Daisy RE-Designs: HALF OFF Updated Products!

I have been a BUSY BUSY BEE! I've been getting some oldies but goodies updated with better graphics and fonts as well as improved content. I have also been much more conscious on providing easier printing options! Take a look below at a couple of updated products that are HALF OFF through July 4th!

I'm calling these updates "Daisy RE-Designs," and every time I redesign a product, it will be on sale, so keep checking back for more updates! Click the images below to check them out in my store!

#2forTuesday

Hey there readers! I hope you are having a fantastic summer so far!!! If you're like me, you're already thinking about next year. Based on what I'm seeing on my Instagram, a LOT of teachers are already thinking about it, too! The Target Dollar Spot is the happening place right now, but summer is also a great time to stock up on some TpT items.

There's a little sale going on called 2 for Tuesday! Just type in #2forTuesday in your TpT search bar and you'll find tons of products that are HALF OFF today! I decided to put my Dice Games on sale today for HALF OFF. I'm kind of cheating, because it's actually 3 products... Shhh... I just couldn't leave out Volume 3 from the sale!!! Click any of the images below to head there now and check out all of the other sale items!

New and HALF OFF!

I've got some new goodies added to my TPT store to start the summer off right! One is for 1st and 2nd grade place value and the other is a fun Kindergarten counting set. You will get to see the Counting Sheep set in use soon when I play with it with my little buddy Liam!

All new products are HALF OFF for 48 hours after posting so snag them now when you can save some money!

Click any of the pictures below to head there now.

Summer Bucket List

Ahhhh, Summer. The time of year where teachers catch up on their "me-time." Well, somewhat. If you're like me, you're making lists too long to handle and wind up not doing much of it. Either way, I have a Summer Bucket List and found a fun blog to link up with! Looks like these other teachers are going to have a great summer, too! Thanks, Mind Sparks, for hosting a fun linky!

1. I am an avid reader but during the school year, especially towards the end when it gets CRAZY busy, I just don't have the time to put into a good book for pleasure! And any time I read, I get so relaxed, I wind up falling asleep. So being a tired teacher, you can imagine I don't get much of the actual reading done! What's on your summer reading list? I've been out of school for 1 week and I've already read through 2 of the books on my list! I'm devouring them!

2. Ryan and I are going on a "baby-moon!" I just learned that term the other day! We have a trip planned next week to the Dillard House in Georgia. I have never been but it was his family's usual summer vacation spot and he has always wanted to take me there. Before travelling gets more difficult with a baby coming in August, we are going! His sisters and mom are joining us and I am getting really excited! One of his sisters is a photographer, too, and she's going to do some awesome maternity photos for us. I will make sure I post some when they're done. Can't wait! The pictures below are from the Dillard House's website. How beautiful!

3. The nursery is on its way to completion! We hired a lady to super deep clean the room since it has been a storage/junk room for the past like 3 years. Now we are starting to piece it all together! I'll post some pictures soon when it's nearing completion. Lots to do!!! But so fun!!! 

4. I have a list of some TpT products that need a makeover! Like most TpT sellers, I use the Summer as a time to make some necessary changes. It is always so nice to visit some old products and give them some attention again. My first update this Summer will be my Fairy Tale Unit, so keep your eyes peeled for some new goodies in it!

5. I am SO EXCITED to go to the TpT Conference this year!!! I cannot tell you how thrilled I am that it is in Florida this year. I was planning on going before they announced the location change and was saving up my pennies to afford a trip to Vegas. Then I found out I was pregnant... and I wouldn't be able to travel that distance at 8 months pregnant. I'm sure you can imagine my joy when they announced it would be in Orlando this year!! I live an hour's drive away from Orlando, people! I can handle an hour drive! And my doctor gave me the okay to do so. So wide load coming through! I have a lot to learn and a lot of people I want to meet!

6. We all have Netflix goals these days, right? Gotta finish Gilmore Girls.

7. There are some Summer activities that this preggo just can't handle in the heat this year. But let me tell ya, there are a LOT of good movies coming out this summer! So you know where I'll be on the weekends. I'm also babysitting my best friend's 3-year-old and the theater in town does $1 kid movies during the week. So, they'll be seeing a lot of me at the theaters this summer...

8. Speaking of my best friend's 3-year-old... Liam is his name and he's stinkin' adorable. The teacher in me has all kinds of fun ideas for us this summer and you know I'll be blogging about it. Learning With Liam will begin sometime pretty soon. I have so many ideas pinned in Pinterest!

9. Other than Liam, I want to make sure I get some hanging out time in before the baby comes in August. My mom is a teacher, too, so its always nice to get to hang out with her over the summers!

10. And last but not least, I have an idea book that is over flowing with stuff I've been meaning to create and now is the time, people! I actually just made something for the beginning of next year for my substitute to use and it's super fun! I'll share it this evening when it is all completed! I might even have a video of it! ;)



At the end of the summer, my baby boy will be greeting the world! I have tons to do to get ready for his arrival and to make sure I capitalize on every moment before he's here that way... I'll have the ability to capitalize on every moment after he's here. <3

FOLLOWER FREEBIE!

Thanks for stopping by! Here's a fun freebie for you! Click the image below to download now!

Birthday Blog Hop!

Happy birthday, Celeste! Let's celebrate!

Celeste over at The Education Highway is hosting a birthday blog hop! Check it all out below! And be sure to check out all the other bloggers who have linked up. I am super impressed with the fun summer ideas and FREEBIES!!!

Well, I'm pregnant and getting bigger and bigger everyday. I am also MELTING in this Florida heat!!! But I still am babysitting my best friend's amazing 3 year old for most of the summer. We will be spending a lot of time in the nice air conditioned movie theater!!! If you have a Regal Cinemas near you, they are only $1 for kid movies throughout the week.

If you're like me, you'll be prepping for next year. I can't seem to stop working! I LOVE storing centers and designing fun cases for them in DVD cases! Here's a freebie to help you with storage. It's FUN.

And now on to the giveaways! Enter below and make sure you hop through the other blogs to snag your freebies and fun summer ideas!

My Going Overboard pack is included in Prize Pack 1!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

a Rafflecopter giveaway

a Rafflecopter giveaway

a Rafflecopter giveaway

An InLinkz Link-up

What Worked: Fluency and Goals AND a Birthday Giveaway!

Happy first day of June! And a very happy birthday to my buddy, Celeste over at The Education Highway! <3 There's a birthday giveaway going on over at her blog (I have it linked at the bottom of this post as well), so check it out and good luck!

It's Wednesday, so you know what that means!! What Worked! What Worked is a blogging series intended for reflection on this past year. I changed grade levels this year and had to make a lot of changes to my instruction to reach a different age group. This series is all about "what worked" in my classroom this year. Here's the schedule: (bloggers, feel free to link up your own reflections at the bottom of the post).

This week is all about Fluency and Goals. Second grade is a BIG year for reading fluency and because it was the first time I taught it, I needed to figure out a way to make it successful. If you do not concern yourself so much with fluency, this post is still beneficial to take a look at as it also discusses student-centered goal setting which can be used in any subject for any child.

Let's begin with Reading Fluency!

My district sets a words per minute (wpm) goal for each 9 weeks for Second Grade. The benefit of that is that students understand that once they hit that number, they've hit their goal. In order for it to be easy for the students to track themselves and to see easily every day was to make some sort of visual tracker. This was something that the other Second Grade teachers were on board with and we all made something visual for the kids to be able to monitor their own progress.

I made a "Fluency Flower."

Each student had a laminated bumblebee (clipart courtesy of Creative Clips, of course). By laminating them, they became dry erase. I did not put student names on the bumblebees. Students were in charge of knowing which number was their's. I felt like having names on them would broadcast the names of students to each other that were not making their goals. The way it worked was the wpm goal was in the center of the flower like a target. After fluency checks, we would update their bumblebee's number. If it exceeded the number in the middle of the flower, their bumblebee could be moved to the petals. If not, we kept the bumblebee off the flower but certainly noted that we got a lot closer. 

WHAT WORKED:

1) The visual target was in an easy to see spot in the classroom and students were very excited to work on their fluency goals to get their bee on the flower!

2) It helped with number sense, which was a surprising benefit. Students could easily see that if they got 70 wpm on an 80 wpm goal that they only needed 10 more words per minute. 10 more words per minute sounds a LOT better than saying, I need to get to 80.

3) Students did not feel ashamed or embarrassed about their fluency. Because there were no names on the bumblebees, students were internalizing their goal and keeping it with them to work on, which became far more engaging and inspiring to work on than impressing their friends.

4) I just used looped Scotch tape on each bumblebee and they lasted all year long! Any time a student needed to be moved, we just peeled him off the wall and plopped him on the flower!

Any time you have to track something, it always raises the question of how to organize the data. Organization has never been a strength of mine, but the little system I came up with WORKED wonders throughout the entire year. I snagged some of these number tabs from an office supply store and each student's fluency checks were in there (more on where I got the fluency checks from next).

WHAT WORKED:

1) It was all in one place (huge for me or I will lose it...)

2) The students knew their number and when they came up to my table to check their fluency, they knew where to tell me to go. Teamwork makes the dream work, people!

3) I kept these right with their goal folders (more on that later) and it made everything so easy to access.

There are many places to get fluency passages. TpT is a great resources as is Readworks.org. However, the reading curriculum (Reading Wonders) that is used by my district, has a fluency passage each week that goes along with the content we are reading about each week. The way I scheduled this is as follows. We had a "Fluency Check" once at the beginning of each month and once at the end with the same passage. I always chose the last week's passage because they got a little tougher as they went on and the students loved the challenge. The other passages I would send home as homework to track fluency each week. I also had an extra in a plastic sleeve in the Reading center that students could practice with a friend. I changed it out every week and kept the "Fluency Check" passages up with me.

WHAT WORKED:

1) These were free and already provided to me for the entire year. If you do not have a reading curriculum that offers these passages, check out Readworks.org. 

2) They were predictable. Students knew that the last week's passage goes to me (so that they don't memorize them when they practice) and each week they would get a new one to practice with.

Okay, let's talk about goal setting. I made an amazing purchase on TpT this past year on goal setting and it totally changed how my students worked to achieve them. 

It was created by What I Have Learned. I set it up a bit differently than she has it in her product and these were not sent home. I did a mini-lesson on goal setting and put it into practice as students worked at their own pace on their chosen goal. Each page to print in her product is for a different standard, but she has editable pages as well. Because of the way I structured it in my classroom, I simply printed out a blank goal sheet and we wrote in what each child wanted to work on. It was important to me that students choose their goals with guidance from me. I learned that students are more likely to achieve a goal they want to achieve than if I were to assign a goal to them. 

Because our one on one meetings needed to be short and because I wanted students to focus more on what the goal was and the things they could do to reach it, I did the writing. This particular student really wanted to read his first chapter book. A friend told him about the book but he was a little scared to read it because it was harder than anything he'd read before, even though it was on his reading level. We discussed why this was important to him, what he could do to help him, and we came up with a measurable outcome. That is very important to remember. Students will say "I want to get better at _____," but without a way to measure it, students won't know if they have gotten better or not. This specific measurable outcome was a score on an AR test for the book he wanted to read.

WHAT WORKED:

1) The arrow in the product page was very easy to see and understand.

2) Each blank allowed us to analyze why we wanted a goal and what the specifics of the goal were. There was no confusion!

3) This product page was completely editable and I was able to customize the bottom part to fit my class.

If you look at the bottom of the page above, you can see that there's a date area for "Next goal check." I did not get a picture of this because I ran out of pages for it! I had one of those giant desk calendars on my table where we did goal checks. After we met a goal, the students set another one and signed up for a date on the calendar. This took a lot of practice and guidance. Some students wanted to meet their goal in just and day and others didn't want to see me for another 2 months! So the guideline was that even if they didn't meet their goal, we needed to meet and talk about it at least every 2 weeks so that they don't forget what to do!

WHAT WORKED:

1) It kept me on a schedule. The kids were picking dates to come see me during centers and I knew ahead of time which folders to pull and get ready.

2) Students were able to keep track of how much time they had to try to achieve their goal. I usually had kids during centers and in the morning when they came in to class go to the calendar and check what day it was.

3) Kids loved using the colored pens to write their names in. It's the little things, sometimes.

I was SO pleased with the way this system worked for my class this year. My students became far more driven to achieve these goals that they set on their own than they were before I introduced it. Fluency scores spiked by the end of the year (a LOT of students put fluency as their goal for their folders and it helped tremendously). They REALLY wanted their bumblebee on that flower!!

Stop by next week for "What Worked" during the Math Block in my classroom!

If you'd like to link up your blog posts on today's topic (or any of the previous ones), here's what you need!

RULES:

1) Must include the What Worked Schedule in each post that links back to Daisy Designs.

2) Links MUST be to BLOG POSTS relating to the topic of each week. NO PRODUCT LINKS. Product links and photos are totally okay within your blog post, but not as a link in the linky.

3) Check out the other bloggers' posts and comment on the one posted before yours.

And here are the images you'll need to get started!

And now! Onto the fun birthday giveaway! Happy birthday Celeste!

The product I donated to her giveaway is GREAT for the summer!

You can win this product in addition to a TON of others in Prize Pack #1 by entering below or by checking out her blog HERE. There are a total of FOUR Prize Packs, so head to her blog and enter them all!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

An InLinkz Link-up