Halfway to 100 Giveaway!

Hey everyone,

I had been waiting until I got to 100 followers to have a giveaway... but... I'm breaking the rules! :)  I have decided to have a "Halfway to 100 Giveaway!"   I know that 50 doesn't seem like a huge number to most... but to me it's HUGE! :)  I feel so blessed to have met such amazing and supportive teachersfriends through this wonderful world of blogging and am so honored to have followers other than myself! :)

So here is my giveaway... If you win, you can pick any ten... yes I said TEN... items from my TPT shop!  Enter to win below!  Good luck!
a Rafflecopter giveaway

PS- I am dying to host a pencil sharpener giveaway but have to have at least 100 followers!  I won one from the wonderful Angela over at Hippo Hooray for Second Grade! and it is the most amazing pencil sharpener ever!  So don't forget to follow my blog and help me reach 100 followers... maybe you could win an amazing pencil sharpener too! :)

2nd Grade Common Core Aligned Assessments...

Hey everyone,

I wanted to share some math assessments that are in my TPT shop.  Each of these assessments aligns to second grade core content standards :).

Click on the picture or click HRE to my TPT shop to check out this assessment.

Click on the picture or click HERE to check out this assessment at my TPT shop.

Click the picture or click HERE to head over to my TPT and check out this assessment.

Click on the picture or HERE to check out this assessment.

Click on the picture or HERE to check out this assessment.

I have also made some tens frame decks for students to use during math centers.  The first deck you can use for a variety of games such as "Make 10 Go Fish" or "Make 20 Go Fish".  On that deck I have included a card front for both of those games... I even drew the little fishy myself :).  The second deck is specifically for "Make 20 Go Fish".  I found that when playing "Make 20 Go Fish" using the first deck with my students, they had trouble figuring out what number they needed to make 20 if the number was below 11.  This was because the tens frames on the first set of cards just showed how many empty spaces you needed to fill to make 10.  So, on the "Make 20 Go Fish" cards I added an extra blank tens frame to the cards 0-10 to allow students, who need them, to count all of the empty spaces to see what number they need to make 20.
Here are both of the decks...

Click on the picture or click HERE to check these out in my TPT shop.

Click on the picture or HERE to head over to my TPT and check these out.

Enjoy!

More Classroom Pictures!

Hey everyone,

I haven't really been able to post any good classroom pictures for a while because my classroom always seems to be such a mess.  Finally, I cleaned up a few areas and snapped a few pictures :).  Here are a few snapshots of my classroom...

First... I finally got my SMART Board mounted!! I'm so excited. But, my students couldn't use it because it was too high for them to reach.  Enter my wonderful husband! :)  He's so amazing!  I told him I needed something for my students to stand on so they could use the SMART Board and I would like something I could store all of our t-shirt pillows in... In just one night he made this wonderful step/storage box.  Of course I had to paint it before I put it in my classroom :).  We just put it in my classroom so my students haven't seen it in person yet... they've just seen pictures that I took while I was painting it.

Here is my mounted SMART Board with seat crates under it... before my wonderful husband made our step/storage box.

My step/storage box under the SMART Board!  I know I shouldn't have spent so long painting it because it is just going to be walked on... but I think I put enough coats of clear spray paint to protect it! :)  Don't you just love it!!!  AND not only is it cute... it also is holding all of our t-shirt pillows that used to end up all over the room! :)

Our Meeting Area/Classroom Library...

I love my big, comfy chair... it is my favorite spot to teach lessons from. :)

 The little tape spots on the floor are assigned seats for my kiddos.  They just couldn't seem to make good choices about where they sat or who they sat next to... so I had to assign them seats.  But... the good thing is that now it is a HUGE reward for them to be able to pick their own seats. :)  So I just added another class reward to my list, haha! 

...I also painted the book shelves :)

A back view of our Meeting Area/Classroom Library.  I love our tree... I put Christmas lights in it and we light it up when we are doing our Read-to-Self time... (we always turn off all the lights and turn on all the lamps during that time... it makes it cozy and I heard that lamp lights are better on their little eyes than the classroom lights are).

Our cute sharp and dull pencil cups.

This is our Word Wall...

 These are students' mailboxes.  I used to have big, bulky mailboxes but then found this space saving solution! :)  I love them... even though they are a bit of a mess.

Here is a picture of our Word Wall and mailboxes together.

This is my flag that is out in the hallway (this picture was before I hung it) and it matches my curtains and desk skirt.  A wonderful woman made this for me along with the curtains and desk skirt.  She has now made about 90% of the flags outside teacher's doors at our school... she's just so talented!

My students really love our classroom and how bright and cheery it is.  I always tell people, I spend most of my day here, so I want it to be a room that I enjoy being in :).  My students always say I'm "crafty" (I think that's their favorite word) and should be an art teacher AND their teacher, lol... they are the sweetest.  There is nothing like showing something you work so hard on to a group of kids and having them just go nuts over it!  It's probably one of the best feelings ever!!  I have such a sweet group of kiddos!!! :)

Here are a few things I have painted for other teachers at my school... 

This was the first chair I painted... I painted it for a teacher on my team for her birthday.

This is a very special chair that I painted for the most amazing woman!  She has battled more cancer than anyone ever should yet still came to school each day with a smile on her face and ask how I was doing... I painted this chair for her in shades of pink for breast cancer awareness.  This chair sits up high so she wouldn't have to get up and down much... and it spun all the way around so she could sit in front of the board and just spin to write on it :).  This wonderful teacher continues her fight with cancer... She has had to leave school for awhile to continue fighting, but we know she is strong!  With all of our prayers being sent her way, we know God will take care of her and help her fight against cancer.

You know... maybe I should start going in to the painted furniture business...  :)  I absolutely love painting things fun colors with random, cute designs.  

Well... that's all of my pictures for now... I'm sure there will be more soon :)!

Enjoy!

Another Clipart Attempt... Need some honest feedback

Hey everyone,

So I have decided to try and make a few clipart images that I can use for some visual directions and other things.  As you will be able to tell, I'm new to this.  :)  I like to doodle for fun, so I thought I'd see if I could turn the doodles into something I could actually use.  Here are some of the images I've done so far...  I need some honest feedback! :)

Enjoy!

Student Passports!

Hey everyone!

I finally finished making a student passport for our country study "travel" day.  Thank you for all of your help with choosing a picture for the cover.  And a special thank you to Nikki from Melonheadz Illustrations for helping me make my picture more professional :).

The passport includes two options for cover pages: blue and grey.  It also includes a student information page with their picture and pages for them to locate the country they are visiting and write something they've learned about that country.  I also left a place for their passport to be stamped when they visit each country.

Here are a few pages from the passport...

You can click HERE or on any of the pictures above to check out the passport at my TPT shop!

This is not all of the pages... I know some of the pictures look repetitive but I promise when you copy it, the order of the pages is perfect :).

Enjoy!

A Quick Question...

Hey everyone!

I have been wanting to make a passport template for my students to use during our country study.  I made a couple of quick pictures (they aren't done yet so don't judge me :) ) for the front of the passport but can't decide which one to use.  Here's my question... which picture do you think would be better for the front of the students' passports?  

Here is picture 1:

Here is picture 2:

So which picture would look best on the front of a passport?  Or, do you think a different picture would work better?  I would love to hear your all's thoughts!

I really appreciate any and all feedback and help!

Thank you all!