A few things

  I know we all are busy trying to get our rooms together so we don't have time to blog as often as we would like. And I know many teachers are already back into their classrooms!! I am so glad that my school district does not have us go back this early. However, I am always jealous when some teachers get out in May... man I miss those days! (Preschool teacher)
 But I wanted to take the time to share some of the goodies that were sent to me this week. You guys probably have heard about the Kohl's Back to School 10% discount. Well if you haven't heard about it, they are giving this discount my readers... I know... we are lucky. And if you want to get your own discount for your readers just email me and I can try to pass along the link (it is for parents and teachers!) So how long can you use this discount code, UBLOGTEN?!? You can use it until October 24th so stack up your savings at kohls.com See more stores are catching on to what we need to get these kids dressed for success, Kohl's Back to School section helps us get more for less. And as a teacher I always like that motto. Click on the code UBLOGTEN or any link that says Back to School and check them out!

  As I was printing my pins from Pinterest I was linked to First Grade Parade, Cara, I love her!! But what a surprise something that I missed in my pins I really needed. But that isn't what really surprised me. It was the fact that her freebie, classroom labels, has more than I have ever seen all summer on posts for labels. Usually people just create the few that they need for their schedule but nope Cara created so many labels I don't know which ones to choose from. She even has a label for Centers or for me this year Literacy Stations. Plus she has included blank time cards so you could print, laminate and write/draw the time for each thing. Click here so you can download this wonderful freebie. Surprises are good huh? And if you have never visited Cara's blog First Grade Parade do so and even check out her TPT store as you might find some goodies you will like there too.:)

  Speaking of First Grade Parade... the reason why I ended up there was because I was checking out one of my pins about schedule cards. But I was intrigued about the time slot called Ketchup and Pickle Time and after reading about it I want to try it with my kids this year. (However if you need some library book labels, those are FREE). First Grade Garden has a time slot for Ketchup and Pickle Time. Are you interested in what it is all about?  I am only going to give you a teaser but it's about giving students a chance to complete unfinished work... Check out her post about it and see if you can have Ketchup and Pickle Time in your room.

 And for those who have a Five and Below in their town: My Five and Below are having a sale until 8/19, a buy one get one free. Now some things aren't really worth buying one just to get one free as you could just go to the Walmart and get it for less. But I usually go to Five and Below for my pencil pockets. I have looked everywhere else for them thinking that I could get them cheaper but no such luck. I stumbled upon them last year by accident and have been looking out for the same sale and here it is. So the pencil pockets are $1.50 buy one get one free.

Last year I got 26 pockets for $19.50 which for me was good as these pockets lasted my students all year! And since I have been pinning I have found some teachers use these pockets to put in station materials. I found one teacher use them to put different poems that students could use at the Poetry Station. My hope is to put the magnetic letters in them for Magnetic Station, poems for Poetry station and sorts for Pocket Chart station. Plus I want to have students practice sight words at home so some of the ones I buy will go in their home folders. Do you have any other ideas I could use these pockets for?

More Finds...

  In between blogging and "trying" to watch the Olympics, I keep finding stuff. I found a MEGA giveaway from Finally in First who has tons of blogger friends helping out. You have 28 things you could do in order to win the giveaway. I think your chances look good.:) What do you think?

  I also found a new supply store. I have sort of been disappointed with my teacher store here at home. I went today looking for frog stuff and I came out empty-handed and frustrated. All I found were bits and pieces of frog stuff and nothing that looked like a full set. I could find full sets of fuzzy monsters and even owls that everyone is fawning over but no FROGS. Now don't get me wrong I love owls... but when I am looking for something specific and all I find are owls, it can be very frustrating. Many times during my time in the store I questioned my theme like "should I be doing owls instead?" But then I had to stop myself and say NO!! I have to go against the grain and stick to what I like such as my blue and green FROG theme. But I bet you want to hear about that teacher supply store and not about my frustrations. It is called MPM School Supplies and the prices seem pretty discounted. I have been in the market for a new pocket chart and besides the Target Dollar spot charts (which are too small) I have found them to be about $25 and up. But here at MPM I found a standard chart discounted at $17.36. Yippee!! I may have new charts this year after all. So go check them out if you are in the market for new supplies like we all are every year.

  Another find: Fun in First Grade's Back to School Linky Party.

Link up and gain many new ideas.:) 

 First Grade a la Carte is doing a FREEBIE, a sale and a giveaway each day (for only a short time period) to celebrate back to school. Make sure to stop in tomorrow to see what the new freebie is but if you can't wait go back to the past PARTY Posts and snag some good gifts.:)

From First Grade Fever: Kohl's is giving her readers a 10% discount at kohls.com until August 23rd. You could find tons of stuff. Make sure to stop by the Kohl's Cares for Kids and get your Skippyjon Jones stuffed animals and books for $5 each!!

 I know I should be enjoy these last few days of my summer break but I am freaking out because I haven't found anything to put up in my room yet. I haven't finished my crate seats... I didn't have the right staples to fit into my staple gun:-( But I will finish!! I have to finish or I won't have enough seating in my room. So much to do. But some of my teammates will be venturing to the Lakeshore outlet in MD on Saturday and maybe hitting IKEA on the way back IF we haven't spent all our money in the Lakeshore store.

Enjoy!

I got a LOVELY blog award!

**This post is long over due. I am finally posting it as I did get the award awhile back.**
That's right, the award is called "The Lovely Blog" award.

And doesn't that make you just smile widely. To know someone thinks that your blog is lovely? I am definitely smiling widely. So I went over 3am Teacher, she is the one who gave me this lovely award and checked out the other bloggers who share this award with me. **Update: My fellow kindergarten teammate, Karmen's Kinders of Room 103 awarded me with the award too.** Now my job is to pick 15 other lovely bloggers to receive the award. FIFTEEN?! This is definitely difficult since I follow so many but I will do my best.

Rules:
1. Link back to the person who gave you the award.
2. Give this award to 15 other bloggers and let them know they've received the award.
3. Follow the person who gave you the award.

First Grade Dual which used to be Dual Kinder Teacher just finished translating the Common Core Standards to Spanish! What a task I bet. How helpful would that be for so many teachers of ESL students!

Aloha Kindergarten with lots of kindergartners!!


Miss B, Busy Bee


Have you checked out Mrs. Miner's Kindergarten Monkey Business yet? Well head on over there and make sure to sign up to receive her emails as she often shares extra freebies with her email subscribers.:) Plus such a cute button!


Little Literacy Learners

Kindergarten Nerd Herd  Give her lots of new followers!!


First Grade is Fantabulous


Herding Kats in Kindergarten


First Grade FUNdamentals


Mrs. Patton's Patch


Little Warriors

Mrs. Ayala's Kinder Fun...check out her Free Friday

Kristen's  Kindergarten (she is a host of the Math and Literacy Swap)

Make, Take & Teach (I so love Pinterest as you not only get great activity ideas but you get to follow new bloggers!)

Reading Confetti (Found on Pinterest!)

 I also got nominated for The Versatile Award again by Teacher Blog Stalker I am excited for the nomination and am so glad that I did the work for this award already.

I love getting and giving awards!

What am I Pinning?

 Have I told you how much I love Pinterest? Well I should have been singing its praises long before now. So I was on vacation in Minnesota and Chicago but during the ride (we took a road trip from Virginia) all I did was pin things left and right. Of course when I got home, I could get a hold of my laptop to really pin things. I haven't figured out how to create a pin on my ipad, I only can repin from someone else. It's a good thing that others were still pinning while I was on "vacation". I now have 22 BOARDS which makes it difficult to quickly pin anything but I had to "organize" them or I was going to be one of those pinners who just pinned and didn't use. You know there is a linky party going on about Pinterest pins called Monday Made it With 4th Grade Frolics.
 Another reason why I LOVE Pinterest is because of all the new bloggers I can find by following their ideas back to their posts and reading about them. Yesterday I found and added some new bloggers onto my ever-growing list of blogs I follow.

  Please venture out and check out Aloha Kindergarten. She made me feel bad about my 20 kids I complain about LOVE during the year. Her class consists of 36 kindergartners and she was wondering if adding all those clips to her clip chart would be too much. I wouldn't know where to put 36 kinders in my classroom let alone find them each a place to hang their stuff. I ventured to Aloha Kindergarten for her ideas on Calendar Math which had me exploring and I stumbled upon her Poetry Journals which also had me pinning them down.

 She has so many freebies that she has a tab called FREEBIES at the top of her cute blog. And make sure to check out her SMARTBoard activities.

 Please check out Kindergarten Nerd Herd who I stumbled upon. You should check out her Word Family kits post of how she refurbished old DVD cases and made them traveling centers.

Or check out her post on Behavior Races and blend this generation of students to old school games and characters. (They really don't know it's old, just that they've never played it yet.)

 And I don't know if you all know but I have been "mapping" out ways to get organized this year. I even cleaned and combined files (those given to me my first year) and stacked up piles of worksheets that I want to pass to someone else. So anyways the one thing that I do not have figured out is my Teacher Binder and Calendar. I am trying to figure out if I need to purchase a 2012-2013 weekly planner like I have been doing since college and never really use it through to the end of the year or try something new. So I have been searching the blogs and Pinterest too and I love checking out the different calendars and ideas. I still have found "the one" but I am hopeful.
  So my search lead me to Elementary Organization. Yup I typed that right... I am so excited to have found her blog. It was a pin from someone else on her calendar and of course I had to check it out. Her calendars have another purpose... curriculum.

 She wants to align her state and district standards and map out when they need to be taught for her team. They discuss any changes to the calendar as a team of course but it's mapped out and in a notebook for her team to use. And she has a lot of DIY projects for those who feel inclined to do that. Me not so much. I haven't even finished the crate seats I started like 2 weeks ago. 

Another blogger, Mrs. Ayala's Kinder Fun...

  Check her out as she offers some cute kindergarten freebies for anyone who is still struggling to get a "theme" going for your room, like me. I have my color scheme down maybe: blue, green, purple and black (all my favorite colors) but I also want to have frogs, butterflies, bumblebees, birds, dragonflies and ladybugs as my station groups. How to tie them together? Or do they even need to fit?
  I followed an idea from A Teeny Tiny Teacher, who is going "against the norm" as she says it and is not doing clip chart behavior. She asked that her readers not throw tomatoes at her for what she writes in her post. While reading her post I loved her wit and personality and how easy going she is about doing something other than clip charts or lights. Her love is Golden Tags!

Which got me thinking how could I incorporate the golden tags with my clip chart or was I setting myself up for failure as that would be too much to handle? But I do love her idea and it would work in areas that my clip chart failed this year. But she uses her Golden Tags for positive behavior and gives them out to students and on Friday students count them up in tally mark style and record them on the weekly sheet. Students are working toward earning which order they get to choose their Fun Friday centers in. Which got me thinking... Fun Friday? I only tried it for a short time but never kept up with it but it would make things so much easier. I may try to fit this into my schedule and my behavior plan. Is it too much?
And this post wouldn't be complete without telling you about a giveaway!

Venture over to The Moffatt Girls' blog and enter in her giveaway. She has an easy entry for today, just be a Facebook Fan and your entry is golden. Make sure to visit her often as she is having 7 days of giveaways!!

Go to Penniless Teacher for details on the Classroom Direct Fiskars scissors giveaway... we all could use some cute scissors!

And don't forget the Teacher's Notebook Back to School Bonanza to help raise $10,000 for educators. Go to their Bonanza page and tell them how any contribution to helping you get resources will help you. And venture back as on August 9th they will begin their sweepstakes for those contributions to be distributed.

Phew! What a post! Enjoy:)

Blogiversary Winners

Oh wow, thank you for participating in my 1st Blogiversary Giveaway. I love giveaways because you always get to meet some new people and learn a little about them. Congrats to the winners!! I tried to do what I could all the way from Minnesota.

Thirty-One: 

Congrats to Forkin4th for winning your very own Thirty-One bag!

$15 Target gift card:

Congrats to Mrs. Hoang for winning yourself the Target gift card! Winners I will be contacting you so we can get your prize to you. Remember if you did not win, head on over to Mona's Thirty-One Facebook page to see how you can get in on July's specials and get some cute bags for the new year.

Hurry giveaway ends TODAY!

Hello all, I hope you are enjoying your Saturday. I am currently road tripping it across Wiscounsin trying to get to Minnesota. But that isn't going to stop me from reminding you about my 1st Blogiversary giveaway ending today at 11pm. Don't forget to stop by Mona's FB page to get an entry. Remember if you don't win the Thirty-one bag you can always try to get the July special of spend $31 and get 1 of 5 bags for only $5. Check out my last post for the $5 bag options. Good luck, winners will be announced tomorrow. Hopefully before we go visit Mall of America. Enjoy!

Happy 1st Blogiversary Giveaway!!!

  Okay so today is Happy 1st Blogiversary to Kinders on the Block!

 So in honor of this special occasion, I am having a giveaway. Last year I did a giveaway for my birthday but this time I am doing one in honor of my 1st blogiversary! I bet you want to know what the giveaway entails huh?

THIRTY-ONE!!

 I know many of you have heard of this lovely line of bags for any occasion. My friend, Mona who is a Thirty-One consultant is happily giving away a Thermal Tote including monogramming! What a great deal!

Product # 3000

Thermal Tote $18.00

It is one of my favorites and I just started as a Thirty-One Fan. It easily can be used be used as a lunch bag or cooler. Whether you want to keep food cold or warm, you can count on the Thermal Tote to come through. Also great as a baby bag to keep bottles cold. Measures approx: 9.5”H x 14”W x 4.5”D

If you are the lucky winner to get your very own Thirty-One Thermal tote with your favorite saying on it, I think you will be TOTE-LLY awesome!!! Plus you can get it in a different pattern than the one you see here, you just have to check out the catalog here for possible pattern/saying ideas:)

                         Prize # 2, in keeping with the tradition of my blog giveaways (I like having 2 prizes), includes a:

                                                    $15 gift card to Target (My favorite store!)

 Here are the details on how you can get your name in the lucky giveaway, don't forget to do your Mandatory Entry to be considered for the prize. Make sure to put your email address in each entry.

1. (1 entry) Blog about the giveaway (give me a link back to your post) or tell your friends on Facebook about the giveaway.
2. (1 entry) Make sure you are a follower of my blog and TPT store
3. (Required entry) Leave a message on Mona's Thirty-One Facebook page, tell her I sent you AND come back and leave me a comment.
4. (1 entry) Tell me if you were to win the Thermal Tote what would you personalize it to say? *You only get 12 letters/1 line or 8 letters/2 lines*

 Happy Travels! Giveaway ends Saturday July 21st at 11pm EST. Winners will be announced Sunday July 22nd. Winners will have 48 hours to contact me with their information so we can get your prizes out to you. Good luck to you! :-)

And if you don't win this time, Thirty-One is currently having their special this month, if you spend $31 you can get 1 of 5 bags for only $5 and monogramming is only $5 (regular $7). You can choose 1 of these bags to purchase for only $5 for every $31 you spend:

Thermal Tote (reg. $18), Zipper Pouch (reg. $15), Cinch-It-Up Thermal Tote (reg. $24), Littles Carry-All Caddy (reg. $12), or the Mini Zipper Pouch (reg. $12) 

So check out the catalog and contact Mona on her Thirty-One Facebook page and you may have a few cute bags for the start of the new school year.
**Please note that I do not get any type of advertising fee, I have just fell in love with Thirty-One and I love to tell people about it now. Later when I put my Large Utility Tote to use I will take a picture of it in action!

Remember-- Happy 1st Blogiversary Giveaway, shop Thirty-One and Enjoy:-)

Feeling a bit creative... you?

  So it has been two long weeks of not doing touching my laptop. The reason being because I knew I would be on it blogging and printing like crazy. So today was the first day that I decided to get back in touch with my laptop and look what I found: Math and Literacy Swap. Well it is hosted by the lovely Kristen Poindexter from Kristen's Kindergarten and she got the idea to do math and literacy ideas from Pinterest and is opening it up to us (teachers) and letting us sign up for ones that we wanted to create. If you click here you can go to the Swap #2 that she had to open up because of so many of us teachers who wanted in on the first swap. But if you click on the first link, Math and Literacy Swap it will take you to the pictures of activities she pinned on Pinterest that you can do for the swap. Hurry though as she opened this up yesterday and decided to say well "I still have a few open spots left"... then Swap #2 was born. On Swap #2 we still have some spots left so sign up... you only have to create 20 of the same activity then you will get 20 different activities (yours plus 19 others) that come back to you. Isn't being creative so rewarding?!!

It is great to be back with my laptop and the blogging world. I've missed you.

Getting back my Blogging MOJO!

  So I will have a bit more time on my hands to blog this summer as I have definitely missed it. As a way to get back into the blogging world I check into what I had missed. Of course I missed some really cool giveaways and missed catching up with others last days. Our kids last day of school was Friday the 15th and we as teachers don't get out until the 19th. I guess it gives us all an extra bit of time to pack up our classroom. See this year will be the first time I pack up my classroom and get to keep the same classroom. Last year my team had to pack like we were moving because we were actually moving... into the main building. But this year, we aren't moving which means that I can pack my stuff into cubbies, which is exciting but it only took me 2 days to realize that I could do that. Before then I was packing like I was moving to another classroom.
  Yesterday felt a bit weird as that is the day I usually gather up materials to write lesson plans. Well I didn't have to create any lesson plans or think of what to teach for the upcoming week, so I decided to catch up on some blogging. During the summer this is a book study I want to try, it is Daily 5 for kindergarten. I have always wondered if we could implement in kindergarten and how is it really done. Now I really want to know if we can implement in a DIBELS classroom or is that just wishful thinking. I do know that I would like to included Word Work and Work on Writing in my stations. I sort of kind of include them but have never called it that before.
  I also found that I had missed Mrs. Lirette's 15 days of K guest blogger freebies post. But when I found it I just had to check it out. And of course if you missed it, click on the link above and be inspired. I haven't made it all the way down to 1 yet but I did stop at the Sight Word Book idea. I tried to do more sight words this year and in the end only a few students remembered them. I want more of my students to remember them.
  I even stumbled upon TWO new bloggers that I hadn't "met" yet. I met Kindergarten Smiles and Sharing Kindergarten both were guest bloggers of Mrs. Lirette's 15 Days of K and have awesome blogs of their own. Plus they are having a giveaway were everybody WINS! Oh I so love these kinds of giveaways.Head on over to Sharing Kindergarten's blog for details on the giveaway. All you have to do is follow both their blogs and stores and fill in your info and email before June 24th and they will email you the freebies on June 25th. Sounds easy enough huh? Well then tell everyone you know who would love to WIN.

 And you know Classroom Freebies and Classroom Freebies TOO can become quite addictive. I just found some free writing paper which helped form the thoughts of actually working on my Work on Writing station for next year. I wish I could be one of those teachers who already have their Back to School activities set and ready to go before leaving school, then I wouldn't feel so pressured at the end of break to get it all done and figured out. I also joined Grade School Giggles as a way to say "thanks" for the writing paper. Oh and check out Fern Smith's Word Family Spelling (Word Work) Lists and Tests... I linked you up to just one but there are MANY more to choose from. I have many ideas on how to work that into my classroom next year, I can so see that being their weekly homework.
 Well I have to stop for now and get to bed. It was definitely fun get back my MOJO! Thanks blog world. Enjoy!

Pinterest and Something New

 So I finally was able to sit down and PIN things today. I felt like I had at the beginning of summer when I was finding out all about blogs. I've missed so much by not blogging as much as I should this year. I need to be able to find a balance of writing and checking in. I was on Pinterest because I was looking for some crafty ways to give each student in my class an award. Of course found tons of pages and about 3 that I really liked. Then I ended up getting sidetracked and went to other boards and have too many tabs up on my webpage right now. I found organizational stuff (things that made me wish I had a husband who could build me stuff), sight words and  station ideas, and definitely lots of math stuff. I like the math stuff because I was the math person on my team this year. The one who wrote the lesson plans for the team and gathered the ideas and materials for everyone. I loved it because I had done my homework over the summer and I had TONS of things I wanted to try.
 My visit to Pinterest led me to a new blogger, you might have already visited her blog: Kindergarten Doodles.

 Well I am so excited that I found her as she has some neat ideas for stations. I noticed that in her station listings she listed an activity for math literacy and I thought to myself "can I include math into my stations?" I have to ask that as our school works on a different reading curriculum that requires us to read from a book, plan from that book and make sure we are following that book to the letter, especially when the big wigs come in to check on us. We have been told that there is some wiggle room but only in our added station. I currently have 5 stations in my room and I love it. It has taken me a year and a half to figure out that I need 5 stations for my sanity and for the student's sanity. My first 2 stations are governed by whatever my curriculum books says to put out. Station 3 varies on whatever skill we are focusing on for the week; Station 4 is usually my sight word and sentence practice station. I love having Station 4 as the sentence practice station because I know that on MWF my students will be doing some kind of sentence building activity and on TTh they work with sight word or word building. And Station 5 is for computers/listening/library. But after pinning today and finding Kindergarten Doodles I have a different take on what I want my stations to be like. Like I want to be able to incorporate writing in as a station, I want to have more writing in the classroom period. However, I can't really change my stations based on what others are doing as some classrooms have assistants and usually it is just me and I have to be at a teaching station during stations. But there has got to be an easier way to make this work as my first 2 stations change daily and I make the rest of the stations change too. I now know what my other 3 stations do not have to change daily but if I don't change them I will have too many "early" finishers because they already know how to play the game or complete the activity.
 I wanted to cut down on how much pulling and planning I have to do every week for reading stations not make things complicated. Oh and next year I wanted to start word study... I guess I have a lot of planning and thinking to do. Where to fit it all in? I want to be able to cover all the bases and still have my students learning. Last year I was the new kindergarten teacher who didn't know any better so I just went along with everything. This year I know just a bit more of what my students need to know before going into first grade. I think I did a good job of getting them on the path this year but for next year I want to do more, I want to do better of educating them so they will succeed and not fail. And it is really difficult when our reading program conflicts with our state testing and does not consistently test them for what they should know and need to know for reading. I am trying to create a balance between our reading curriculum and providing my students with phonics/phonemic awareness activities so they can pass both tests and without getting in trouble for not following things to the letter.
 How do you have literacy stations in your classroom? Or do you even do stations for reading? I would love to hear how everyone else works it out.
 Oh and head over to Lil' Country Kindergarten for some freebies, especially her Hundreds Chart Picture freebies. Did you know that she has created some for almost all the holidays? Here is a snapshot of what the kids could be working on when they "finish early":
 Thanks, Desiree