Hello Sunshine Blog Launch and HUGE Giveaways!

Here in Arizona, the sun shines 296 days a year.  A few months ago, some Arizona teachers got together and decided that we had enough sunny days to share with you all!  These women are some of the most creative and inspiring women I have met and I was so blessed to have the opportunity to be part of this collaboration.





Our hope is to share our love of teaching, some creative ideas, and a whole lot of sunshine!  Today is the big launch of our new blog, Hello Sunshine and we are having a HUGE giveaway that you will not want to miss!  The grand prize is a $100 gift certificate to TpT!

In addition to the big giveaway, each of the Hello Sunshine bloggers is having their own giveaway on their own blog.  Be sure to enter my giveaway to win $10 to spend in my TpT store and a $10 Amazon gift card.  Then, hop on over to my friend Caitlin’s blog The Kinder Garden to enter her giveaway!






a Rafflecopter giveaway




We can't wait to share the sunshine with you!

Parent Test Prep

We spend weeks getting our kiddos ready for testing season, but there is often one part of the education team that is overlooked when it comes to preparation.  The parents.  We spend a crazy amount of time in our classroom talking about how if I’ve done my job all year, and the students have done their job all year we should be ready.  We talk about the numerous ways they can and should be preparing at home; getting a good night’s sleep, eating a healthy brain-powering breakfast, and packing a healthy snack on testing days. 

Each year I send home a Parent Test Prep letter with general testing tips and things that I ask the parents to do to help us be ready.  I attach an envelope with 3 die-cut shapes inside.  I ask the parents to write a positive, encouraging note to their child, one for each day of testing.  They seal the notes in the envelope and return them to school in their child’s folder.  Each testing morning, I leave a note from home on each kiddos desk.  Occasionally, I have a student who does not bring an envelope back.  For those students, I write a note and will have my principal or other “well-known,” adults on campus write a note.  I usually have a great response from students and parents and many students have held on to their notes in a special place!

I posted a picture today while I was prepping my letter to go home and was asked by several teachers to share.

I made an editable version too so that you can change it to fit your classroom.

You can grab a copy of my letter and the editable version by clicking HERE!

I hope you find them useful and I hope that you have a stress free testing season!

Currently April

April….already!  This is going to be a good month for our family with so much to look forward to!

I’m linking up with the amazing, one of a kind, Farley to share what I’m doing currently!

Listening:  To The Amazing Race from last night.  Now that my New Kid has been sent home it’s not quite the same, but I still love watching the different personalities take on these challenges!

Loving:  Easter weekend!  This year our church is holding Easter service in the Cardinal’s football stadium!  They are expecting over 50,000 people.  That’s a lot of people celebrating Jesus and I am so excited!  After that, we will go to our family celebration.  It is so great to see ALL of the cousins playing games together and having fun!

Thinking:  I can’t believe we have one more week and then we start our state testing.  I’m nervous since this is our first year with our new assessment, but I can’t wait to get it over with and get back to “real,” teaching!

Wanting:  I think I’ve had this on a Currently before.  I really want a pair of Kendras.  I have my big awards dinner coming up this month.  I already have a dress that I plan on wearing, so since I don’t have to buy a new dress I think I can justify new earrings to go with it….right?!? Someone please talk me into!!!! I’m terrible at spending money on myself!

Needing:  I need to start planning what we are going to do to celebrate my husband’s birthday!

EGGSplain your name:  I am The Blessed Teacher because I truly feel blessed in life.  I know that I would not be where I am today, living the life I live, without the love and grace of my Savior, Jesus!

I can’t wait to head on over to Farley’s blog and see what everyone else is currently up to!

 

 

 

Spring Sale

Here in Arizona it feels like we skipped Spring and went straight to summer weather!  97 degrees is the forecast today! 
Head on over to my store today or tomorrow!  My entire store is 20% off! 
 




Now would be a great time to grab some of my best sellers! 


Have you been wanting to give Genius Hour a try?  Check out my Genius Hour Starter Pack, it has everything you need to get your class started!  You can read about Genius Hour in my room here.





Do you have a unit on fossils coming up?  Grab my Fossils are Fantastic pack!





This week we will be using my S.U.P.E.R. Sentences unit to do some more work with complex sentences.





We will also be using my Read With a Pencil pack to help us prepare for the writing portion of our state testing coming up! 

Happy Shopping!

Five For (the day after) Friday!

This has been a CRAZY, AMAZING week!  I can’t remember another week that has been this jam packed with awesomeness and left me this exhausted!  But it was totally worth it!

My new blog design!

I spent Sunday emailing back and forth with the lovely Lindsey at Miss Johnston’s Journey.  She was amazing to work with.  We literally emailed back and forth all day and she kept making changes until it looked exactly like I wanted it to.  I can’t tell you enough how great she was to work with.  My blog is now up and running, I couldn’t believe how quickly she got that done, and I couldn’t be happier with it.  I am in love!

Pride of Peoria

On Monday morning I was surprised with our district’s Pride of Peoria award.  It was a pretty exciting way to start back from break and such a huge honor!

My baby turned 16!

On Tuesday, my baby girl turned 16 and got her license!  I can’t believe this is actually happening.  It is so crazy to see them get in the car/truck together and go to dance without me!

My BFF visits my class!

On Thursday, the amazing Mrs. Nelson visited my class.  They were so excited to show her how we do Number Talks, since she was the one who taught me all about them!  They had a blast and it is always amazing to watch a master teacher at work!

Friday!

Friday was an awesome day that just wrapped up all of the awesomeness this week entailed!

My morning started with this little ray of sunshine from my teammate!

Later that morning we rocked our Socratic Seminar!  I was so impressed with their insight, the evidence they found to support their opinions, and how they were able to respectfully disagree with each other and discuss it! 

The week ended with our annual school carnival.  Some of my boys were so excited to put me in jail.  Little did they know that I was thankful for the break from running our booth! 

 

It was an amazing week and one that I won’t soon forget! 

Visual Plans (Tons of Freebies!)

It’s back to school this week.  We had a relaxing break.  The oldest made it back from her NYC trip, she had so much fun she didn’t want to come home!  We got our spring cleaning finished, visited my sister and nieces in Tucson, and threw a sweet sixteen party for the oldest!  Tomorrow is back to reality!

It’s always hard to get back into the swing of things and I know it won’t be any different for my 31 sweet kiddos tomorrow!

Here are my visual plans for the week.  Don’t forget that you have to click on them to download the pdf to get all of the clickable links to the freebies and on sale items!

 

The Gold Rush passage to go with the True/False sort is from Read Works.  Click here to download it.  You may need to register for a free account if you don’t already have one, and if you don’t already have one, I highly recommend it!  They have amazing lessons and passages with comprehension questions and they are all lexile leveled!  It’s a great sight!

I absolutely love starting our math time together with Number Talks.  You can check out my blog post about my love of Number Talks here.  After our Number Talk, we head back to our seats and do a little CGI style problem solving in our math notebooks.  I uploaded the problems that I will be using this week and you can download them for FREE by clicking the link on the visual plans!  We will also be using my March Madness Math centers.  You can grab those on sale for 20% off this week!

Don’t forget to enter my giveaway, it’s ending tonight!  And stay tuned for my new blog design!  I’ve been working with the amazing Lindsey from L. Paull Designs for All on a new custom blog design!  I can’t wait for you all to see it, I am absolutely in love with what she has done!!!


Have a great week everyone!

And Just Like That…I’m Out!

March Madness is like Christmas in March in my house.  I guess that’s what happens when you are married to a basketball coach!  Every year we pay close attention to Selection Sunday, listen to all of the analysts, and fill out our brackets.  The whole family gets involved and my daughters love to rub it in when their brackets are doing better than Dad’s!  (As of this evening, they are all tied for 5th place and I have dropped to 14th.) 

So, when my friend Ashlyn at The Creative Classroom emailed about a fun March Madness Blogger Match Up, of course I was in! 

We were randomly paired with a team from the tournament.  Well, it doesn’t take a coach’s wife to know that when you are the 16 seed playing the 1 seed it’s most likely going to  be a short tournament for you! It was fun to cheer for the underdog during the Lafayette/Villanova game but the realist in me knew that I would soon be sending a gift to my competition, Karri at One Sassy Teacher. 
I am also doing a fun March Madness giveaway here on my blog! You can win the same S.U.P.E.R. Sentences pack I sent Karri and ONE other item of your choice from my store!  Enter using the Rafflecopter below, giveaway will close tomorrow night! Then scroll down below to see the other teacher/bloggers who are competing and check out their blogs for giveaways with great prizes! 


a Rafflecopter giveaway

Other Teacher/Bloggers who are competing:
Learning with Mrs. Langley cheering on Belmont Second Grade Stories cheering on Indiana The Neat and Tidy Classroom cheering on UC Irvine Live, Laugh, I LOVE Kindergarten cheering on Coastal Car. Miss Johnston's Journey cheering on Maryland The Creative Classroom cheering on San Diego State Fifth in the Middle cheering on Wichita State Lessons with Coffee cheering on Arkansas The Kinder Garden cheering on Notre Dame Exploring Elementary cheering on NC State Inspired Owl's Corner cheering on Oregon Frampton's Fundamentals cheering on New Mexico State Learning in the Little Apple cheering on Michigan State NC Teacher Chick cheering on Utah State A Tall Drink of Water cheering on Baylor Sara J Creations cheering on Oklahoma ELA Everyday cheering on Duke The Blessed Teacher cheering on Lafayette Mrs. 3rd Grade cheering on VCU Rock & Teach cheering on Albany Create Teach Share cheering on North Dakota State One Happy Teacher cheering on Gonzaga Fern Smith's Classroom Ideas! cheering on Iowa State First Grade Roars! cheering on SF Austin The Learning Chambers cheering on Hampton Teaching is Sweet cheering on Eastern Washington Sounds Like Fun cheering on Louisville Confessions of a Teaching Junkie cheering on Cincinnati Year2tastic cheering on Kansas Sparkling in Second cheering on Wyoming Making Meaning with Melissa cheering on Purdue One Sassy Teacher cheering on Villanova Brittany Kiser cheering on Texas Coach and Teach 24/7 cheering on St. John's Hardcore Teacher Resources cheering on LSU The Whole Wheat Class cheering on Oklahoma Mixing It Up In The Middle! cheering on Mississippi Teaching Maddeness cheering on UAB Its Elementary My Dear cheering on Ohio State Live Love Serve Teach cheering on Providence Education Kingdom cheering on North Carolina A Dab of Glue Will Do cheering on Dayton Learning to be Awesome cheering on Kentucky Technology Timeout cheering on Harvard Kovescence on the Mind cheering on Butler Blossoms of Blue in 2 cheering on North Eastern Mrs. D's Corner cheering on Robert Morris Where the Wild Things Learn cheering on Buffalo Bright Concepts 4 Teachers cheering on North Iowa (UNI) A Trendy Teacher cheering on Valparasio Lucky to Be In First cheering on Wisconsin O-H So Blessed! cheering on Virginia Tales of Teaching with Tech cheering on Woffard Very Perry Classroom cheering on Arizona A Kindergarten Life for Me cheering on Georgia First Grade Buddies cheering on Iowa Miss Case's Classroom cheering on Georgetown A Grace-Filled Classroom cheering on West Virginia Third Grade Cupcakes cheering on SMU The Class Couple cheering on Xavier More Time 2 Teach cheering on Georgia State Owl-ways Learning cheering on UCLA