Sunday Scoop and SALE!

Happy end of the year, teachers! This is my last week of my first year teaching! What. A. Ride. To celebrate, I have my ENTIRE store on sale for 20% off! So if you are looking for some last minute end of the year activities or are starting to plan for next year and need some beginning of the year activities, check out my store by clicking my button below! My store will be on sale through Wednesday June 3rd... my last day of Kindergarten!

And now it's time for another Sunday Scoop! Thanks Teaching Trio for this fun linky! Click the button below to check out other Sunday Scoops. If you've been reading my blog for a while, you'll know that this is my favorite weekly link-up!

Here we go!

HAVE TO DO:

- I absolutely have to finish packing up my room. If you don't know, I've been in an old portable this year. It hasn't been too bad really. I just don't have any storage. Oh, and it has tried to KILL me 8 times! First, some of the wooden planks on the walkway right outside my door broke which means there was a literal hole in the floor. Then my AC broke (did I mention I live in Florida?) FIVE times. And now there are literally millions of ants in my room. I'm afraid they're going to eat the children. It looks like my floor is moving! But I will be moving to a new grade level and a new classroom (in the main building with a Smart Board and a closet the size of my house!) so I gotta get a move-on!

-Sundays is always errand day! I've got a few things to grab, specifically gift bags.

- I was able to get a GREAT deal on an end of the year gift for my kiddos from Scholastic! Their $1 book for May was:

How perfect, right??

HOPE TO DO:

- I'm addicted to adult coloring books. Get one. Now. I hope to do another one today. They are so calming and relaxing and super fun!

- My school gives us a pretty hefty print/copy limit and since there's only 3 half days of school for the entire month of June... I need to figure out what more I want to print for next year and get it started. If you have any suggestions of 2nd grade things for me, send them to me! I'm scouting out new blogs to follow and new stores to buy from!

HAPPY TO DO:

- My husband and I are headed to a mini family reunion of sorts. Ryan's favorite cousin is in town so he is super excited! I am, too... and did I mention there will be pizza? It's gonna be a good day!

Have a great Sunday! 

Summer Link-Up: Goals!

Here I am! Don't fret! I haven't disappeared off the face of a planet as it may seem with the lack of blogging I've been doing. I have to fill you in that at the theater I work for, we just had our first wave of auditions for the highly sought after spots in the summer shows.... I'm POOPED. This long weekend is just what I needed after a week of 14 hour days...

So here I am! Blogging again! And I found a really fun link-up over at I Heart Grade 3!


It's her first link-up as host, so make sure you head over to her blog and check it out! It is going to be a lot of fun. Every Monday throughout the summer, teachers like yourself will be posting about different topics. Although next Monday is the last Monday of school for me, I'm going to go ahead and start... my mind is totally already on summer anyway...

Today's topic is my goals for the summer! I always give myself too many... but here are a few!

1) Some Professional Development:

I have two books on my to-read list. I want to re-read The Daily 5 and implement it for the first time in my new second grade classroom next year. I also would like to read Teach Like A Pirate for the first time. The Daily 5 is priority, so if I don't make it to Teach Like A Pirate until the start of school, no biggie! I also signed up for a few trainings in my county. I'll be getting a Smart Board for the first time next year, so I gotta learn how to use it!!

2) Update! Create!

I need to update some of my products in my store and create some new ones to reflect my new grade level of second grade! I have so many ideas written down... In fact, my husband got me this little journal a while back (I'm an avid journaler... if that's even a word...) and I decided to use this one for my ideas. Can't wait to have time to work on them!

3) Get Organized!

This school year was interesting for me: I was a first year Kindergarten teacher in a portable with no storage and we moved into a new home. I'm feeling VERY disorganized... However, next year I will be in a classroom with more storage than I can fathom (seriously... I will totally post pictures in August) and I need to get organized. My Pinterest is overflowing with ideas I want to try, so organizing myself for next year is one of my biggest summer goals! My house is still not very organized either. Well, it is... but not very efficiently organized. I've got my work cut out for me. My school has had me start packing boxes to move, even though I still have students in my room for another 7 days. I went in yesterday over the weekend to start packing. My students are going to freak out! 

I'm going to miss that little sail in my reading corner, although my Adventure sign is a little wompy these days...

4) Not really a goal per say... but I need to R&R...

I will be spending my free time reading, coloring/drawing/doodling, journaling, and playing some much missed video games....

What are your summer goals? Comment below to share with me, or if you have your own blog, write up a post and link up with I Heart Grade 3! Here's the summer line-up on topics we'll be sharing!

Thanks for stopping by!

Minds In Bloom

I am very excited to share with you a guest post over at Rachel Lynnette's blog Minds in Bloom! It is all about using popular themes in the classroom to increase student engagement, which was something I tried this school year and LOVED. There's also a freebie involved, so make sure you check it out! Click the button below to go there now! So exciting!!!

A Big Announcement!

Has everyone totally been LOVING this sale?? I have cleared out my wish list! Woo-hoo!

I also have a very exciting announcement for Daisy Designs! Daisy Designs will be a featured guest blogger on the popular education blog Minds in Bloom by the wonderful Rachel Lynnette! I am very excited about this! My blog post will be posted on Sunday (Mother's Day) the 10th! Be sure to check it out!

To check out her blog now, click the button above. The blog is awesome and there are SO many amazing guest bloggers that share wonderful ideas. My upcoming post will get you all geared up and excited to wrap this year up and get started on 2015-2016! Woah! Stay tuned!

Sunday Scoop for May and a FREEBIE!

It's that time again! Another Sunday has rolled around! Time for my favorite linky!

Click the button above to see the other teacher bloggers who have linked up. Thanks Teaching Trio!

I am sick again. Life of a first year teacher, am I right? I made it through most of March and the entire month of April germ free, though! It's getting better! The problem is, I just cannot be sick right now. Kindergarten testing begins this week and I just can't miss. Hopefully I can knock this nonsense out today. My bestie brought over some chicken noodle soup, Gatorade, and chocolate chip cookies last night and we watched our favorite show. I already feel a little better after that! Maybe a night of puppy snuggles and Game of Thrones will help, too. :)

I also have to take a moment to celebrate and THANK YOU ALL! This morning my TpT store reached 400 followers! I am so thankful and excited to be a part of such an amazing community of teachers. To thank you and celebrate, I just posted a NEW FREEBIE in my store! Click the image below to check it out and don't forget to leave feedback on the download in my shop.

NEW FREEBIE!!! HOORAY!

It's Currently May!

May is here! That means Mother's Day crafts, my dad's birthday, and an entire month of testing... My kinders have AIMSWeb testing, FSAs (writing assessments) and 6 days of LEOCEs (Florida's end of year exams). It's nuts! Anyway, I'm starting off May super sick and in bed, but at least I'm linking up for a currently! Woo-hoo!

My summer YES, HOPE, and DREAM:

Yes: We are going on a cruise on June 4th! That's my last teacher work day and so when I leave from school, I'm going straight to hopping on a boat! The perks of living in Florida! The port is only an hour or so away.

Hope: I will be working at the community theater all summer, so it won't feel like so much of a break. I just hope it doesn't fly by. 

Dream: My county just decided to alter the calendar they published for school starting a week earlier! That means my summer (which is already shorter than most counties), will be another week shorter. We get out of school June 4th and teachers now go back August 10 instead of the 17th. Sad day.

Thanks Farley, for hosting this fun linky. Always look forward to linking up! Click her button below to see all the other awesome link-ups!

Five For Friday for the First of May!

Wait a minute... am I actually doing a blog post on a day other than Sunday?! Alert the presses!

In all seriousness, just like probably every other teacher out there right now, I am SO ready for summer and I am SO exhausted. But, I thought, so much went on this week that I should do a Five for Friday!

If you haven't heard of Five for Friday, it is a weekly linky hosted by Doodle Bugs Teaching! It is simply 5 random things/thoughts/happenings of the week! Click the image above to go to the linky and see what other teacher bloggers are up to. It's a super fun linky!

Alright, here we go!

We finished up our unit on shapes a couple of weeks ago and started our unit on measurement here in Kinder-land. To wrap things up, we made shape trains! I got the idea from Pinterest, but then cut the shapes too big... so I had to improvise... which turned out even better than just plain ol' paper!

PINSPIRATION:

 From Little Page Turners blog.

MINE:

The sentence strips wound up looking like railroad tracks! How lucky!

Later in the week, we measured our train with cubes and made a graph of how many of each shape we used on them. We also had just started our transportation unit. This activity really hits a lot of skills and standards and now my classroom "proud wall" is super cute and colorful!

If you read my previous post about the product swap I recently did (you can check it out HERE), you already know that the AC in my portable broke this week. It was horribly hot in there.

Yeah... we were NOT staying in there.

I shuffled out my 20 kindergarteners into an empty portable. We brought clipboards, a box of "movie centers" (the centers I put in empty DVD cases), and our backpacks. It was actually pretty nice! They had tons of floor space to sprawl out and all things considered, we had a pretty nice day!

I have posted about it before, but I placed a lot of center materials into empty DVD cases and my students wound up calling them "movie centers." They came in SUPER DUPER handy when I had to gather materials to move to another room on a moment's notice. I've been using them for a few weeks now and they are amazing storage savers and a huge hit with my students! If you can get your hands on a few empty DVD cases, grab them, and try a few. You won't regret it. Here are some snapshots of a center in a case as well as a freebie to make your own covers for your center materials.

Has anyone else discovered the wonder that is adult coloring books? I LOVE to color and can usually get away with owning crayons and coloring books since I'm a Kindergarten teacher, but adult coloring books exist, people! And they are awesome! My husband got one for me a while back and I've been coloring like crazy! It is so fun! Check them out!

I got my friend Heather hooked, too. It is so relaxing and fun! 

I've been doing some updating on my older products and I'm really excited to share the results with you! I have updated several products to include better graphics, more content, and materials better geared towards current standards. Click the images below to go check them out!

And last but not least, I will be moving to a new grade level next year! I'm pretty excited, but I'm sad to leave Kindergarten. I will be moving to...............

I think the best news of all that goes with this is the fact that I will be getting a real classroom and out of that portable! So excited! My allergies are so bad right now in that portable... 

If you have a second grade blog I should know about, please comment with the link below! I need some summer research material!

Have a great weekend, everyone! And happy Friday!