My Favorite Things

Hello everyone! Welcome to my blog. If this is your first time! WELCOME! I do hope that you like what you see and you will want to come back over and over again. I am a teacher who loves to teach. I want everything I do to be engaging and very effective to the learning process. I make everything have a purpose behind what I am wanting my students to do. I love anything that is vivid in color, getting organized, and I'm addicted to Krista Wallden's clipart. If you don't know the Creative Chalkboard. Then click here and follow in love like me.

More importantly, I have teamed up with several fabulous teacher bloggers for My Favorite Things. Today I am featuring my Paragraph Writing Unit. I love this unit because it came out of a labor of love for my students. I had a group last year that struggles to write paragraphs. I decided that I needed to take immediate action. This unit came from that action. This unit has helped so many kids to understand the process of writing paragraphs.

Click here to purchase

Here is a FREEBIE that includes all of the pages that you saw above.  If you like this product, come check out my TpT store and follow me for all of the new product updates!  If you really like this product, you can purchase the full version HERE!  I hope you enjoyed your visit and come back soon!





So let's get to what we all came to hop around for. My Favorite Things.

I love Longhorn Steakhouse. Honestly, the love of this place came when my friend was pregnant with her first child. She would call me and after school we would head over for her to have a house salad with thousand island dressing. I would get a diet cherry coke. We did this 3-5 days a week. It was so bad that the whole staff knew us by name. They would even have our drinks to the table when we arrived. LOL! I was the best time. 

I LOVE LOVE LOVE this store. Ulta is the heaven of make up for me. I love earning points and love playing with make up. I watch so many videos on Youtube. I love Dulce Candy, Miss Chevious, Kandee Johnson, and anyone who loves the makeup that is my number 3. LOL! I always hope for gift certificates from this store. 

URBAN DECAY!!!! I love this company. I have always in the past bought the drug store makeup. Well let me just say, LADIES, spend the money and buy the good stuff. This makeup is so great. The pigments last so long. I could go for 3 day without changing my makeup. It is just the best. I have saved so much money since I have started buying the higher priced makeup. 

I love Christmas! I love the music, the movies (White Christmas), and the decorating of the tree. The newest tradition that we started was Percy the Penguin. Since everyone was doing the Elf on the Shelf, my husband wanted to be different plus teach about the bible. So, Percy was started. He recreated several bible stories. The kids loved looking for him. I am super excited about this fun adventure. 

Percy at the birth of Christ





Last but not least, I love Flair pens. Actually, I love all pens but these I must have in my desk. They write so smooth and the colors are the best. I am a grade with a purple pen kinda teacher. These pens are the best in my opinion.




Okay so for this blog hop, I will be giving away a $25 gift certificate to Michael's. This is a store that most teachers love. I hope that whoever wins this will love it so much.


Well, thank you for stopping by. I hope you have enjoyed my favorite things. You are welcome to come at anytime. Thank you so much for stopping by.

Because we value our followers and wanted to treat you to our favorite things Oprah style, we have put together the best giveaway of the season! My bloggy friends and I welcome you to the best, biggest, most cheerful event of the season:

7 winners for 7 prize packs!

Come and enter the giveaway and check out my bloggy friends' favorite things:



a Rafflecopter giveaway

An InLinkz Link-up

December Pick 3 Linky Party.....Come Join!

Hey everyone! It's me, Melinda, your Sassy Teacher. I have linked up with  Pawsitively Teaching and Inspired Owl's Corner for a great December Pick 3 Pinterest Party. This month I will be showing you 3 pins that I found that will be used in 1 if not all 3 of my classes. 

So let's get started and I hope that you find some of these ideas helpful. 

Click here to see it on Pinterest.

I absolutely love these paper plate crafts. I came across these on Facebook and then on pinterest. I feel they are calling my classes name. LOL! Anyway, if you are doing a unit on reindeer and Christmas, your students could make the Santa and reindeer. Then, they could complete a writing prompt or open ended question. You could use the Santa for Santa letters and display them outside your room. The snowman could be made for a fun project to end a unit on winter weather. The uses for these crafts are endless.  

Click here to see it on Pinterest.

This would be super cute when reviewing letters with those students who haven't quite mastered their letters and sounds. I have about 3 students right now that this would be super beneficial for in the classroom. You could use this for a writing project about how the snowman S got separated from his alphabet family. Students could write about his adventure. You could also have the other letters to look like snowmen as well.

Click here to see it on Pinterest

Okay, I absolutely LOVE LOVE LOVE this idea. I kept thinking about how could I use this in my classroom. Ya'll this would be so cute for a Christmas party or just a little bucket for student snacks. I know that there are days that I just give by Sassy pants a snack. 

There are so many cool ideas on Pinterest. This website is perfect for all of us out there who are searching for new and interesting ways to make our classrooms more engaging. Make sure that you stop by the other blogs and see what they have Pinned as their favorites. I know I will be hopping around myself. This linky will be up for a month so if you want to join the fun, then come join!!!!! I can't wait to see what all you guys have to pin and say. 

An InLinkz Link-up

Welcome Back

I can't believe how fast the Thanksgiving break went. WAIT!!! I thought it was too long. By Friday, I was missing my students and was ready to go back and teach. I have found a new love for my calling called Teaching. A lot of that is due to the amazing people that I am meeting through Instagram and Facebook. There are so many teachers out there that make me feel it is okay to be me. To all of those teachers, I say thank you!!!!! So I take Mr. Greg's advice and shut the door and teach. That was such a statement back in October that really drove my passion back to the for front. Even though I teach in a school that is completely departmentalize, I have to do what is best for MY students. So I have "SHUT MY DOOR AND TEACH!" I am no longer feeling sorry that I am being me in my classroom. I have spent so much time trying to be what others wanted me to be. NOT NOW!!!!! I am Melinda King and I love teaching. I am going to DO what I FEEL is BEST for my students. 

 Okay, I'll get off my box and just tell you about my day. 

 Today started like a normal Monday. Students turned in their folders, made job choices, made lunch choices,put things away, sitting on the carpet to learn new stations, go to stations, and grammar time. Notice I didn't say Writing time. I'm getting to that part. Well, we were in the middle of a Possessive noun quiz because my 2nd grade Sassy Pants can't seem to get it right now. (YET! I'll explain that word in another post.) So, my principal came and told me that she forgot to tell our whole staff about a field trip that our district had paid for to see the local orchestra. We had to load the buses right away. It was a mad rush at my school. We were the last school there and the orchestra had to wait for us. UH OH!!! Once we sat down, then it was a wonderful experience. Here is a few pictures from that day.

This was a great gift that my district did for us! I always look forward to it. 

 I hope that you guys have been loading up on your TPT products. I know that I bought some great products to help me in my classroom for the next few weeks. My store is 20% off along with the site's big sale. My new product Loopy Loop-Christmas Edition is such a fun sight word game. You really should check it out. My kiddos were super excited to play today. 

 

One last thing before I go. Look forward to my Wednesday post. I have linked up with some awesome bloggers for a linky party. Come join our Pinterest fun and then later next week we will have another blog hop all about our Favorite Things (giveaway happening). I can't wait for you to read all about it. 

Starts Wednesday December 3rd

Starts Dec. 7th. Giveaway happening

Monday Wrap UP and FREEBIE

Man, what a day! It has been a fun filled day of learning. I have been working on narrative writing for quite awhile. The kindergarten and 1st grade writing classes have been coming along and seem to be mastering those standards. My 2nd graders are still really struggling. I have had to pull out some kinder/1st grade lessons to help fill the gap for those 2nd grade kiddos. It just hurts me alot when they struggle. Does it you? Anyway, today we were working on building a narrative using only pictures in a Beginning, Middle, and End organizer. Click to Download this freebie.

What I have the students do is to think of a story that they want to tell. They draw what happens in the beginning, Middle, and End. I model for them what I am expecting. After I draw mine, I tell my story to them. I send them back to their seat and then they begin their work. I just do that on day 1. Day 2 I have them get their paper out and we get in a circle. I have the students number off 1, 2, 1, 2, etc. Then the ones get in the middle and make their circle while facing outwards. The two's stand in front of a 1. The 1's talk first and tell their story. Then the 2's tell their story. Once they have shared one time, then they count 5 students and move around the circle. They share the story again. When they finished sharing the 2nd time, I asked "Did you say or do anything different the 2nd time that you didn't do the first time." It took a bit but one student said,"Mrs. King, I added a detail." DING! DING! DING! By George I think they got it! Day 3 will be just taking the Beginning picture and putting it into writing. Day 4 will be the middle picture into words and Day 5 will be putting the final picture into words. Then I can spend a few days adding details and making their final copies. Fingers crossed that this method will help my 2nd graders. 

Now on to another part of my day! I was sitting at my desk at lunch and trying to make since of all the things that needed to get finished today. When I decided to check my email. I had to check my google mail on my Iphone because my district has it block on their server. (Seriously! I have yet to understand that!) When I opened the email, I saw Congrats! in the subject line. I quickly opened it and saw that I had won an AMAZING Science bundle from The Hands-on Teacher in First. I entered her giveaway on FB and never dreamed I could or would win. I am so blessed to have this because it will totally help me in working on these new Science Standards. You guys should really check her out! She has awesome post on FB and blog. 

The next thing that made this day great was that I uploaded 7 (YES, 7) new products to my store. I made 6 Fall Sight Word Flash Sets. Every set is $2 except the last one it is $3. I even bundled them all together for $10. The picture below is for the Bundle. I will leave links for all of the sets and the bundle. I am currently working on Fluency Passage Set now. I hope to have it finished tonight or tomorrow. 

Click here for the Bundle Set

Set 1 Preprimer: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Fall-Sight-Word-Flash-1520762

Set 2 Primer: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Fall-Sight-Word-Flash-Set-2-1522355

Set 3 1st grade: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Fall-Sight-Word-Flash-Set-3-1564254

Set 4 2nd grade: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Fall-Sight-Word-Flash-Set-4-1564260

Set 5 3rd grade: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Fall-Sight-Word-Flash-Set-5-1564266

Set 6 Noun Set: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Fall-Sight-Word-Flash-Noun-Set-1564275

Well, I must go plan some more. I have a new motto courtesy of Hello Literacy Jen Jones. If you don't know her. OH, you are missing out. She is amazing! 

Project Child????

Recently, I was a guest blogger on Learning to be Awesome and I had several ask about what Project Child is and how it is ran in my school. Today I thought I would tell you about it and give you the pros and cons of this framework.

1. What is Project Child?

1. Project CHILD (Changing How Instruction for Learning is Delivered) is a research-based teaching and learning system for grades K-5. It emphasizes reading, writing, and mathematics. The triangulated design of the model focuses on: grouping three teachers over three grade levels

2. How it is suppose to work?

I am a Writing Teacher with the homeroom for 2nd grade. I spend half the day with my 2nd graders. I spend 90 minutes with 1st grade and 90 with kindergarten. For Writing and Math, they are to have 60 minutes for their subject area and the other 30 is suppose to be for Social Studies or Science. Reading has 90 minutes of uninterrupted time. Each subject area is to have stations.

3. How does it work in your cluster?

Math does stations, RTI, and Whole group time. Reading does the same. I do stations, then whole group, sharing time, read aloud and RTI. In my room my ESL teacher comes and works with her students as well. SS and Science has fallen to the waist side bad. I have made Friday to be my Friday Science day. 

4. Pros

The pros to this to me is that when you have a rough behavior class then you only have 90 minutes and there is a break. The next pro is that you are only planning for 1 subject. Another pro is that you have a team to work with. 

5. Cons

a.) It is very hard to build an authentic relationship with my students. 

b.) The students who have behavior issues in other places tend to do well with me. This means that if I had them all day, I would be able to maybe stop some of that behavior. 

c.) Conferences are a nightmare because I am talking to over 60 sets of parents.

d.) When a parent calls me upset about reading or math, I hate having to tell them that they will have to contact the other teachers. I like to know everything about my students.

e.) Reading and Writing should go together. It is too hard when I see issues they are having in reading that effect them in Writing. 

f.) Some staff members get very upset if you "teach something in their subject area."

I truly this would work well in a school that is not deficient and whose climate is positive. There are some schools that are very successful using this model. If you want to know more about how it runs with them. Just click here. 

Guest Blogging

I am super excited to be guest blogging over on Learning to Be Awesome. You should go and check out how I use Writing Boot Camp in my classroom and how you might could use it in yours. Plus, I would love your feedback on what you think.

http://learningtobeawesome.blogspot.com/

Five for Friday

Hey everyone! I am linkin up with DoodleBugs for Five for Friday. This has been a great week so I can't wait  to share.

This week my baby girl turned 3. I can't believe how fast the time has flown by. She even is starting preschool on Monday. WHAT? It is just crazy to me.

I went to my doctor's appointment to check on how well I am doing since I had my gastric sleeve surgery 18 months ago. Well, I am officially down 154 lbs. It is so hard to believe how big I allowed myself to be. I am so blessed and so grateful to have had this surgery done. I will work hard to not ever go back to  382 lbs again.

  

I am sure that my teams wants to choke me at times. LOL! I am blessed to work where I do. These team members truly care about our students. It has been fun!

  

I am thankful for a loving husband who takes really good care of me. With all the late nights I have had, he has been there to support me and be my rock.

I am so super excited for all my new followers and blogging friends. This journey is new but I am so blessed to have met all of you. You make this journey so much fun and truly a love.