Friday Freebie Link-Up!

Before I head out to spend some time with fellow teachers, I wanted to share the Fridays Freebie Link-Up! Also to wish everyone a Happy Friday the 13th! (Queue scary music!) I think I had a Friday the 13th yesterday! Click here to hear about my day!



Since I had such an amazing turn out with my buddy read center poster. I thought I would share them again! You  can see the original post here.

Click on the picture to be taken to my TPT store!

Rough Day: DVR, Bad Dogs, and Giveaways…

Last week my Dish network box was making some SUPER loud sound that made me thing it was going to explode! I contacted Dish and after making me feel like a dummy with their questions (is it on the carpet? is something on top of it?), they ordered me a new one. I got it yesterday and my husband said to me, “You have to watch all your DVR shows before we can switch it.” Ahhh!! So while I type this I am catching up on Craft Wars and Snooki & JWOWW (don’t judge me!).

Also, I am grounding two BAD DOGS right now. If you read my “About Dani” section of my blog, you know I have a big dog named Maverick, and a little dog named Fergie. Well today they are both in trouble!

Maverick is a BIG baby when it comes to rain and storms. He stays outside when we are at work, because he destroys things inside when we are gone. Well the past few days we have had some nasty storms. He usually just escapes the fence and sits by the front door until we get home. Today was different…. he decided to destroy our back door and frame. Here are just a few pictures to show you:

Here’s a picture of the naughty boy trying not to make eye contact with me:

Yep.. Not going to show what he did to the actually screen door… Grr!!

Then… since Maverick came inside he slept on Fergie’s bed and he STUNK. So I unzipped her bed to put it in the wash. When it was done in the washer I went to go get it to put it in the dryer and I heard her digging in the bedroom. I walked into this:

And here is a picture of Fergie hiding under the bed.

So, how was your day?!?

Did you know about these giveaways??? Be sure to check them out!

Hope you have a better Thursday than two naughty doggies!!

Guess what I learned to do??

So, I figured something out on my own and I am SUPER excited to share with my blogger friends! I am going to wait to the end of my post to share this with you! Once you learn the new “thing”, you will want to go and do it right away! I don’t want you to leave just yet!

First of all, I stopped by Rowdy in Room 300 and she had some FREE owl table numbers! Not only that… she had an ADORABLE way of hanging them up! Check them out! I usually hang up shapes above the tables to help them remember name shapes (rhombus/diamond, parallelogram, oval, trapezoid, and hexagon). I think it would be a good idea to change them up each six weeks! Start off with table numbers, then move to shapes, then to coins (?), then to something else. What do you think?

So in my Master Reading Teacher Certification class we discussed partner reading and how important it is to promote fluency. I thought about my boring partner center and decided I wanted to spruce it up a bit! Then a cute poster came into my mind and I ran to my laptop when I got home! Here it is:

Did I mention that it’s FREE at my TPT store! Go get it! :)

First I made a small poster because my space is very limited. Then I thought about other teachers who may have more space and made a bigger type poster for them. So when you download the document you will also get a full slide with each sentence. Like this:

So then, I decided to find a happy medium and printed the slides out 2 slides per paper.

 

Laminated them. My husband offered to cut for me!

He’s so sweet!

Then I hung them on some cute polka dot ribbon that I have and TADA!

Something cute to hang in my buddy read center! Hope you enjoy my freebie! Click Here to get it!

Ok… now I know you were on your edge of your seat waiting to hear the “thing” I figured out….

Well, after blog hopping around, I saw that some blogs have a picture on their tab next to their blog name. Some of them don’t. Those that don’t, have a blogger sign next to their blog name like this:

I was playing around in layout DYING to figure it out… Then…I was able to get a pretty pink flower to show up on mine! I wanted to show you how I did it so that you can join me in having a fantastic tab. It’s really easy to do…. except the patience you MUST have!

Go to your Blogger dashboard then click on layout. At the top of the shadowed part is a word called “Favicon”. See blow:

You will click on EDIT. Then change the picture you want. Now comes the hardest part of all… WAITING! Seriously, it takes over 24 hours for it to finally show. I kept switching the picture and messing with it, then refreshing my page over and over. So finally, I just left it alone. This morning (1.5 days later) I was playing around and clicked on my blog, and TADA there it was! I literally hopped up and down!

So.. There! Go now! And change your favicon to match your blog! Enjoy! :)

Clearance Target Finds & Giveaways

I forgot to share with you my Target finds from Sunday. I have to say, I was disappointed when I went to Target! Most of their shelves and bins were very empty and I had money to burn! It’s that how it is? When you WANT to spend you can’t find anything to spend it on?

Well here is what I found, and they were ALL on a sale of some sort! Even the $1 bin was 30% off:

• Paper Lanterns for $2!! Those will be owls here VERY soon!
• Ice cube trays. Those are 10 holes and will be used for 10 frames practice! (I saw this from another blogger and wish I remembered who so I could tag them!)
• Owl vinyl to stick in my calendar area!
• Tubs. We can NEVER have too many tubs!
• The tin holder was in the summer picnic area. I could SO use that at my horse-shoe table to hold all my supplies!

So after I got home, I told the husband that I was going to add an owl to that tin holder! So I grabbed my cricut, my owl cartridge, some vinyl, and got to work! This was the first time that I layered vinyl. Whew! That was a tough one! But here it is:

Before:

After:

Isn’t he cute??

It took a few tries but then I got the hang of it!!

Have y’all noticed the amount of owl decorations that are out there? My friend Tanya from Mrs. Dwyers A+ Fristies, started pointing it out! So, the past few days I have noticed that owls are “the thing” this year! It seems like anything educational or kid decorations have an owl theme. I am just excited to have jumped on board. Hopefully, the kids have the same excitement when they walk into their 1st grade classroom this coming year!

So before I head off to my MRTC class, I wanted to shout out to some giveaways! By the way, I am at 39 followers… WHOA! Thank you to all my BF (Blogging Friends!) I already have a prize in mind for 50!! ;o)

The first one is at Tonya’s Treats, she has 300 followers! That’s amazing! Her prizes include $$$ to her TPT store!\

Also, you already hear my shout out to Tanya at A+ Firsties above, but she is having a give away for having 300 followers too! Make sure to follow her! Maybe we can get to 400 even faster! ;)

The last giveaway to blog about it from Wild About Teaching. 500 followers! Whoohoo! She is going to give away a gift card to TPT as well as, fun prizes that other bloggers have made!

Hope everyone has a happy Tuesday! Comment and let me know what your plans are for today and to let me know you stopped by! I hope to come home and finish a few owl things I have started and share a poster I made to help parents read aloud at home!

Sunday… FUNday!

I have to say.. I think Sunday is BLOG day! I see SO many great posts through my dashboard.

First thing I want to do is link up with Fabulously First where she asked us to share our teaching wisdom we have received in our years of teaching. I have to say, probably the best wisdom I have gained is this:

I hope that doesn’t sound harsh! It’s the truth! In college I always felt like after turning in a project that I was DONE and could move on. However, in real world teaching, you are NEVER done until you have turned your keys in and are walking off campus. Even then, we spend our summers preparing to better ourselves for the following year. When new teachers ask, “When is this going to get easy?”… I tell them that it’s my 5th year of teaching and it never gets easy! You have to learn to “go with the flow” and better yourself as a teacher. :)

So then after blopping (I made a new word! blog + hopping = blopping!), I found two things I wanted to share!

The first is Scootpad! I can’t wait to share this website with my teammates and other teachers at my school.

Want to know the best thing about it? It’s FREE!! Plus students can access this from home. At my school, we use Education City to enrich students on skills learned in their grade level. I love Education City, but I wish they could get on at home. With ScootPad they can! They earn coins and badges. Also, teachers or students can post comments to cheer others on and they can comment back! It’s like their very own Facebook-ish page. I do plan on using this in my classroom next year. However, I still have more to learn. Kate from EduKate shared this on Technology Tailgate. Check out the post to learn more! Oh, one downfall… It’s only for grades 1-3.

Also through my blopping, I found an app that I plan on purchasing for next year! Dana from Fun in 1st Grade shared the app called Stick Pick. As teachers we use the popsicle sticks, write their names on them, then pull one at a time for fair answering in class. Well, “there’s an app for that”. ;)

First you put all your students name on a stick. You choose which level of Blooms Taxonomy that student needs practice with. Then, you shake your phone to get a stick with a students name on it. After you pick a name, the app gives you question stems for you to use. The question is on the level you chose for him/her. Once you are done with the stick you can mark it as being used. The app is only $2.99!

Finally, I just want to share my new freebie I uploaded to my TPT store: Sight Word Tic Tac Toe. I have used this in the past for centers, but wanted to update it with some cute backgrounds I found. Click on the link to download! Enjoy!

Classroom Theme Linky

I heard of a linky that I wanted to be apart of. Surfin' Through Second is curious about what everyone plans on decorating their classroom like for the new school year.

Well, if you have been following my posts you know that my theme is OWLS! Along with some colorful dots! :) I am still working on more things to complete my classroom. I am also holding out until July 19th to purchase anything from a teacher store. Why July 19th? Because the teacher store near me is having a SALE!!!

Here are the pictures I have so far!

 

E-Meals!

Today I was stalking blog hopping around when I realized that my day was being wasted sitting on my bottom! I sure got a lot of freebies though!! :)

So, I went looking for something to snack on while I continued my stalking hopping! Checked fridge, no luck. Dug through the pantry cabinet, nope nothing there. After going back to the fridge and back to the pantry, I couldn’t find anything to eat!! Then I came to the conclusion it was time to leave, bear the 100+ degree heat and go grocery shopping. Dun Dun Dun DUNNNNNN. Grocery shopping is one of my least favorite things to do. It’s up there with dishes and taking the trash out. Blah!

Before you go grocery shopping do you make out a list and figure out what your going to eat for a week? How long does that take? 10 minutes? 15? Anymore than that and you don’t want to go grocery shopping anymore! Finally, you make it to the store and usually buy MORE than what was on your list! I feel your pain!!!

Well, blogging is all about sharing and I want to share what I do when it comes time for grocery shopping! I sign into my E-Meals account, click on my weekly menu, click print, and I am ready to go! Under 5 minutes!
Here is the link to the amazing website!




Let me tell you how it works!! You choose what types of dinners you want and you choose the store you grocery shop at. My husband and I use the low-carb meal plan. There are so many different meal plans to choose from (even gluten free and organic!) and there are stores that you choose. I shop at HEB and there is not a list for HEB, but they have a “any store” choice.

It’s $15 for 3 months! That’s $5 a month! So 5 minutes a week to plan your trip to the store… $5 for the whole month. Keeps sounding better and better, right??

Your menu is updated weekly with 7 different meals and if you don’t like one of the meals you still have 6 others to choose from! My husband and I enjoy the different meals. I have never seen a meal repeated yet.

Here is a sneak peak at my menu and shopping list for this week!

This is a sneak peak of a menu. Tells what you will need and how to cook it! I keep this hung on my fridge for each day.


This is a sneak peak of what the shopping list is. Let’s say you decide not to cook the meal on day 5, just cross it off your list!










I wanted to share this with my blogger friends because I know how useful it has been for me! I know how valuable our time is, especially our blogging time! ;) If there is a way to make something easier in my life and it’s in my budget, I am going to try it out!

Make sure to click on the link above to check it out! They even have a video for you to watch to understand it better. If you have any questions, leave a comment below and I will try to help!
Have a great Friday!!