January Pinterest Picks

Hello Fellow bloggers! I have teamed up with The Inspired Owl's Corner and Pawsitively Teaching again to bring you another installment of Pinterest Picks. This month I have decided to share with you the pins I found related to Informational Writing.

If you remember I am the Writing teacher for my cluster/team. January and part of February will be on informational writing. I teach K-2 so they will all be learning this same standard. With that being said....


Let's get to pinning!!!!!!

Click here to see original pin

This first pin is one I found few months back when I was planning for each of the types of writing. This came from Amy Lemons' Step into Second Grade blog. This was a chart she created when she had an impromptu lesson on the Author's Purpose. I felt that with my students this was going to be the perfect start to the lessons. Now let me just say that we talked before break about the features in nonfiction text. So when we come back on January 5th, I will review those features and introduce this poster and the standards that I will be teaching. 

Click to see Original Pin

This next pin is one for more reviewing of how we write paragraphs and how that plays a role  in writing informational pieces. I will use my lessons Paragraph writing unit to review with my students. You can check that out HERE. I am going to create something similar to this chart to help the students understand what is needed in an Informational piece. 

Click to see original Pin

I am currently in the process of creating graphic organizers that I feel will help my students to understand informational writing. I found this pin and thought this will be great with my 1st grade class. I see this as a process to help my students with drafting of their pieces. 

I am getting super pumped to get back to school and work on these pieces. I will be sharing samples on my IG and Facebook page of my students work. 

I hope that you found these very helpful and that they will give you a jumping point with your Informational Writing. 

Thanks again for stopping by. I hope that you will come again. Please hop around and check out some of the blogs and their pins. I can't wait to read myself. 

An InLinkz Link-up

My Currently and New Year Resolutions

Hey everyone! Can you believe that it is 2015. 2014 brought so much excitement for me. I wanted to link up with Farley for this months Currently!

This past year has given me so many blessings. One being the new cars my husband and I purchased. We were so lucky to be able to get 2 newer cars. Mine is a 2004 Honda Pilot. I dont think I will ever go back. He got a 2007 Dodge Caravan. Our old cars were 20 years old so this was great! 

I am super excited to get to go back to school. I am going to set some resolutions for myself. 

Here are my goals:

I really hope that I can earn enough to get to complete to #3. I really would like to mark more off of my Teacher Bucket list. If you want to know more about that then check that out here. 

I wanted you to know that my store is on sale until Sunday. I would love for you to go and catch some of the marvelous deals. I just added my new Loopy Loop winter Edition to the store. This is a game that my kiddos love to play and ask for everyday. 

I hope that next week when you return to school, you have the most amazing week every. See ya Saturday for my January Pinterest Picks. 

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!