until after we see the rest of the family tomorrow.  :)  As I'm sitting down completely exhausted from cleaning, I've been thinking about the things that I love using in my classroom.  You know, the things that I'm grateful for...  I decided to try and organize...

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Blogging Thankfulness

Can you tell that I love November?  I also love all the thankfulness that is going around. :)Today, I am linking up with Stephanie over at Teaching in Room 6 to share what I'm thankful for in Blogland. (Yes, it's a place similar to Disneyland but without the lines and overpriced food.)  There is so much to share!  It was last year that I really started noticing all the teaching blogs out in Blogland.  I found Charity's The Organized...

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Christmas Bookmarks (Freebie)

Here is a freebie for you!  During this week of vacation I am creating a little gift for my students for Christmas.  I ordered a class set of books from Scholastic during that huge bonus point sale at the beginning of the year.  They are all getting the book My Life as a Book.I wanted to make them a new bookmark since they are still using the ones that I gave them on the first day of school.With these bookmarks I am laminating/hole...

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3,2,1 - Week #2

Well I did it!  Last week I had 3 goals - one personal, one home, one school, and I tackled them all!I was able to get the paperwork off my desk before vacation started, I was more on top of meal planning, and I made time to take care of me (which meant that new batteries are now in my food scale and on the stationary bike).  I did take the dog for a walk on the days that it was possible, but the days it wasn't I got on the bike.I had all...

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Stuffed Linky Party

I'm linking up with Lyndsey over at A Year of Many Firsts to share  what I'm thankful for.     I am thankful for my husband.  I know I've shared it before, but he really is the rock in the family.  He remains calm when the chaos of raising 3 boys and teaching full time becomes overwhelming.   I am thankful for my oldest son.  I can't believe he is already 8 1/2 years old.  He just grew out...

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