Hello! I'm so excited about the Teachers Pay Teacher 3 Million Teachers Strong Sale that will be running Thursday to Friday! You can save up to 28% when you use Promo Code TPT3! 
(Thank you to The Tattooed Teacher for the adorable graphic!)

I have been hoarding things on my wish list for the longest time! I'm so excited to be able to purchase these goodies at such a great sale price!
First up is this amazing file by the amazing Hope King. People have been raving about this file, and this sale is happening at the perfect time, because I'm teaching matter next week! This file will be perfect! You can find it here.
Next, this file by my teacher hero One Extra Degree will be perfect for my nonfiction reading groups! Of course everything she creates is AMAZING!!!
I also have to have her poetry unit to add to my poetry stash! I wish I had already bought this one, because she recently revamped it and added to it! It looks wonderful as well. 
CreateTeachShare was the first teacher-blogger I had ever encountered! I happened to find her blog through a scrapbooking blog. I had no idea such blogs existed, and I was opened up to a whole new world. During what I call The Dark Ages of teaching, she and other teacher bloggers helped to show me the light! I couldn't believe people actually shared their amazing ideas and products for free! It sounds a bit dramatic, but I truly believe I was saved by them! I love her Third Grade Math Interactive Notebooks and I'm planning on picking up this one.
And these Close Reading Posters by Runde's Room look awesome as well! I'm just dabbling in close reading, so these will help me I'm sure!
These Bloggy Button Magnets from tea and coffee are just adorable! I want to get some made!
My own little store will be on sale too! I plan to extend my sale throughout the weekend.

I would LOVE to know what is on your wish list! What am I missing out on? Please share! 
Hello!
I am so excited about this giveaway! It is Britney's birthday from Tailor-Made Teaching! In honor of her birthday, she is having a huge blog giveaway! See below for all of the wonderful things you could win!
Check Inspired Owl's Corner TPT store here
Check The Kinder Sister's TPT store out here
Check The Unique Classroom TPT store here


a Rafflecopter giveaway
And in honor of her birthday, I made a student birthday pack. It is filled with treat bag toppers, cards, certificates, candy bar wrappers, and more! I am going to have a parent volunteer help put everything together so all I have to do is grab a certificate and a treat bag when a student has a birthday!
You can find it here and it will be free today in honor of Britney's birthday! I hope you can use it!
I am linking up with Teaching Maddeness for her Must-Read Monday {A Book Lovin' Linky Party}. I was so excited, because I started this blog post this morning, then later I saw her mention this linky party on Instagram!
Must-Read Monday Linky
I have been loving the book Word Nerds. It is an excellent resource for vocabulary instruction and practice. There are tons of ideas to get students to really embrace the words they are studying, not just memorize them for their weekly tests. The ideas in the book are engaging and fun! I am all about the fun, because if it isn't fun, it's hard to motivate the students. I love it when they are having so much fun, they don't realize they are learning! That's an added bonus!

One idea from the book we have been using is using vocabulary lanyards. I have heard of doing this with a word of the day, but I never thought to do it with all of the vocabulary words! I am doing this activity a bit differently than the book explains, but basically I write the vocabulary words on cards which are slipped into badge holders with clips, and the students wear them. I started out with homemade ribbon lanyards attached to the badge holders, but the kids played with them and they fell apart, even though I tried to train them to leave them alone. They would get nervous when it was their turn to speak and fiddle with them. The badge holder clips work perfectly. I bought the badge holders at Staples and the clips on a later shopping trip to Office Max. Throughout the day, I call on certain vocabulary words. Students give me the definitions, synonyms, antonyms, and use the words in sentences. This is a perfect way to get all of my students up and speaking, especially my ELL students. At recess and lunch the students turn in their cards. After these breaks, new students are chosen to wear the cards. There are other many other ways to use the cards, as well as many other fun and engaging vocabulary ideas. You really have to grab a copy of this book and check it out! The students have done much better on the two tests they've had since beginning the strategies in Word Nerds


Here are our badges from a few weeks ago.
And here are two of my boys. In this particular activity, I asked "the line where the sky meets the land" to go look for "tunnels dug by small animals". They really got a kick out of this! I have never seen them so excited about vocabulary!
If you can use the cards for the badges, I am offering them as a freebie. You can find them here!
I hope you had a wonderful Valentine's Day that wasn't too crazy with that Full (Fool, as I call it) Moon! We had a minimum day, which I was very thankful for!

Here are some pictures of our day! We spent the morning creating bar graphs and pictographs, and later we had fun with my Valentine Centers and Valentine Centers from Amanda from One Extra Degree. You can find her adorable centers Here.
The highlight of our day was when my former student I taught 10 years ago showed up for a surprise visit with treats for the class. He is a PFC in the Army now. A few months ago our class sent him a few care packages. He is home on leave until Monday, and wanted to surprise my class. It was a perfect example of when you do good in the world, good comes back to you. We weren't expecting treats or a party because we had our class celebration on Thursday. We were only going to exchange Valentine cards and maybe a have a little candy, and we were surprised with a complete party! Raymond told me that I was the first teacher who ever told him he was smart. That made me realize what a huge impact we have on the kids whose lives we so briefly touch. What we say to them matters and can stay with them their entire lives. He brought me this beautiful cupcake. I wish I had taken some pictures of him, but in the excitement, I completely forgot! 
And since I received these adorable and generous gifts, I decided to make some simple Valentine thank you notes and put them on TpT. I especially love the owl!
You can find the freebie thank you notes here. I hope you can use them! 
Enjoy your weekend! I feel fortunate to have a three day weekend! 



I'm linking this post with Tara from 4th Grade Frolics for her Monday Made It February Edition, since I don't have anything new since I posted this on Saturday! I have lots of freebies to share!
I can't believe it's almost Valentine's Day! Every year this happens-Valentine's Day sneaks up on me! This year I was determined to be ahead of the game, so I picked up all of the goodies for my students' treat bags early. Now I have to spend part of this weekend getting them assembled! I have a few ideas for my parent volunteers as well, so I need to narrow down exactly what I'm going to do for them. 

One idea I have are these freebie Valentine's labels. I think the honey bear would be so cute with a gift bag of scones! These would be perfect for my non-coffee drinking volunteers. Super easy and inexpensive! You can hole punch a hole and attach them to any any treat!


For the coffee lovers, I have coffee card printables from this post. Another easy gift option! 

I hope you are able to use some of these freebies for your students and parent volunteers! I know I'm always talking about how grateful I am for my parent volunteers, but without them I wouldn't be able to give my students the extra one on one help that many of them need. 
Have a wonderful week!
Hello!
I wanted to share an easy classroom volunteer Valentine's Day gift idea with you. I plan to give my parent/grandparent volunteers a coffee card with one of these printable cards attached with double sided tape. My volunteers are so helpful to my students! I appreciate them so much! These would look super cute in a cellophane bag with Valentine candy and a ribbon tied on top.

I have a few more Valentine's Day ideas I am working on right now that I will be sharing later this week!
Enjoy your week!
Happy February!
I can't believe it's February! The year is flying by, and of course I have the best class ever! I don't want the year to end. 
Today I have a freebie to share HERE. I plan to also use them as homework passes, and after the students redeem them, I will sign my name on the back and the kids can keep them. I am going to make a treat bag for the kiddos filled with these Valentine cards and the things I have HERE in this freebie pack. I need to start planning now, because Valentine's Day usually creeps up on me! I hope you are able to use them and your students enjoy them!
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