Back to School and last minute crafting!

Hello Everyone!

Before I start I want to tell you that my mind is all over the place so this post might resemble.  

I go back to school tomorrow for staff development.  

We have Meet The Teacher on Friday and our first official day with the kiddos is on Monday!

I dont know about all of you but every year I feel so nervous and anxious!

Im sure the year will be great but I cannot help those butterflies in my tummy!

Well onto my second part of my post! 

(im telling you I am truly feeling scatterbrain)

So I have a confession.  

I am not a crafter.  I have no patience so I do not craft.  

I have tried a lot of crafts and have had many pinterest fails!

Last week I saw Kelly from First Grade Fairytales had some beautiful Chevron tables and I mentioned how I was obsessed with chevron but can never do it because I have no patience to sit and measure.  

Trust me people I have tried many times and my lines always come out looking crazy!

Well she was so sweet and contacted me and let me in on a little secret.  

Did you know they sell chevron tape???

What!!!!

I have been going crazy measuring and taping and re-taping and re-measuring for nothing!

Well I knew I had to run to Lowes and pick some up.  

So after I got over the price I was in love.  

I had the perfect thing to add some chevron too.

I bought these stools from Ikea last week.  They were $5 and I knew they would be perfect for my reading area.    

So I got to work.  Now remember I am not a crafter so I did my best.  I knew I wanted it to fit my Hollywood Theme so this is what I came up with.  

I love how they came out.  Are they perfect NO!  but I love them anyways! 

I also redid my clothespins.  Let me tell you I use clothespins all over my room.  For my behavior chart, job chart, student work, you get the picture!  Ha!

I just love how these came out.  The washi tape was on sale at Target and they go great with my classroom.  This was super easy to do.  So if you want to cutesify your clothespins I definitely recommend this.  

Before I go to bed I wanted to tell you that I got so many goodies during the Back To School Sale.  

I cannot wait to share with you what I bought.  

Thank you to all of you who took the time to visit my TPT store and especially to all of you who took the time to leave feedback.  You guys made my day.  

Ok goodnight blog world.  

I am looking forward to an all day staff training said not teacher ever!

Cindy

Back To School Sale!

Have you hear the good news???

TPT will be having their annual back to school sale on Aug. 18-19

I don't know about all of you but I always look forward for this sale and this year it seemed like it took forever.  My wishlist is pages long so I am definitely going to take advantage.   

My store will also be on sale so make sure you check it out.  Just click on the pic to head on over.  

I found this fun linky and decided to link up.

Make sure you link up.  All you have to do is list your 2 most wishlisted items and 1 item on your wishlist.  

My superhero clip art set is one of my most wishlisted items.  I used it to create a lot of my superhero items and I have gotten great feedback.  You will receive 18 individual png images with transparent background. They are beautifully colored and I have also included black and white line art. 

Everything you need to implement math journals in your classroom is included.

This packet contains 30 math journal prompts. Each prompt comes in two versions. One to show on your Smartboard and one in a cut and paste format. The cut and paste page has multiple copies of the same prompt to make it easy for students to glue onto math journals. It also contains math journal covers and math journal paper. 

Have you seen this unit from A Year of Many Firsts.  It is super cute and will be perfect for writing.  

Click on the pic to check it out.  

XOXO

Cindy

Im Back and a WINNER!!!!

Hello Everyone!

I just came back from our fabulous trip. 

We went to San Diego and had so much fun

We got to enjoy the beach, sea world, legoland, and of course I needed to go to IKEA since we don't have one in Las Vegas.

I will blog soon with all our pics but after driving for 6 hours I am exhausted and I have a big pile of laundry to take care of.  

I just decided to pop in real quick to announce the winner of the $25 gift certificate to TPT.

I wanted to thank all of you that took the time to enter.

Congratulations to Maria from First Grade Carousel.
Please check your email.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Ok friends I am off to unpack.  

XOXO

Cindy

Five for Friday Aug 9th

Hello Everyone!

I am linking up with Kacey from DoodleBugs teaching for her Five For Friday.

1.

I reached 100 followers on Bloglovin and my TPT store this week. 

WOOT! WOOT!

In honor of this milestone I decided to do a giveaway.  

I am giving away something you can really use.

MONEY! MONEY! MONEY! (you have to sing it!)

Ha! 

Well its a gift certificate to TPT so that you can get what you need to start your year off on the right foot.  

a Rafflecopter giveaway

2.

Yesterday I took my boys to The Natural History Museum.  

My little guy has just started walking within the last week and now he wants nothing to do with the stroller.  

He follows his big bro everywhere.  Its so nice to see them already building that special bond.

This is them checking out the cat family.

  

My older son was telling his all about the tigers and where they live and how they eat.  

It was so endearing to sit back and watch.

3.

I got some new shoes!  

I was suppose to be looking for school clothes but when I saw these I just couldn't pass them up and they were on sale.  

WHAAT!  

I guess I will have to sacrifice and keep on shopping for school clothes.  

4.

We are leaving tomorrow on our family trip.

It is our last Hoorah before school begins.

We will be heading to San Diego and visiting

I am so excited!  

Ok maybe a little more excited than my kids.  Hahahaha!

I will keep you posted on our trip.

5.

I have been trying to get my classroom ready while trying to juggle my babies.  

Check out some of the pics I have posted on my blog.  

I am nowhere close to being done and the nightmares are starting.  

Yesterday I dreamed it was the first day and my room looked a hot mess and I was in my pj's and the students were just staring at me.  UGH!  

I will be working on my welcome board when I come back from our trip.

I couldn't find something at the teacher store I liked so I decided to make something.

This is what I came up with

I am going to write my students names on these little guys.  

Cindy

Back to School Freebies

Hello Everyone!

Before we get to the good stuff I wanted to remind you about my 100th follower giveaway. 

 If you haven't entered hurry up and enter so you could win $25 gift card to TPT.  

a Rafflecopter giveaway

OK so now lets get down to business.
My kiddos don't start school until Aug. 26th but I am trying to knock some things off of my never ending to do list.
The first day is always crazy!
The kiddos are super excited and there are supplies still coming in and then you have the occasional tears ( sometimes from the parents, Ha!)
So I always like to have something waiting on the students desks to keep them busy while I take care of business.  I really like for the first thing the kiddos do to be kind of fun and easy so that they can do it independently while I am running around.

So this is what I came up with a little welcome mat.
click on the pic to head on over to my TPT store to grab your freebie.

I only made it from K-2 because I figured it was way to simple for the upper grades.  I have never really taught the upper grades so I don't know what you guys do on first day.  

I also have another little oldie to remind you of and its free!

I use these in my classroom at the beginning when I am introducing poems.  There is a poem for each letter of the alphabet.  I put them in a folder and we go through a letter every couple of days.  We read the poem and then I have the students illustrate it.  The next day we re-read the poem and highlight or underline sight words, short vowel words, or anything else we are working on.  As the year goes on I add different poems to the folder.  

The students love looking back at these poems.  

Hope you enjoy and I would really appreciate feedback if possible.    

I will share my first week lesson plans with you tomorrow.  

I know have to go play Legos with my little guy.  

XOXO

Cindy

Class Pics and a Giveaway!

Hello Everyone!

WOOT! WOOT!
I have finally reached 100 followers on Bloglovin.  

I really want you to know how much I appreciate all of you that follow my little blog. 

Ever since my husband took his new position he has been away a lot so that means I have double duty on my hands.  

So I have been a little MIA but you have stuck with me.

Thank you!

So I started thinking what do you all need right now.  

What you need is things to get your classroom up and running and who knows what you need better than you do.  

So to help you out I am giving away MOOLAH!  

Ha!

I am giving away a $25 gift certificate to  TPT.  

This way you can buy those things that you have been putting off in your wishlist.

a Rafflecopter giveaway 

Ok now that you have entered the giveaway.

Check out some of my classroom pics.  

Now remember I have been flying solo since my hubby has been out of town on work so I have been doing things here and there but you know how it is with two kids running around.

This was my library before.  I had a hodge podge of baskets.  

These baskets were donated from teachers retiring and I got some from dollar tree and well it was looking CRAAZY!

It was driving me BANANAS!

So this year I decided enough was enough.  

I went to Dollar Tree and found baskets in Red and Blue to go with my Hollywood Theme.  

Check it out!

I love how uniform they look.

I know there are 4 baskets that are different.

Those are leveled by reading level.  

My kiddos are only allowed to these 4 baskets at first while they learn how to keep the library organized.  

After my cleaning crew ensures that they know how to put books back where they belong I open the whole library.  We have a big celebration for the grand opening.  The kiddos love it!

I will blog more on this at a later time.

Here is my behavior clip chart and my class rules.  

I put them on my wardrobe because who wants to look at that wood laminate.  

I love how they came out.

This is my student work board.  

I will be adding clips to the papers and spacing out the red papers once I find out how many kiddos I have this year.  As of right now I only have 16 but last year I had 24 so I had to make sure the papers fit.  

Here is a close up of my board.  I love how that teal pops!  

This is my board behind my reading table.  

I use these constantly throughout the year.  They are my Reading chunks. 

I also got the 3 sounds of ed as a freebie last year from What The Teacher Wants (I think?? If its someone else please let me know so I can link it.)

So that is all I got for you today.  I am going to try to sneak in this week and get my nametags up and my calendar board. 

More pics to come.  

  XOXO

Cindy