BTS 2013

Well it's here BTS 2013 is in full swing and the teacher and mother side of me are going crazy!  My daughter is starting Pre-K this year!  I swear it was just yesterday that my husband and I brought her home from the hospital.  I was so surprised to get the call a few days ago that a spot became open in the dual language program in our district and my daughter was first on the list.  So that means that my daughter will somewhat be bilingual when she graduates from high school!  Is that cool or what?  Does your district offer dual language? I will be teaching 2nd grade dual language this year and I'm eager to get started.  Anyway with that being said the mother in me went crazy and bought my girly tons of school clothes.  Here's a look at some of her goodies.

On another note I told you the teacher side of me is acting just as crazy.  Here are some of the steals I scored during BTS2013.

I got tons of baskets, markers, post-its, glue etc alot of which aren't pictured.  To top that I finally broke down and got the rolling cart you see in most teachers rooms only because it was 70% off at Michaels last week! Finally I think every teacher needs these two little bottles from BBW somewhere in their room for those days that nothing seems to be going right or when you need a energy boost.

On another note I finally finished my BTS2013 math centers.

 I plan to use them to assess my students math abilities and to help

 me group them for guided math rotations the first few weeks of school. The unit features place value, problem solving, measurement, addition/subtraction facts up to 20 and more!

 In honor of BTS2013 this unit is on sale until midnight est!  

I'll even give out a free copy to the first 2 people to leave a comment on my blog!

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Finally I've made a decision! FLASH FREEBIE

I've finally made up my mind about what I want to do with my room this year!  In the past I've done a garden theme with bees, pirates, and this year I have decided to do a monster theme with of course some chevron mixed in. My inspiration came when  I was buying some clip art to add to my collection on Creative Clips TPT page when I fell in love with her cute primary monster pack and knew I had to use them in my room this year. So of course I thought I would share it with some of my blog buddies who haven't decided on what to do with their rooms.  So for 1 hour only I will email the unit to anyone who follows my blog thru bloglovin, my TPT store and like my new Facebook page which you can get to here! This pack is 129 pages of total cuteness and is regularly sold for 8 bucks in my TPT store!  When you've completed everything just leave a comment with your email and I will send the unit to you.

Here's a preview of some of the goodies in the unit.

       

Monday Made It

I'm linking up with 4th Grade Frolics to present you with my Monday Made it!  Since I finished my accomplishment badges at 12 something this morning I decided that this project was enough for today.  

I made a total of 25 different badges and plan for the students to display them in my classroom on a accomplishment board so the students can reflect on all of their accomplishments throughout the year. If your interested in the set just click on the picture and it will take you to my TPT store. Now I'm off to Hobby Lobby to buy the bead chains for these babies.  

  

Accomplishment Badges!!!

I hope everyone is enjoying their summer so far! This post is going to be super quick because I just finished uploading my accomplishment badges to my TPT store and I wanted to share some pics with you guys.  Plus  I plan to give 2 copies of these babies away to two lucky bloggers who are still up blogging with me!  First let me say that I saw these badges start popping up and just had to make some of my own specifically for my students next year.  This unit contains 25 different badges for students to wear proudly to show off their accomplishments.  Click here to head over to my TPT store to grab a copy!

Ok!  So before I go to bed I want to give away 2 copies to the first 2 people to leave a comment explaining how they can incorporate these into their classroom.  Let's see who's up past midnight.  Make sure you leave your email address.

July Currently

Oh my wow!  I actually can't believe it's already July.  The other day I was going to get my bubba (9 month old son) a walking toy from Toys R Us because he's standing and walking around everything when I spotted a wall of Back to School Supplies!!!!!!!! EEEEEKKK!  I am so not ready to go back!

Any who I've been super busy changing and creating things in my house.  Here's a pic of my latest project.

I bought some paint canvases and fabric from Hobby Lobby and stapled the fabric to the canvases and paired them up with this super cute art piece also found at Hobby Lobby.  I think once I paint the house the pieces will really POP!  

I'm so off the subject so let's check out my July Currently courtesy of Farley at Oh Boy 4th Grade.

Listening and Loving:

So today it was so nice outside!  I mean living in Texas we can see temps up to 105 so when I stepped outside to a cool 87 degrees I grabbed the kids, some snacks, and bathing suits and headed straight to the water park. Bubba didn't want anything to do with the water so he stayed on the side with gma eating cheerios.  But my daughter went crazy so crazy that she passed out the minute we got in the car until about 30 minutes ago.  Which explains why I'm listening to Sponge Bob and her laughing hysterically!

Thinking:

With all the fun we've had today i think we might just have to make a trip to the Zoo or Aquarium tomorrow or at least before we have to go back to school.

Wanting:

I sooooo want this one coffee table and end tables that I found at Ashley's yesterday.  My husband and I got married on the 4th of July and as an anniversary gift I asked him for a new kitchen table and a garmin fitness watch for my present but I'm trying to add a certain pair of tables to my list ;)

Needing:

I seriously need to finish all of my DIY projects before I have to report back to work which includes painting the entire house, moving furniture, hanging pictures, and checking out flee markets for some house flare.

Tips, tricks, or hints

With this section I was unsure of what to write but I leave with this......

Remember why you started blogging in the first place!

Monday Made It and bloglovin!

As you can see I'm linking up with 4th grade frolics to bring you my Monday Made it projects.  If you guys have been following my summer to do then you have seen that I want to do as much as I can with my kids especially my daughter during the time that my husband is overseas in Afghanistan.  Our first family project was the hopscotch pavers for the backyard.  I was really surprised at how inexpensive the cost was. I spent a total of $34.00 and 24 of that was on spay paint alone!  

I think they turned out great!

Our next project were sponge bombs that I found on pinterest.  I bought a large bag of sponges from the dollar store and cut them into strips.  Once cut I stacked two rows of 4 sponges on top of each other and placed a rubber band around them and voila! Sponge bombs!  

They were so much fun to play with and once again super inexpensive.  I filled a swimming pool full of water and bought these 3 dollar prayers from TRU and let the bombs fly in the back yard.  If everything goes as planned I will have a huge Monday Made it next week for you guys.

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Building Mathematical Comprehension - Freebie!

Chapter 2 Recognizing and Understanding mathematical Vocabulary

 I'm late but I have a freebie for you guys! This book has got to be one of the best school related books that I have read so far. Laney Sammons lays it all out for you when she talks about the ways we should integrate vocabulary into our lessons. One point that she made was that as teachers we always want to start out with vocabulary when we're unwrapping a unit to our kids. Instead of starting with the vocabulary we should focus on the timing of the vocabulary. Basically don't unwrap it until you've covered it! For example if I were to introduce place value to my kids I wouldn't start spilling out all the vocabulary words associated with place value. Instead I would teach and when the vocabulary word comes up that's when I would focus on it with my students. This way your students have some experience to pull from to help them understand the vocabulary even better.

 She also talks about using graphic organizers such as the frayer model so that students can describe, explain and provide examples and non examples of the vocabulary in their own words. She provides tons of examples of student work, games and questions stems that can assist you with your vocabulary instruction. After reading this chapter I have a better understanding of how much time a student needs to work with vocabulary in order to retain it. It's not enough for the teacher to just verbally say or write the word and definition down on the board. Sammons suggest students write it, say it, use it at home, and see it on content boards in order for them to truly understand it.

 After reading this chapter I looked at my TEKS for the first unit next year and pulled out the important vocabulary terms and created this mini unit on place value. I will use this unit after my students have worked with these terms to help reinforce the meaning of the words. You can grab your copy here!

I also created these place value question stem cards that I plan to hang on my content board with the vocabulary words used in my mini unit.

My mini unit can be found in my TPT store.  If you download please follow me on TPT or become a follower of my blog.  I'm making my larger unit of vocabulary activities for all TEKS so be on the lookout!