Winner Wednesday: PARAGRAPH WRITING

Hey everyone! I am back and linking up with A Dab of Glue Will Do for the Winner Wednesday! 

First I want to say that I am sorry that there is not a lot of pictures. I am officially on summer break and I have cleaned my files. 

Anyway, I decided with some of you still in school, I wanted to give you a tip of things that you can do before school is out to help with your clean up day. 

Usually the first of May, I start looking around my room and look for things that should come down. I begin writing them done on a "LIST". This is such a life saver!

About a 2 weeks after I make my list, I start cleaning out the junk that has collected in my room and then I start marking things off my list. 

I take down anchor charts that are not needed anymore. Then, I move on to certain bulletin boards. I am lucky because with my school being 10 years old, the board underneath looks quite nice and the room doesn't look empty. I know you may be thinking but wait wont you get in trouble or doesn't anyone say anything about things coming down. The answer is nope! By the time I get to the last day of school, everything is down. The kiddos have their items to take home and my room is clean. 

The biggest tip during this process is USE THOSE KIDDOS!!! They freebies as much as us teachers. They will take down anything if they get to take it home. I have been doing this for the past 3 years and on closing day, I usually only have to have our last faculty meeting and I am out the door before lunch! You can't beat that!  Welcome SUMMER!!!!! 

Now I hope that, that was helpful! It is time to enter in for Winner Wednesday. This month I am giving away my most popular time and that is my paragraph unit.

 I has been my top seller. It is full of activities that will help your kiddos understand how to build better paragraphs. I am going to working on a Paragraph Unit part 2. It will compliment this one so well. If you would like to win, simple just head to the rafflecopter below and leave your name and email. I will have a winner by Thursday morning. Have fun hoping over to other blogs doing this and Good Luck!!!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

2gether is Better: Home Office

Hey ya'll! I'm back to link up with Ashley from Schroeders Shenanigans in 2nd and Angie from Lucky Little Learners for their 2gether is better. This month is the home office. 

Well I live in a three bedroom house and with having 2 kids, a husband, & 2 dogs, so my home office has changed. 

I thought I'd show you where my office use to be. 

As you can see my sweet daughter has my office. It was so beautiful. It had an L shaped desk with a craft table on the opposite wall. It was great. 

Now that I faint have that space, I have to work where I can. Beside my bed is a cart that holds about 20 drawers and 2 filing cabinets stacked on top of each other. Those cabinets have a spinning rack that holds my office supplies and ink. 

My printer is also in my bedroom. I usually sit in the living room in my comfy chair or the kitchen table to work. 

Life lesson: I must work with what I got. 

It's not the best but as Tim Gunn says, "Make it Work!"  

:)

Winner Wednesday: Hoppin Homophones

Hey everyone! I am teaming up with Jennifer from A Dab of Glue Will Do for a first of the month linky called Winner Wednesday. This is a day that we will bring you a fun product that you can use in your classroom. This month, I am bringing you my Hoppin Homophone. 

I love this! Here is what you will have to help your students learn homophones. You will have a poster with the definition of homophones. I also made sample cards. There is puzzle pieces that require the students to match the homophones. This would be great for a station or print multiple copies of the puzzle pieces and make it small group activities.  I have 4 bingo cards for you to be able to play with your kiddos.

Now I know you may be thinking, "How do I assess them?" I have created a few different assessment for you to use. I have build sentences with them to a simple yes or no if the pictures are matches. 

So now let's talk about how you can be a winner for this product. All you have to do is fill out the rafflecopter below. After you have entered, don't forget to hope over to A Dab of Glue Will Do so that you can hop along to other blogs that have joined in. 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Exciting News

I'm so excited to come tonight for my Monday Wrap Up with some exciting news for me. 

So if you have been reading my blog for a while, you know that I have been teaching either reading or writing for the last 10 years. I have mostly taught writing for 5 years. Well my principal came to me to say she wanted to restructure some of our clusters and decided that she wanted me to teach 1st grade Math. 

WHAT????? IM SO EXCITED! I have joked that I was going to forget how to teach math if I didn't do it soon. I will be teaching about 60, give or take, 1st graders. This will be such and adventure. 

I know my school is going to the Daily 5 and since I have already been doing it. I said I would learn more about the Daily 3. I'm super excited about that too!!! So if anyone has any advice when it comes to math just shoot it my way! 

I can't wait to share my adventure in the next coming school year. :)

Parent Communications

Hey guys! I am here to link up with Ashley from Schroeder Shenanigans in 2nd and Angie from Lucky Little Learners in their monthly linky. This month is all about Parent Communication.

I try and use lots of different things in my room to communicate with my parents. In the beginning of the school year, I give my parents a postcard telling them how happy I am for having their student in my class. I use the picture from Deedee Wills created for my postcards. 

This year my family loved it. 

The next thing I like to do is get as many emails from my parents as I can. I use it in class dojo  and regular communication with parents. This is my fastest and best way to communicate. I am will answer so much better. With phone calls, I just forget because once I am home I am home and leave school until my kids go to bed. Also, my husband asked me to leave my cell number out of parents hands because he knows I would never get out of teacher mode. 

The last thing I do is have a newsletter. Since I have been in a cluster, every 2 months, its my month to do a newsletter. I created a new template for my cluster. I change up the look of it so that parents will hopefully read it. 

I am hoping that next year I will use Remind 101. I think this will be helpful. I will have to keep you updated on that. Parent communication is so important. I am very glad to have read some amazing blogs and have gotten some great ideas for next year. This has been great!

We Heart Teachers!

With Teacher Appreciation week here, It is time to share what I love about being a teacher and why I love all of you! 

1. I have been teaching for 15 years and it has been the craziest adventure I have ever been on. I have taught grades K-3. It is just an amazing passion. I have learned a lot about myself and others around me. 

2. I love this blogging community. I have meet some really cool people. These group that we are in call teachers has inspired me to beyond belief. I am honored to call of you friends whether I have met you or not. YOU INSPIRE ME!!!!!

3. I am so thankful to what young children explore who they are as learners. I don't know about you but watching a struggling child "get it" just makes me jump and down and want to throw confetti. 

Since I am so happy to be a teacher and this week is about us and what we do, I am offering you a sweet Punctuation Pals posters. Just click under the picture for you free gift. Make sure that after you get your punctuation posters you hop over to my dear friend Jessica at Pride and Primary. You dont want to miss these amazing gifts. 

Click HERE for your freebie.

CLICK HERE

WEDNESDAY FUN!!!!

Man what a day! It has been so busy! I wanted to make sure to come and give you a little encouragement in this last few weeks until summer break. So without further ado, welcome to 

As the end of the school year is starting its slow crawl (which I totally don't mind) to the end, I wanted to help encourage you with those writing pieces you have been working so hard on. 

I know in my classroom we are officially done! We have edited and revised our pieces and all have been published. I am super excited about that because normally, we are still working hard on our pieces. At my school we have these blue and white folders that we are to write the school year, grade, school and homeroom teacher. Being the writing teacher for a team of teachers, I have had to put together 60 folders. They are labeled and ready to go. 

I don't know what your requirements are for your students but at my school we must have one of each type of writing, (narrative, information, opinion) and this year we added short answers or an extended response. 

Here is my encouraging words to you! YOU CAN DO THIS!!!! YOU WILL MAKE IT! THEY MAY NOT BE THE WAY YOU WANT THEM BUT YOUR STUDENTS HAVE GROWN AS WRITERS BECAUSE OF YOU!!!!

It is because of your hard work that your students will be amazing writers next year!!!! 

To celebrate your hard work, I have a freebie that you can keep for the next school year. It has cover sheets for a writer's notebook and the graphic organizers that I used to teach the 3 types of writing. I also included the writing paper that my students write on everyday. I hope that you will enjoy it! 

Click HERE for your Freebie!

If you have any questions about writing, feel free to email me at talesofthesassyteacher@gmail.com