Thanksgiving Making Memories

Are you full? Did you get to see all the family members you wanted to see? Did you get to eat some or all of your favorites?

I can say yes to all of those!

My own kids were not with us this year as they were with their in-laws. I'm ok with that. We have to be grown up and mature and share just like you do in school. 

My dad came down with my brother. It was tough in the beginning to think about Mom not being with us. She always made the pies, especially the pumpkin. My sister said a lovely prayer, that had all of us in tears. We know she was with us. She loved Thanksgiving.

There is always a card game with my family. .. and it usually involves a tiny bit of gambling with pennies or quarters.

Then my silly nieces thought it would be fun to spray the whipped topping in their mouths!

And it was!

And this is Miss Tenley with her adorable Detroit Tiger Hat. Isn't that just the cutest girliest hat?

Don't forget to check out the big sale on Monday and Tuesday! It's sure to save you lots of money and get you lots of goodies!

Thanks to Jennifer Jones for this cute sign!

Patty

Read A Thon with PJ's

I love a short week! This week was a full day yesterday and a half day today. 

What can you do with a half day? Well for us, it's a great time to practice all those reading skills we've been working on all year. 

So we let the kids have a Read A Thon! What does that mean in your school? In ours, it means we invite the students to wear their PJ's (or pea yammas as the Hispanics say!) {I'm sure that's not spelled right, but that's how it sounds when they say it!}

They also can bring in a stuffed animal, blanket, or pillow as long as it fits in their back pack and no bigger! 

And for our morning we lay around and read to ourselves, to a friend, or to our stuffed animals. We also use this time to take Accelerated Reader tests. I made a 100% Chart. If they score 100% on a test, they can sign their name to this chart.

 It's a great incentive for them to work harder and get more questions right. I have 27 students and there were 49 100% tests. I didn't count the ones that hit 80% but I heard a lot of them tell me that's what they got.

I took lots of pictures, but I left that camera at school. Sorry!

Today was also the last day of my Trine Student. Trine University is about 45 minutes away. They send us students every year for about 4-5 weeks. These students need to be exposed to students with more diversity. Our schools have about 30-40% Hispanic and just a few other cultures.

My student was a perfect match with me. She and I hit it off immediately. It was a lot of fun to watch her work with my students and learn to love them the same way that I do. She will be student teaching in February and that classroom will be extremely happy to have her. I sure wish she could have student taught with me next semester. 

Below are two gifts she made for us.

She made my day with these! My kids are in to adjectives and this will be a great reminder to them of what an adjective is!

When we said good bye today, I felt a tug at my heart. I know she'll do well, and I know we'll keep in contact. But it was still hard to let her go. 

Do you ever get to help college students practice their craft?

One last thing! As we are all getting ready to sit around a table with those we love, I want to share a picture of my love. . . .my grandaughter. 

First of all, she got her cast off and she's so much happier to have use of both arms!

Secondly. . . do you remember when YOU could sit like that? If I could EVEN get my legs to go like that now, I would need a crane to lift me up!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Patty

 

Today ONLY! 20% Off my Winter Things!

If you need to warm up, one of the be$t thing$ to do is to go $hopping! I have tried to make that ea$ier on you! Anything that ha$ to do with Christma$ or Winter i$ on $ale today for 20% off. 

You can look at thi$ link to $ee $ome of the things that you might want.

Happy $hopping!

Patty

A Little Christmas A Little Savings

I did not want to jump on the band wagon and bring out Christmas stuff before Thanksgiving was even over. 

And I'm not really. 

But I did want to share with you that you could get a jump on the printing, laminating and cutting while you are digesting the turkey and other goodies this week!

I will be putting all my Christmas stuff on sale 

starting now until Sunday night.

(I just don't want you to be bored during those days off next week! I'm all about taking care of you!)

There are 5 things on sale at 20% off. 

This package below has both the Facts & Opinions and the Snownouns (a pronoun and snow activity!)

You can buy them separate or save money and buy them together.

Ok Ok, I guess I AM getting a head of the Thanksgiving Holiday! OOPS!

Patty

Thankful for YOU!

This year has been a year of many highs and some deep lows. But through it ALL, You have been there for me. You're the ones I look to first thing in the morning when I'm eating my cereal and the last thing I read before I go to bed at night. And if there were such a thing as "time during the day," I just might be looking here for you then, too! 

This week we will celebrate Thanksgiving with our students by eating all together in the gym at the same time. We invite the school board members, volunteers, and other important people in our town. We have the food in bowls and "have some and pass it," just like you do at home. 

I am thankful for my family who supports me through laughter, and hugs. My children make me so very proud. Their spouses are perfect for them and assure me that life will be wonderful together. My grand daughter makes me giggle down to my toes and I know with each other grandchild added to our family my love for them will only grow. 

My husband is my rock. He holds our family together even on days when I stay too late at school. He understands. .. well he may not understand but he goes along with it! (He's a high school teacher and they just don't do things the way we little people teachers do!)

Now. . . . if you're still here reading, I have a special surprise for you. I made a last minute math activity. My kids need to know how to look at a number and know the words that make up that number. (for example: 41 = forty-one, not four-one or fourteen)

In honor of my baby turning 29 on Wednesday, I would like to give you a set of these. Please leave me your email with a comment below and I'll send you a copy on Wednesday evening. This give away ends at 9:00 on Wednesday night.

I'm so sorry you missed this opportunity for a freebie! But you can still get a set for yourself at my TPT Store.

Patty

SitSpots Winner!

I sure wish every single one of you could have won. However you still can get your own set of SitSpots for only a dollar per spot by going to their webpage. 

I know you'll be uber happy to have them. I'd love to hear from any of you who do go and pick up some for your classroom. 

Patty

Give Away End is Near!

You have just a few hours more to enter the give away for a set of 35 SitSpots for your classroom. I really want you to win, so please enter! I am just sure that you will love these and so will your students. 

Click on this LINK and it will take you right to the post with the RaffleCopter! Enter Everyone! 

Or click HERE to see their Face Book page.

The winner will be announced tomorrow.

Patty

A Set of SitSpots Could Be Yours!

There's still time to enter my rafflecopter to win a set of 35 SitSpots of your choice!

(click on the picture above to go to their site to look at the samples!)

They are a great invention by a teacher who knows what it's like to want kids lined up without being scrunched! She knows that it's cheaper to make a graph using these for the kids to sit on than to buy one of those expensive colorful rugs!

Can you just visualize these in your room? I can!

Click RIGHT HERE to go to the link where the Rafflecopter is! Good luck everyone! You have until Saturday!

Patty

SitSpots. . . What ARE They? You could win some!

Do your students struggle with lining up and not being too squished or not know where to line up? Do their lines squiggle and go every which way? Do you have carpeting in your classroom?

Then you just might like SitSpots.

Joyce from SitSpots was delighted to share what her company is all about. She knows that many of us spend too much money on fancy carpets so we can graph students. She's convinced me and several of my friends that using SitSpots is a much easier and cheaper way to show kids where to line up or sit. 

You can use it to help your students sit so they are separated better, or to make a graph, or to be sure everyone has a place to sit. 

You can even write their names, numbers, or words on them.

I asked these students to spread out their feet a little so you could see the spots on the floor. If I hadn't asked them to do this, then you wouldn't have seen the dots!

When the spots are spaced apart from each other, the students know where to stand so they don't bunch all up together.

 Our kinders could not figure out how to line up unless it was a straight line. In this teacher's room she didn't have space for a straight line, so SitSpots came to her rescue. She took her line down and around the carpet and then around the last table. Now her kids know where to stand when they are supposed to line up.

 These are a great size too.

I'm trying to give you a perspective on the size!

They come in many shapes and colors. 

 They are stuck to the carpeting because they are made like velcro. The vacuum can go right over them and they won't move. But you can peel them up when ever you want to if you want to move them to someplace else.

 This shows you what they look like underneath!

SitSpots:

• Offer every child an individualized place, spot, or marker to sit on during carpet/calendar time
• Are colorful shapes made from a velcro type material that attach securely to carpets without glues or adhesives, and will not peel, shift, or lift
• Cost $1.99 each - much less than expensive area rugs
• Attach to all commercial/industrial grade carpets that are commonly used in public schools, buildings, pre-schools, churches, etc

College Students Learning From Me & My Students

I don't have a lot to say today, but I felt like I should say something! 

So. . . . . .

Let me tell you a little about my week. Our school gets to have some college students from Trine University in Angola, Indiana. They will be with us for about 5 weeks. They are in our rooms on Monday through Thursday until 1:30 each of those days.  

They come to our school because we can teach more about differentiation due to our high numbers of Hispanic students. We have a few other students from other countries, but mainly it's Hispanic. 

I am very fortunate to have Miss Crabtree working with me. She is fun, energetic, knowledgeable, and oh so much like me that it's funny! 

Her duties while she's here are to do some pre and post tests, plan and teach some lessons, learn from observations, do some running records, and anything else that will help her become a better teacher. She will be student teaching in first grade in January. 

I'm thoroughly enjoying her and so are my students.

In this picture she is teaching one of my reading groups the vocabulary words from Chrysanthemum. She had them act some of them out and the kids loved it.

Isn't this a good way to act out being "miserable?"

Another part of my week that was fun was spending more time with my granddaughter. She is just so cute and trying so hard to say words now. She's 17 months old right now.

I'm trying to contain myself and only post 3 pictures here. But you will probably understand that I COULD have posted 300 also!

I'm very excited to share with you that DJ Inkers 

bought one of my products. 

This is a sample of what you will get. There is a color and a black & white set included in the one price of $3.99

(Yes I can now see that there is a typo in this sample picture, but it has been corrected.)

You can click on the box below to take you to the DJ Inkers page and then see what other wonderful things they have there. To find my Thanksgiving Vowels product look in the downloads section.

Have a  restful weekend. I'm going to be gearing up for some of my parent teacher conferences next week. 

Patty

What To Do With Your Halloween Candy

Today I was ready to take down my Halloween decorations in my house and set up the Thanksgiving things. 

Commercial Break:

My mother used to decorate a little for each holiday so it rubbed off on me and I seriously decorate for each holiday throughout the year.

Back to our regularly scheduled post:

I came across the bucket of Halloween Candy that was left over. You see it rained here on Halloween night, so the hundreds of kids that I thought I might have turned into about 20! 

Thus "too much candy." 

Lord knows that my husband and I don't need all of that. 

So what could I do with all of it?

Lightbulb!

We are learning about measurement in Science right now and I was going to have the kids begin weighing things in grams tomorrow. . . What's more exciting to measure than candy?

So I bagged them up so that there would be two bags of each kind so that more could be measuring at the same time. 

(I told you we had a lot!) 

 Then I went around the house and grabbed a few 

more random things to have them weigh.

Now I just needed a worksheet for them 

to write down their answers.

I know this sheet works for me because I know which candy I have in my house. I wanted to share this with you, so I created a blank sheet so you can write your own candy or other things in. I think your kids will also enjoy weighing things when they are this fun. 

You can pick up your copy right here. 

And of course, I'd love some kind words if you do stop by! It always fills my bucket when you stop and talk with me!

Patty

P.S. yes, I will probably find a way to share some of this with them over time, but certainly not all at once!

Love From YOU and My Family

I wish I could thank each and everyone of you 17,705 people who downloaded my freebie that was in the newsletter! 

I was woken up last Sunday morning by lots of chimes on my phone  that stood for each comment that was being left. I could not figure out who was leaving comments that early on a Sunday morning. 

Then I guess I woke up enough to wonder if I had made the newsletter! And Wa La I did! What a rush that is! Have you ever had a freebie or a paid item listed there? It's a very nice feeling. 

As the day and days that followed grew, so did the number of downloads and comments. In total I had 179 comments. And while that's a long way from the total number of downloads. . . it is ALRIGHT with me. I couldn't imagine reading 17,705 comments!

Not only did I get those comments, but I also got about 60 more followers on my store. I love you all! I sure hope I can continue to make you happy and stick around to see what else I can produce and share with you here on my blog. 

This past week was my birthday. It was the worst! I was very sick with a sinus infection and I still don't think I'm over it yet. The other part that made it yucky was that my mom wasn't here to send me a card or give me a call. But I got over that. I know she's thinking of me just as much as I'm thinking of her. And on the following day, my dad finally realized that he had forgotten my birthday, so he gave me a nice phone call. I can imagine that it's hard for him too. He can't possibly send out all the cards that mom did. 

My family gave me this Origami Owl necklace. All of the symbols in it represent my mom.  It may be hard to see, but there is a gold plate that says love in the background. 

Then there is a heart that says MOM,  

a green stone for MSU,

 

a cardinal because she really liked those birds and others, 

a computer because that is one way we communicated,   a turtle

   

(she loved them!), 

a sewing machine because she made pj's and blankets for all the kids,   

and an angel's wings because she is in heaven now.   

 I love this. It's a beautiful memory of all that my mother 

found joy in. My family is awesome.

The day after my birthday is my mom and dad's anniversary. This year was to be the big one. 70 years.  Yup that's what I said, 70 years. They were married in 1943! Dad said he met her in December and married her in October. That's a quick engagement in my book! But hey, it lasted for just 2 months short of 70 years! 

Last week I told you to come back again to learn more about SitSpots and possibly win a class set of them. I'm holding true to that promise. I will probably have it all ready later this week. So watch and return please!

Patty