Five For Friday + Five Products Giveaway!

It's Five for Friday peeps!  With two weeks of summer under my belt, I have gotten a lot done.  I decided to get all of the home decorating out of the way, so over Memorial Weekend I painted the dining room, hallway, and my daughters' room.  Here are some pics of the neon madness that my little sweeties picked out!

 The desk turned out so cute!  And it's already filled with supplies for all of Lily's 'creations'. :)

 These are before and after pics of my mom's flea market finds.  My daughters wanted nightstands and I am not a person who can just go out and buy furniture.  I would much rather make something cute and unique...and cheap!  They turned out cute and funky!  

Wow, this rain has been pounding Kansas/OK/TX for FAR too long!  But a plus side of the rain is finding critters that love to be wet!  We have a box turtle (Shelby) held hostage right now and this pic is of a monster toad we found in our flower bed.  My daughter took this pic, pardon the blur please. :)

I am jazzed to find a PERFECT Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe!!  I found it on the blog of The Girl Who Ate Everything.  I want to be best friends with this gal! ;)

I'm going to Vegas baby!  But not for the TPT Conference, maybe next year.  This year is me and my hubby's 10-year anniversary and he surprised me with a trip to Vegas.  Bellagio, here we come!!

To celebrate Five for Friday, I am giving away 5 products in my TPT Store!!

Just fill out the Rafflecopter below and follow my TPT Store to be entered in the giveaway!  You can take a peek at some of my brand-new products, like my author study over Mo Willems, at my TPT store here.  Good luck!!

Have a great weekend and don't forget to check out the other fabulous bloggers here!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Five For Fraturday! Phonics + WBT = Happy Kids!

Happy Saturday to me!  And I say that because I am celebrating the first weekend of summer vacation!!  I am soooo needing a mental break from school, but I still can't help thinking about a few things I want to work on over the summer. :) Teacher problems....

I love my ELA block because we always start with some phonics fun, Whole Brain Teaching style!  I fell in love with WBT last year and now I include many strategies in all subject areas!  I started using the Scoreboard, Mighty Oh Yeahs, and the Super Improver Wall and never looked back. :)

I had a sweet para record me while we had our phonics voices and gestures of the day.  (Please excuse the lounge wear, it was garden planting day!)  I use Kristen Smith's Phonics Mastery and absolutely love her phonics gestures.  This works perfectly with WBT methods!  Now my class and I have tweaked  a few to our own tastes, but most are from her pack.  

I always begin with "hands and eyes" to make sure all eyes are on me and hands are quiet.  Then I give a "mirror check" as a warm up.  Kids love this!  And after we learn a new phonics sound/gesture, I always ask a student to come up and model for the class.  They love to give the mirror check to the others.  Who doesn't like being bossy once in awhile? :)
Here's a quick clip of how we start our daily phonics, WBT style!

Here's another clip of more phonics sounds.

My Mother's Day weekend was spent running these two darlings around :)  Love my girls!!

I don't know about you, but the last two weeks of school are tough.  I mean TOUGH!  Sometimes the classroom rules go right out the door and you have to have a plan, a yummy plan. :)  Our bribe, I mean, incentive to finish the year off right, was an ice cream party where you earn your toppings.  It was totally worth it. 

I used my Superstar Student Awards and Medals last week and it was a total success!  Parents came to see their kids on the first grade 'red carpet' and don their medals for all to see!  You can take a peek at the pack here.

Just a pic of my fav softball player + coach ;)  xoxoxo

Winner Wednesday!!

I'm so excited to share this awesome new linky party with you today!  The sweet Jennifer, from A Dab of Glue Will Do, created Winner Wednesday!  The first Wednesday of every month, a product will be given away at each of our blogs linked at the bottom.  Enter and have a chance to be a WINNER!!

The product I chose today is my newest pack, National Parks: Road Trippin'.  This groovy pack contains passages and review sheets over four national parks: Carlsbad Caverns, Everglades, Redwoods, and Padre Island.  

One of the games is on conjunctions.  I don't know about you, but I always leave this skill until the end of the year with my firsties.  I think it's an easy concept, but I usually just have too much to do besides this!  Pardon my crummy iPhone photos! :)

Here is a pic of my Carlsbad Caverns passage.  This kiddo did a great job numbering the paragraphs and highlighting important info!

These pics include my favorite part of my pack: the map skills!  I put a national park key with the USA map.  Students will solve T/F questions on where the national parks are located on the map, using cardinal directions.  We did this today, and I was pleasantly surprised at how many kiddos knew their directions!  

The next pic is my landforms memory match game.  Although I don't have a pic of this, I think the students are *lovin* the National Park Passport books.  They get to take a 'selfie' of themselves at the national park, write about what they would do there, and then add their 'national park junior ranger stamp' to each section.  

So let's get this giveaway started!!  Enter the rafflecopter below with your name.  The contest ends at midnight tonight, so follow the links for more chances to win on Winner Wednesday!!  

Have a great week!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

We Love Teachers Blog Hop!

This week is Teacher Appreciation Week!  Does anyone else feel like it's Christmas for teachers???  I love this week, not just for the snazzy gifts, but just the sweet comments from students and parents.  We are loved!! :)

A few (18) of my awesome friends and I want to give YOU some appreciation!  How shall we show our love???  With FREEBIES!!!

Each of our blogs will be featuring an original product, and a Freebie for you.  Hop from one blog to the next and your lesson planning will be taken care of. :)


Here's a little info about my product, World Traveler Road Trippin': A close reading unit over U.S. National Parks.

My firsties will be starting this unit next week and I am so excited to take my kiddos on a 'road trip' to visit: Carlsbad Caverns, the Redwoods, Padre Island, and the Everglades.  We will start the week with  my gorgeous anchor chart ;)  I am definitely not an artist, so I am good friends with my projector!

Some of the activities include conjunctions, landforms memory match, and my fav, using a map key! My firsties are pretty new to this, so I hope it goes well!

You can find your freebie about the Carlsbad Caverns here.  

If you are interested in the whole pack, find it on TPT here.

Check out your next freebie here at the wonderful blog Tales of Teaching with Tech!

Happy Teacher Appreciation Week!