Happy New Year and a sale!

Hello Friends!!

I hope you have been enjoying your break as much as I have!!  We spent last week in Kansas with my husband's family and we head to Houston tomorrow to spend time with my side of the family!

We're off to see Catching Fire (finally!!!) and then having pizza and playing board games with some friends to ring in the new year tonight!  What are your New Year's Eve plans?

In case you want to do a little shopping- my store is 20% today and tomorrow, along with a ton of other TPTers.  Check out the link over at Bloghoppin'!

Merry Christmas!!

font- Hello Literacy, frame- Graphics from the Pond, Ornaments- DigiBonBons

Unwrapping My Favorites: Day 3!

It's time for Day Three of Daina and Tamara's link up about Holiday Favorites!!  Here are links to my Day 1 and Day 2 if you missed them!

Today's topic is to share a favorite old holiday photo and I've got a cutie to share with you!

Those little cutie booties belong to my cousins, Jack and Kyle!  They were born at Thanksgiving 2007, so this picture was taken at their 2nd Christmas, where they were a bit more interested in things like opening presents and dancing/bouncing to Christmas music!  They just turned 6 last month and they are just as cute now that they are Kindergarteners!!

I'm loving this week of holiday fun, be sure to visit Sticky Notes and Glitter to link up!

Unwrapping My Favorites: Day 2

Back again for Day Two of Daina and Tamara's link up about Holiday Favorites!!

Yesterday's post was about favorite holiday food and today's is about a favorite holiday tradition!  I have more family pictures to share again today!

The Great Berry Hunt of 2009

The Great Berry Hunt of 2008

The Great Berry Hunt of 2011

Our walks are always a lot of fun, especially now with my two youngest cousins who just recently turned 6!

I'm loving this week of holiday fun, be sure to visit Sticky Notes and Glitter to link up!  More fun tomorrow, too!  :)

Unwrapping My Favorites: Day 1

I'm linking up with Daina and Tamara for this fun holiday week of posts!!

Today's topic is favorite holiday food!!

Here are a couple pictures from our holiday decorating over the years...the cute ones with the (grown-up) cousins as kids are on the wall at the farm, I wish I had those scanned into a computer!

Visiting my in-laws out of state now means that I don't get to be there every year for this family tradition, which is definitely sad!  It's truly a wonderful part of our family that we cherish every year!

Be sure to stop by tomorrow for my favorite holiday tradition and don't forget to link up as well!

Writing, writing and more writing!

I'm popping in today to share some of the writing we've been doing over the past 2 weeks!

I'm totally jealous of those of you who have lots of dedicated time for Writing or even hold Writer's Workshop every day- I wish!  We have 30 minutes officially dedicated to writing, so the activities I do often run over their allotted time!

Last week, we wrote Christmas cards to some elderly folks at a group home associated with my church.  The kids were so sweet with their thoughtfulness and came up with some great things to spread some holiday cheer.

We also used this awesome freebie from Stacy over at Funky Fresh Firsties to do a little snowman writing!  As a kid born and bred in Texas, I could count the number of times I've seen snow on one hand.  As an adult, I've been lucky enough to see it lots of times in Colorado and in Kansas visiting my in laws.  I still sit there in my mother in law's kitchen and stare in amazement when the little flakes are actually falling, especially at night- it's so pretty!!  Anyway, back to the classroom...we wrote about what it would be like if it snowed at our school!!

 

We're getting pretty good at rough drafts and doing little edits to our papers (mostly guided by me, of course!).  On Thursday, however, one of my particularly moody girls exclaimed, "I hate rough drafts!"  You'd have to know her to understand, but I let that one slide because I wanted her to actually make it through her writing.

We ended this week with some letter writing.  We talked about the 5 parts of a friendly letter with what else?  An anchor chart and Brain Pop Jr!

We wrote letters to our awesome custodians and hung them outside their storage closet on our hall.  I swear we have the hardest working head custodian in the whole world!!  He is amazing!!  I know you'll agree that custodians should be paid waaaaay more than they are.  Our staff always pools together to get them gift cards at the holidays, but we always wish we could do more.

Only one more week until Christmas break- can't wait to sleep in for 2 weeks straight!!  What are your plans for the break?

Facebook Frenzy- lots of freebies coming your way!!

Hello Friends!

Can you believe that it's already December?  Wow!  I know we are all counting down the days until Christmas break and this weekend we have something to make those days even better!!

It's time for the December Facebook Frenzy- woo hoo!!

If you don't know about the Frenzies, well first of all- what rock have you been living under?  JUST KIDDING!  The Facebook Frenzies were started by the amazing Heather over at Creation Castle.  She truly is amazing, y'all, I'm not joking!

Anyway, all you do is hop through all the facebook pages and grab up the amazing freebies along the way!!!  (and maybe leave some love notes as you do, pretty please?)  It's a great way to get some new classroom resources and find some amazing teacher friends and bloggers as well!

Jennifer from Crayons & Cuties in Kindergarten made this adorable and helpful map!  Thanks Jennifer!!

Unfortunately, those pretty little links won't work because it's an image now and not a PDF, but never fear, I have the links right here!  Each loop has a different starting point, so go ahead and get started!!  :)  Can't wait to see all of the great freebies!  (The Frenzy officially starts on December 6 at 8:00 am EST and ends on December 9 at 8:00 pm EST)

You can download the clickable version HERE.

K Math/Science - https://www.facebook.com/mrspspecialties

K ELA/Social Studies - https://www.facebook.com/TheReadingBungalow

1st Math/Science - https://www.facebook.com/FriendlyFroggies

1st ELA/Social Studies - https://www.facebook.com/DynamicDualLanguage

2nd Math/Science - https://www.facebook.com/AllSmilesInSecondGrade

2nd ELA/Social Studies - https://www.facebook.com/StuckeyInSecondGrade

3rd Math/Science - https://www.facebook.com/EvilMathWizard

3rd ELA/Social Studies - https://www.facebook.com/comprehensionconnection

4th - https://www.facebook.com/4thGradeRacers

5th - https://www.facebook.com/theresourecefulroom

6th-12th - https://www.facebook.com/MathScienceSocialStudiesOhmy

Music - https://www.facebook.com/IamBullyproofMusic

Clipart - https://www.facebook.com/CarasClipstpt

December Currently!

Happy Sunday y'all!

I don't know about you, but I am not looking forward to going back to work tomorrow!  A week of for Thanksgiving is wonderful, but it is dangerous at the same time...I get waaaaay to comfy staying up late and sleeping in!

Anyway, onto Farley's link up for Currently this month!

Listening- It's Sunday, so football is always on!  It's mostly just background noise for me, though.  My husband left the room for a second and asked me a question about the game and I had no idea!  I do know that the Texans just scored, so that makes my Houston family happy!

Loving- A friend and I went to a local art bazaar yesterday and I fell in love with an artist's work there!  It's actually 2 sisters who specialize in typography and screen printing and they had the most adorable scarves!!  I bought a turquoise one and I think I might just have to get some more!  They have an Etsy shop if you want to check them out!  They are based in Austin and they are called Little Minnows.

Thinking- Like I said before, we had the whole week of for Thanksgiving and it has been amazing!  I am NOT READY to wake up to an alarm tomorrow!

Wanting- So, I have these math tests that need grading and I just have no desire to even open my bag!  Do you ever give your papers a ride back and forth to and from school without grading them??  I am guilty of that more often than I'd like to admit!  Anyone want to grade these for me, please?

Needing- First Grade always does a Christmas/Holiday musical at our school.  I've been involved for the past 7 years and it's always a great show!  It does take a lot of work to get it all done though, so this week will be busy!  We always give up our planning period to practice with all the classes together so I'll need to be on the ball and get my copies made before school!

Favorite Tradition- Wassail!!  We make this warm and cozy drink every year and I absolutely love it!!  It's a big mix of deliciousness in the form of apple cider, orange and pineapple juice with cinnamon sticks and cloves- my mouth is watering just thinking about it!  Maybe I should get the ingredients at the store now and make some a little early this year!  Here's the recipe if you are interested-

frame from Creative Clips and fonts from Hello Literacy

Anyway, it should be a great week- only 3 more until Christmas break!

Don't forget to check out the linky over at Oh' Boy 4th Grade!

NYC trip!

Hello Friends!

I hope you are enjoying your Thanksgiving break!!  I sure am!  We just got back last night from New York City!!  It was such a great trip!!

Just popping in to share a few pictures from the trip-

Of course we did A LOT of great eating!!  :)

Pizza at Motorino

 

GIANT sandwich from Carnegie Deli (that's all from one sandwich in the picture!)

More pizza from Lucali...it was sooo good!

 We also got the opportunity to see a taping of the David Letterman show!  My husband surprised me because apparently he had to fill out all this info online and wait for them to call and ask him a trivia question before he could win tickets!  It was a lot of fun!  We didn't know who the guests were and one of them ended up being Josh Hutcherson also known as PEETA!  So fun!

We also did some great shopping in SOHO!  We love walking around in that neighborhood!  We joked that when we win the lottery, we'll get a condo there- ha!  (that would involve actually buying a lottery ticket though!) One of the shops I went into was the Scholastic store!  I didn't end up buying anything but they do have a pretty awesome teacher discount there!

Check out this view from our restaurant on Tuesday-

 
Well, I hope you are having a great Friday today and I hope you get all of the Black Friday deals you were hoping for!!

p.s. My little store is on sale if you are still in your pjs like me!!  Just click the image below to visit my store.  :)