I'm about to ROCK this clubhouse!

My students were abnormally good Wednesday afternoon...

....for the most part....

....for the beginning of the year...

....for a Wednesday.  

So we indulged in a little Peanut Butter Jelly Time.  One of my guilty pleasures is surprise dance parties consisting of PBJ Time and/or The Cha-Cha Slide.  I just love watching 6 year olds lose their mind while they shake their tail-feather.  Plus they always beg me to dance with them.  It usually happens like this:

"Please Ms. Ehlinger, dance with us, we heard you're the best dancer in the school" they say.  

"You're the pride of the westside" they shout.  

"You're beautiful!"  I know what you're thinking, "that doesn't have anything to do with dancing," and you're right, but I just wanted you to know that they say it.  They also call me "Mom" and "Grandma" (it's happened and I'm proud of it) but we're not talking about that either so lets get back to the story.

"Ok" I begrudgingly concede and we all bust a move.

As the song was starting one of my students yelled out "I'm about to ROCK this clubhouse!"

It was that moment when you shout something crazy just as the whole room goes silent.

Crickets...

...more crickets.

Everyone just looked at him and I burst out laughing.

I couldn't help it.

Sometimes I'm the worst.

Luckily he started laughing too!  In fact, we all laughed.  Then we danced and rock it, he did!  He taught me how to 'role the dice' and I taught him how to 'walk like an Egyptian'.  I've still got the sweetest moves in the school though, don't let my kind nature fool you.

And we all lived happily ever after.

The End.

Not really though.  

If you just read all those shenanigans you deserve a reward!  

I've been trying to add a few more freebies to my TpT store and will be featuring them all over the next few weeks.  If you use the Houghton Mifflin reading series for first grade you may be familiar with Mac the Cat.  That little rascal should be making an appearance in the next few weeks so I wanted to share a worksheet I made last year as a supplemental activity.

Click here to get this worksheet for FREE!

Even if you don't use HM this is great practice for listing -at family words, handwriting, and creative writing.  Plus there's a cute little kitty to color!

Thanks for stopping by!

Jackpot...A Behavior Rewards System

Behavior rewards.

I feel like I've tried 'em all.

I used to do pennies and had a store that students could "purchase" junk from.

Pro's:  students learned the coins and trading up through a real experience which made money a lot less abstract.

Con's:  it was a lot of extra work for me because I had to help count and trade up one-on-one for practically half the year before they really "got it".

Last summer I found this pin on pinterest and it pinspired me (I'm out of control, channeling Steve Jobs right now, putting a "p" in front of everything, someone stop me!) to create a new behavior system.  I needed something that was easier for me to incorporate, still exciting, and got the parents involved.

I used the idea I got from that pin to create "lottery" tickets.  On each page there were 2 pencil cards, 2 candy cards, 1 before school computer time, and 1 treasure chest.

I printed 10 pages, laminated them (laminating is very important) and then cut out each card.

To make the scratch off paint I mixed 1 part dish soap with 2 parts silver acrylic paint then painted over the picture.  For example 1 TBSP dish soap, 2 TBSP silver acrylic paint.  Then let dry.

Students use a coin to scratch off the silver paint that reveals their reward!  You can repaint each card and put it back into the rotation!

HW showing off the new shades she picked out of the treasure box this past Friday!

Did I mention that lottery tickets also make me the best teacher in all of the America's?  From sea to shining sea there is no one greater than me...according to twenty 6 year olds at least :).

To earn a Lottery ticket each week a student must have A behavior (which means they stayed on green all week), their parents have to initial or sign their planner each week, and they must submit completed homework by Friday.

I like this system because it holds all parties accountable.  For a student to get green/A behavior they have to follow class and school rules as well do their work, participate in class and do their homework.  I have to plan engaging lessons to help keep them on track, as well as keep up with their planners and homework so they can get their behavior rewards.  Parents have to sign or initial the planner which means they are keeping up with their child's behavior/checking notes from me and helping their child get the homework done.

If my lottery tickets work for you feel free to grab a free copy from my TpT store!

Fishing Poles For Sale!

Caps!  

Caps for sale!

50 cents a cap!

I love that book : )  I especially like to change it to:

Kids!

Kids for sale!

50 cents a kid!

....you know, when my students are getting a little crazy.  They think it's hilarious.....they don't know I'm serious.

I didn't log in to tell you about Caps for Sale or even Kids for Sale.  I DID log in to tell you about: FISHING POLES FOR SALE! <- - - -That's in all caps because I just yelled it at the computer screen.

After all the glorious feedback I received about the magnetic fishing poles I made for my good buddy Cheryl over at Primary Graffitti, I've decided to try selling them on Etsy!  This past week I made 11 new sets.

Close up of the hand-painted designs

Each order comes with 2 hand-painted magnetic fishing poles for the low low low price of $7 + s&h!  At this time they are available in green, orange, and yellow.  For now they will be packaged with a ribbon (because I've got a lot of ribbon to run through)!  I hope you'll stop by and check out my new Etsy store!  Pick up some magnetic fishing poles and maybe a few new fishing games to go with it!

Procrastination

"Work without play is like peanut butter without jelly, boring." -Jase Robertson (Duck Dynasty)

I'm watching a Duck Dynasty marathon, pretending to do lesson plans while really checking out all the awesome tutorials on Teacher Blogging Basics, and watching it rain.  I still haven't done any lesson plans BUT I have created and added a banner to my TpT store, linked my blog to my TpT store, and added an automatic scroll up button (pinterest style) to my blog.  Check it out on the bottom right...just scroll down and give it a try.  

Go on....

...I'll wait.

Awesome isn't it!  

Go check out Lindsey's tutorials, they're so easy and helpful!

  

I've got some REALLY exciting news coming out on Tuesday, stay tuned!

On a totally random tangent I got stung on the bottom of my foot by a wasp (I think) this week on the jungle formerly known as our school playground.  Now un-affectionately known as the play-jungle.  

The protagonist in this tale has transformed from a bee to a killer wasp to an anaconda each time I retell the story.  By now, I'm sure it's a cross between an anaconda and a wasp...we'll just say it was a killer ninja ana-wasp.  Here's a picture of my students swimming through the dangerous play-jungle grasses...

Dangerous times in the school yard.

On another totally unrelated tangent, here is a picture I painted for one of my good friends.  She has a pig-obsession and is having a baby girl in November.  I figured this would be a great addition to little Gracie's room.  I hope she likes it!

I suppose it's time to get some lesson plans in.  Happy Sunday and stop by Tuesday for my big news!

Freebie Friday and First Friday Flash Sale

It's finally Freebie Friday!  Who doesn't love a good freebie!?

This Friday I'm re-featuring (lame, I know, but I'm about to make up for it, keep reading!) one of my favorite items which is perfect for this time of year!  Grab your copy of my Back to School Word building activity here!

If you love it as much as I do, you can pick up Word Building School Holidays from my TpT store!

Here's the best part of my Freebie Friday...I'm placing all items in my TpT store on sale today ONLY for $1.00 to celebrate the first Friday of my school year!  Go get your shop on, like now!

Therapeutic Thursday!

Where to begin?!  

Every teacher becomes a professional un-winder (is that a word?) and it doesn't ALWAYS take alcohol to loosen us up, but that never hurts...

Don't you like how my drink came with 2 miniature men in it?
They cleaned out my car after I finished my drink.

....never on school nights, of course, what kind of people do you think we are!

My favorite teacher therapy is probably vodka a nice spa pedicure (primary teachers hardly ever get to sit)!  I thought about posting a picture of my back to school pedicure (China Glaze: Flip Flop Fantasy) but posting pictures of feet is weird.  

Unless you post pictures of your feet.

Then, I guess it's not that weird.

Don't read into it.

I also love to hit the water with my Mom.  Yes, you read that right, I hang out with my Mom on the regular.  She's that awesome.  It's ok to be jealous...of our awesome kayaks!

Her backyard is kind of amazing, she has trouble getting rid of me!

You might not know this about me....I really don't put it out there...but I'm kind of into Pinterest.  Sometimes my new kitten likes to get her 'pin' on!

I think Meela was pointing out the adult beverage to the left.

This is my new kitten Meela, she's such a lady.  She also has really bad gas and steals food right off of your plate, while you're eating.  She's a keeper...

Finally, I'm a big reader, I enjoy reading before bed every night.  Right now I'm reading The Book Thief on my Kindle.  It's a Holocaust novel about an illiterate girl, told from the perspective of the Grimm Reaper.  I'm only about 23% into the book (that's Kindle-code for there are no page numbers on a Kindle).  It sounds like a downer and I may not have tried it if I'd known what it was about but it's one of the most beautifully written stories I've ever read.  I'll be reading more Markus Zusak books as soon as I get closer to 99% complete.  He's an amazing author.

I also just started reading Teach Like A Champion because my work BFF told me to.  I've only read 2 of the techniques...

...because I took Benadryl yesterday and slept for 11 hours,

...because I got attacked by an anaconda in the jungle formerly known as our playground.  It bit my foot, which immediately swelled up.  I had to take Benadryl.  Then I had to sleep for 11 hours.  So I couldn't learn anymore techniques.

By the way, what's a girl gotta do to get the grass mowed?

Out of the 2 techniques I've learned I really like "Right is right."  It basically says that you can't tell a kid they have the correct answer when they are only half right.  I know I have a tendency to say "right" as a praise for participation and then complete the rest of the answer for them.  An example from the book is something like this:

Teacher: Can you tell me what the definition for a noun is?
Student: A person, place or thing.
Teacher:  Right!  A noun is a person, place, thing or idea.

The student isn't right because they didn't get it 100% right.  We should hold out for 100% right so that students don't neglect pertinent information.

Good cues would be:

"That's great but there's another part, do you know what it is?"

"Can you develop that a bit further?"

"We're almost there, can you find that last piece?"

If you're looking for some good professional development reading you should check it out, because my work BFF told us to :).

So that's how I relax, how do you unwind?!

Where I Teach

I can't even begin to express how pleased I am with how the classroom turned out this year.  I recently decided to choose a color scheme/theme for inside of my classroom and keep the school theme outside only.  It just costs too much to completely transform a room every year!  Below are a few general pictures of my class set up.

I love having my desk smack in the middle of the room, nothing gets by me, at least that's what I like to think!

Top: Front of my room with the white board and class meeting area.
Bottom: Back of the room with the word wall, cubbies, and fridge.

Can you guess what our theme is this year?  This is the view outside of my classroom.  I finally got brave enough to hang a few things from the ceiling outside of my classroom!

I love that quote from Seuss, "It's fun to have fun but you have to know how!"  It's the perfect way to kick off that behavior expectations discussion.

Students added their names are on stars to the word wall.

Below you'll see my calendar...nothing exciting, I need to do something about that.  My schedule, and our 60 day countdown.  We are filling in one minute each day of the clock to count down the first 60 days of school.  

The clock corner is my newest addition to the classroom!  Thanks Ginger Snaps for the cute clock labels!

I found the pencil labels on Pinterest and traced them back to Ladybug Teacher Files.  There are my student files in the blue and green crates.  I painted those Dr. Seuss pictures a few years ago and last year I made the first grade frame that became so popular on Pinterest.  I pinned and made it almost a year ago and of course now the link is broken so I'm sorry I can't credit that brilliant teacher!  Finally, I made lots of pennants this summer and I think they are one of the reasons I'm so excited about my room this year!

The How We Go Home board was another Pinterest inspired find from Lesson Plan Diva.  I've also pictured the students library, birthday bucket, and some new shelving units I spent a couple hours putting together last week!

That's basically what I've got going on in my room this year!  I can't wait to see what everyone else's rooms look like!

Tech Tip Tuesday

I won't pretend to have very many technology tips.  In fact, I just learned how to turn on the right click button on my wireless Apple mouse...would that make it an iMouse, I dunno.  

I decided to keep it REAL simple and share a new trick I learned last week!  Many of us are very familiar with screen shots on a PC but I just figured out how easy it is to do on a MAC! 

The finger-tip is Command + Shift + 4.  A cross-hair will pop up and you can click and drag to select the area you want to capture.  When you release the button the screen shot of the selected area will automatically be saved as a picture (PNG) to your desktop!  No more screen shot, copy and paste to Word, crop, copy and paste to Publisher or Powerpoint, arrange and then copy and paste to Paint to save as a JPEG for this girl.  Life just got a WHOLE lot simpler!

I can't wait to read everyone else's tech tips today...I need all the help I can get!

Book Buddies

Who doesn't love a book buddy?!

This little gem was one of the many brilliant idea's passed down from my mentor teacher when I started teaching.  The first year was just some random teddy bear and I let the kids choose a book.  Then I forgot to get it together for a few years took a break from book buddy-ing.  A few years ago, a Kohl's opened up across the street from my school.

If you aren't familiar with Kohl's, they are essentially a department store and the best thing about Kohl's is their Kohl's Cares program.  Quarterly they feature a popular children's book and stuffed animal for $5 each, I'm talking Dr. Seuss, Eric Carle, Guy Parker-Rees, and many more.  Right now they are featuring Skippyjon Jones, several different books, stuffed animals, and even an adorable backpack, all for $5 each.  Check it out at Kohl's Cares Kids!

Want to know a secret?

I just stumbled across it this summer...

...when they transition between campaigns, quarterly, you can order the leftovers on clearance from their web site for only $2.50 each!

I digress, back to my book buddies.  A few years ago I picked up A Wocket in my Pocket by Dr. Seuss as well as a Yot...the stuffed pink and orange stripped creature from the book.  I didn't know it was a Yot.  I called it a Wocket, until one of my students found it in the book and corrected me.

Apparently I'm not smarter than a 6 year old.

Book buddy was a huge hit that year and I was the best teacher in all of the America's.  Our Yot even got its photo taken with a celebrity!  Extreme Home Makeover came to Jacksonville and the family who had it that weekend took it with them to see the build.  One of the designers came over and took a picture with them!  So adorable!

This summer I made myself get the book buddy together ahead of time since it slipped my mind/I was too lazy to get it together last year.  Meet The Foolish Tortoise!

You know how teachers put out all of their unwanted/gently used items for other teachers to pick up?  I call it classroom dumpster diving and generally try to steer clear of it.  However, one of my colleagues put out an old bingo kit with the old fashioned balls and cage.  I snatched the cage and balls up so fast like I wasn't even ashamed to classroom dumpster dive. Unbelievable.

I used little labels to write my students names on and wrapped them around the balls.  Each Friday I will crank the cage to draw a name and determine who gets to take home the book buddy for that weekend.  I can't wait!  On Monday morning, the student who brought the book buddy home will get to read their journal entry to the class and talk about their weekend with the book buddy!  Did I mention, I can't wait!

I'd like to share my journal pages with you.  The document is not editable because I'm not that smart, but if you like it the way it is, feel free to grab your own copy!

Follow this link to The Foolish Turtle journal freebie!

The journal is pretty basic, I used Kevin and Amanda's Scrapbook Fonts and Microsoft Office Clipart, but I'm REALLY pleased with how it turned out!

Finally, I just wanted to thank both Primary Graffiti and A Teeny Tiny Teacher for the shout-outs on their blogs this week!  I've gotten so much positive feedback about the fishing poles, so many new people have visited my blog and my followers have tripled!  I told my Mom about the fishing poles and on Friday I came home to this...

I really love that woman : )  I'm excited to announce that I'll be putting together some fishing poles and researching both TpT and Etsy to see which would be better to start selling on.  I'm thinking $6 plus s&h for 2 magnetic fishing poles!  Once I get it all set up I'll let you all know!  Thank you again for visiting, following, and the great feedback!

Here's What...

Click here to see Blog Hoppin's B2S linky!

Have you gotten your TpT shop on?  I'm still downloading my purchases!  Here's what I got!

Visit Christina's store here!

 I love all of these little flippy books, they are great for introducing or reviewing a new topic.  I've seriously downloaded almost all of these flippy's and my students always love making them!

Visit The 3am Teacher's store here

 I've had my eyes on some of her graphics for a while so I thought I'd download a few for some fishing games I have in mind : ).

Visit A Cupcake for the Teacher's store!

 Sometimes I want to celebrate a holiday with my class and just can't think of an activity that is fun and educational at the same time.  All of her craftivities are phenomenal, check her store out if you're looking for a unique way to celebrate with your students.

Visit Hello Literacy's store here!

 I just stumbled upon Jen Jones at Hello Literacy while I was looking for borders.  She's got adorable border sets for a great price during this Back to School Sale, go peep her out, seriously!

Don't forget to stop by my store!  Everything is 20% off with an additional 10% if you use the code: BTS12 at check out!  Most of my products are in the $2-$3 range regularly so you can get a really great deal on the cutest black and white fishing games ever!

My TpT Store!

Check out my newest addition Long and Short Vowel Fishing.  There is a fishing game for all 5 vowels.  Students "catch" a word using a magnetic fishing pole, determine whether it has a long or short vowel, sort it into the appropriate category, then continue fishing.  When all the words for that vowel are caught and sorted they record their words on the 1/2 page recording sheet!

Visit my store to get your copy of Long and Short Vowel Fishing!

Back to School Sale!

Guess what!  I'm about to head to the Jason Aldean and Luke Bryan concert so I'm going to keep this short and sweet!  Please excuse my dust over the next few days, I'm getting into blog design and trying to add new things without ruining everything....my specialty : ).  Up top you'll notice some new pages, check them out, if you're bored....really bored.  I'm also working on adding a signature and some social media links for Pinterest (what else?!?!) and such.

None of that is what I logged in to tell you about though.  If you don't know, you're about to know.  TpT is having a HUGE, Huge, Huge funeral to memorialize summer vacation 2012 sale this Sunday and Monday to kick off the new school year.  You will be able to get your excited little hands on lots of new goodies for up to 28% off the original price, which is chump change since the original price is $2 or $3.  So make sure you log in and get your shop on this weekend!  Don't forget to stop by my store and pick up a super fun fishing game or 14!

Click here to visit my TpT store!

Word Work Fishing Games

I can't believe how fast this summer has flown by!  I've finished ALMOST all of the summer projects I planned, including a few extra's that popped up : ) !

Is anyone else out there trying to relish this last bit of time before school starts?  Yesterday was practically a perfect day.  I went out to the beach to get a basket for my bike, which I will be riding to school this year as I just moved to a home about 1 mile away from the school I work at...I'm gonna be so granola this year!  Then I clocked a couple of hours on the sand and got lunch at Pita Pit...yum!  I got to end the day in my favorite spin class with some really fun peeps!  

As much as I'm clinging to summer I'm also getting really excited about this new year!  This summer I worked on a boatload of new fishing games that I can't wait to try out with my kiddo's!  I've uploaded them all to my TpT store but I'd like to feature them all below, with a freebie, of course!

All of the fishing games below are aligned with common core standards.  They come with teacher and student directions, fish cards with words for matching/sorting, and a recording sheet.  All of these fishing word work games are available for $2.00!

Click here to get Fishing for Antonyms

Click here to get Fishing for Synonyms

Click here to get Fishing for Compound Words

Click here to get Fishing for Contractions

Click here to get Fishing for Homophones

I see everyone doing these great give-away's and it seems like a good way to share your products so I think I'll give this a try.  I just took wrote down a number between 1-20.  The first person to guess my number can choose one of the 5 products listed above for free.  To win you have to be a follower of my blog.  Please include your number, email address and which product you would like in your post!  As soon as someone guesses my number I'll update this post with a picture of the number I wrote down and email the winner the fishing game of their choice!

Finally, a freebie for everyone.  Last year I focused on silent -e words with my word building RTI group.  I made these cards and we used them to play both War and Memory.  While it's pretty basic these games turned out to be a favorite, students asked to play them even after they mastered silent -e.  Follow the link below the picture to download the cards and game instructions!

Relish these last few days and definitely stop by my TpT store on the 12th and 13th for a huge Back to School sale!  More info coming about that later this week!

Click here to get Silent -e games