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

Pinspiration

One of my new favorite pastimes is spending time on Pinterest.  Over the last few years I feel my creativity has waned with the stress and responsibilities of teaching and everything that comes in that mixed bag, we have all read the lists of teacher responsibilities, no need to rehash them here.

Curling up with an iced coffee and my laptop to peruse Pinterest on a rainy Sunday morning is the perfect way to reignite the creativity of even the least creative :).  This summer I've had the opportunity to delve into a few pinteresting projects!

In fact, this morning I tried the "baked" hard boiled eggs available on my YUM board, I baked the eggs at 325 for 25 minutes then plunged directly into ice water.  They were very easy to peel and the yoke was bright yellow.  Somehow I always manage to get a greenish tint when I boil them.  The only difference was that there were small brown spots on the whites where the egg touched the pan.

Last week I started working on the "no name" and "how we go home" boards during a craft day at my teaching buddy Karen's house.  Getting creative with friends (and maybe a mojito or two) is even more fun!

Used to hang papers with no names on, students are responsible for checking for their own paper and resubmitting properly.

I plan to use clothes pins with students names on them.  Parents will clip them to the board at orientation to let me know how their child will go home all year.  No more outdated lists for this girl.

Magnetic fishing pole!

The magnetic fishing pole was my own creation.  If you know anything about me or the activities I create they are almost all fishing games.  Up until recently, the Dollar Tree was selling plastic magnetic fishing poles.  This year they released poles with hooks on the end, not magnets.  I was at the craft store and came across dowels, hemp, round magnets, and knobs.  I made a huge batch of these magnetic poles, gave a few pairs away as gifts, and have spares for my own class (you know, since students take such good care of our things).  I'm considering making more and trying to sell them on TpT.

Pinterest inspires me to find/make/create new ways for my classroom to look more adorable and run more efficiently.  I find new teaching ideas, lessons, units, and activities to use to supplement my curriculum.  You can find new and sometimes better ways to organize yourself, monitor student growth, and generally create more engaging activities for your students!

How did you get creative this summer?

Fun Friday

I spent this week in a workshop on Common Core Standards provided by my school district.  Subpar (adj.)-not measuring up to the standard of performance....yes, that sounds like the correct word to describe that experience.  The upside was that some of my awesome teaching buddies were there and we went to the beach after the last workshop and had quite an after party.  Does anyone else out there just love their work friends?

Today is all about the trip I took this summer and I stumbled upon mini-hundred charts I made last year, they aren't pretty but they get the job done.  You can find them below....for free :).

A few weeks ago my mom and I took a little drive (12 hours...just picture a cross-eyed emoticon here) up to my cousins house in Maryland just outside of Annapolis.  We hung out there for a few days, hit up the Amish store (my favorite!), and played with all my cousins kiddo's.

If you've driven I95 anywhere between Georgia and Virginia you know a little something about South of the Border!

That weekend we drove up to Pennsylvania for a memorial service.  Over the last year and a half we've bid farewell to my grandmother, aunt, cousin, and great aunt.  We had a big memorial service to reconnect as a family and remember a whole lot of AMAZING women.  It was very cathartic.

Top left: Church my Nana and Pop-pop were married in
Bottom left: House my Nana grew up in, just down the hill from the church
Right side: Brush Valley Cemetery, also down the hill from the church, where many of my family members have been laid to rest.

My cousins daughter, Elizabeth, had to go to the Holocaust museum for a school report so we took the Metro into D.C. for a day.  I LOVE D.C., love, love, love it!  The Holocaust museum was...well, I don't even know if I have the words to describe it.  It's definitely one of the best museums I've ever been to, you could spend the whole day walking through and learning, discussing, and drawing interesting parallels between the past and present.  After the museum we had lunch and went to check out American History, the First Ladies dresses and china were as spectacular as usual, Nancy Reagan's red china is so sassy :).  I learned 2 of the first ladies were only 21 when their husbands took office, can you imagine?!? 

My mom, myself, Elizabeth, and Megan

We drove home a few days later and it was hard to leave so many of my extended family members behind.  Take advantage of the time you have with your people, time passes so quickly and it's easy to let life carry you away.  Over the last year I've lost people I love without warning, with a fleeting moment to say goodbye, and after watching cancer eat away at them for 8 years.  No matter how someone goes out, no matter how much time you have to say goodbye and come to grips with the inevitable, the loss is still devastating.  Make the most of all your minutes.

Now onto a much lighter subject, it's a fun Friday freebie!  I created these for my students to glue onto their papers to use to show their work when they are counting on.  They circle the number they start with, count forward or back using a light crayon or highlighter, and circle their answer.

Click here to get mini-hundred charts!

Happy Friday!