End of the Year Gift

Today I'm posting a flashlight poem that I posted a few years ago. This is for anyone who might have missed it before. It was a big hit for my kids and other teachers, so I wanted to share it again.

 Reading in your bed is ok, 

but when you have a flashlight to use, 

it's even more fun!

Reading under the covers is cooler with a flashlight.

Reading under the kitchen table is 

better than sitting in a chair! Just think of all the possible dark places you could read if you had a flashlight.

Click on the picture to take you to my store.

I hope this sheds some light on your student's reading!

Don't forget to check out Curious Firsties Giveaway! 

Click on the picture below to zip over there.

You May Win. . . But you have to enter first.

It may very well be the end of the year and you may very well be winding down on what you are buying. . . but you may very well want to enter this wonderful five day contest. You could win a lot of good stuff that you may very well use next year if your year is already over. 

Sadly mine is not. I have 14 more days.

Curious Firsties is an adorable blog that you very well may want to join if you don't already.

click the picture to go to her blog

Don't forget to go each day this week. . . Imagine winning all this stuff! So very cool!

Extra! Extra! Read All About It! Free Font Giveaway!

For all of you who blog, don't blog, make things for yourself or to sell, you just might want to enter a font giveaway from DJ Inkers. There isn't very many entered and you have 2 more days to get your name into the drawing. Your chances are pretty good! Who doesn't love to win things and who doesn't like to have a few (like 5) new fonts to use? 

Click here to go do their blog and scroll down to the bottom to see the rafflecopter. And if you know someone else who would like to enter, please share it with them!

P.S. This is normally a $14.95 set, (on sale right now for $9.99) but you could have it for free!

Field Trip Tips. They Help With the Bus Ride.

If you are getting ready for a field trip, you might like to read this post. It tells how we make that sometimes LONG bus ride a little more bearable for students and teachers. 

This is a repeat from last year, so it might look familiar to you. 

We are going to Lake Michigan. This is about an hour and a half drive. There is a State Park there with a nice big sand dune to climb. 

The kids do not swim, but we do a lot of other things.  First of all, getting to see one of the Great Lakes is something many of our students have never done. And Secondly seeing a land form such as a sand dune is something they also haven't seen.

We will climb the hill and roll down in the sand. We'll take walks and explore or do scavenger hunts. We also fly kites and explore wind energy. The best part is exploring architecture! (This is our way of saying we play in the sand.) The kids try to build castles and other structures to see how stable they are. Does the wind knock them down, did a wave sabotage it?  How tall can you get it? Can you make a drip castle? {I'm justifying how play really does work into important skills for life!} How deep can you dig? Can you bury your friend except for their head?

To make the bus ride seem not so bad, we prepare a clipboard for each seat on the bus. Two kids will share this clipboard.

 Each clipboard has two Tic Tac Toe and 

Dot to Dot games on it.

They also have a word search puzzle and 

two blank pages to draw on.

I grab some spares just in case!

This crate of books will be slid back and forth down the aisle so they can read books if they choose to.

All of these things help to pass the time on the bus ride. What do you do on your bus rides?

Hooked on DJ Inkers!

I'm not sure when I got hooked (Ha! No pun intended!) on DJ Inkers, but I do know it was a long time ago. 

(The DJ behind DJ Inkers is Diane Hook!)

When I first started blogging and creating things the only clipart I had was DJ Inkers. 

I knew that they would allow me to make anything I wanted with their clipart and use it with my class. But in the beginning, I really want to start sharing what I made to see if others might like my work. I spoke with the staff from DJ Inkers several times to be sure that I was doing the right thing. Their rule was that if you made something with their clipart you could only give it away for free. That was fine at first, but then I realized that if I could sell it, I might make a bit of money too. 

Not long after that, DJ Inkers introduced their license for people who wanted to sell things with their clipart or fonts. I picked up their license right away. Again, I asked lots of questions and they were always, ALWAYS very easy to talk to and had answers for me. I never felt criticized or shamed because I asked a silly question or if I needed to make some changes to something I was doing. 

I always encourage others to pick up their license if they want to use DJ Inkers clipart or fonts. You can read more about it here.

If you go to my store, you'll see that I do have a lot of their clipart and fonts in my work. I've also been fortunate enough to have them buy some of my work. 

(There's a boost to my morale! Thinking that THEY like MY stuff was so exciting!)

The first thing they bought was Fraction Frenzy.

 

I want to show you how I recently incorporated some of their clipart with that of some other artists.

This is actually something I made last year, but it needed to be updated. It's funny how I just loved it when I first made it, but now, I love it even more.

Click the picture to go to directly to my store.

The background paper and ribbon on the cover are from Erin at I'm Lovin Lit.

 (I guess you can teach an old dog new tricks and things can get better with age!)

I am extremely happy to work with the folks at DJ Inkers. 

I hope you are too. 

If any of you have questions about getting a DJ Inkers commercial license, ASK questions. Contact them here.

If you'd like to enter a rafflecopter to win 5 free fonts from DJ Inkers, please stop by their blog!

Mother's Day Memories

This is my mom a couple years ago with my niece. She was always a loving woman who wanted to spend time with her family. (And I also think she is a beautiful woman too!)

I love being a mom.

These are my kids, their spouses and my granddaughter

 with my mom last summer.

I REALLY love being a Gramma!

And while I keep getting weepy when I think about Mother's Day this weekend. . . a wise friend told me tonight to focus on ME being a mom and a grandmother. My own mom would not want me to be sad this weekend. (Thanks Theresa!) 

But when the whole world is celebrating, buying flowers, going out to dinner and making things for their mom.

 I'm not.

That's what makes me sad. 

I did all those things in the past. I did not forget about her on Mother's Day. She has plenty of pictures, things I made and memories of flowers that I sent her. I just can't do them anymore. 

My mom was the coolest 90 year old mom! 

At 88 she made this quilt for my daughter's first baby. 

(And she wasn't even pregnant yet!) 

I told mom last summer that I hadn't given it to Mackenzie yet, and that I wanted to wait for her to get pregnant before I gave it to her. She said that was all right. I told her that Mackenzie would love it and thank her over and over for it. She said she knew that and that it was just fine for me to wait to give it to her. I think she knew that she wouldn't be around for Mackenzie to get pregnant. Although it didn't take long! Mackenzie told us she was pregnant just after Thanksgiving. 

I am truly grateful for the time I had with my mom. I'm especially glad that she waited for school to get out so I could spend a lot more time with her in the summer. I'm glad that she passed peacefully in her own home where she wanted to be. I'm positive she is in heaven and that she has no regrets about her life. 

Now I need to focus on my students and their moms. They deserve to have a memorable gift from their youngsters. So tomorrow we will make something so perfect it will make their mom's tear up inside. (I'm just not sure what that gift will be yet. But hey! I've got a few more hours tonight to come up with something!)

So Happy Mother's Day to all of you who are mothers, all of you who have mothered someone, and all of you who will be mothers someday. My heart is full with a mother's love tonight!

$hop, $hop, $hop Until YOU Drop!

made by Krista Walden at Creative Clips

Everything. . . not just a few things. . . but EVERYTHING in my store is on sale today and tomorrow! Check your wish lists and see what you want to buy. . . and if you want to look through my store, just click HERE!

click the picture to go to my store

This is a fun way to practice knowing which words are nouns, verbs, adjectives or pronouns. It gets your kids up and moving and giggling a bit too.

Love You To the Store and Back!

Made by Melissa Hill Clautier

You probably already know that his is Teacher Appreciation Week. And if you are feeling the love of those around you then I'm uber happy for you. TPT is doing one more thing for us. . . something we love to do and that we do best! We get to buy things at a nice discount. But it's only tomorrow and Wednesday. 

I'd like to highlight one of my best sellers. This activity helps your kids fine tune those sticky story problems. They have to think about what the equation could be that fits that story.

click the picture to go to my store

So get on over there and see what you need, what you want, what you have in your wish list. . . and Celebrate YOU!