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Hello all! So, this week I am starting a series on the Young Hoosier Book Award Nominees for 2015-2016. If you look at the official website, it says: “The purpose of the Young Hoosier Book Award Program is to stimulate recreational reading among elementary and middle school/junior high school children and to encourage cooperation between administrators, school media specialists, teachers, public libraries, and the community in providing reading experiences for Indiana school children.” You can click on this picture to learn more Every year our wonderful librarian participates in this program. We keep track of the books that the kiddos

Check out what all the hubbub is about over at Classroom Tested Resources!

Congrats Crystal G!  I hope you enjoy your book! Now, for a really quick tech storage tip! This year as a school corporation have gone 1 to 1 devices. So, that means that every kiddo in my class now has a Chromebook. This of course presented a bit of a storage problem. Thank goodness for smart colleagues! She found some storage racks that were meant for big pot lids. Here is a picture of the ones that I have purchased. As you can see here, the chrombooks fit perfectly and neatly into the slots. I labeled each slot by wrapping

Hello! It’s that time of year isn’t it? I don’t know about you, but after I show my kiddos how to Check for Understanding and Go Back and Reread, I start working on teaching my kiddos strategies for figuring out unknown words. A.K.A. Accuracy Strategies! I used to teach each strategy with a different book as I went along with Reader’s Workshop. That was fine, it worked, but then a colleague of mine stumbled upon this little gem. This little book has predictable text, but it does have a “difficult” word or two on each page that make it perfect

 Hello again!  Welcome back!   Today I am talking about my student’s  scary dark mess collectors desks. Now, I am fortunate enough to have newer desks, but that doesn’t change the fact that these babies weigh 70 lbs. a piece.  They are substantial. They are also ALWAYS MESSY!   Aggggghhhh. They eat papers, pencils, books, and an occasional snack. Until it is time to move seats, then all of that junk shows up. On the floor. All over the place! I needed a solution. Thank heavens for Seat Sacks! This year, I turned my desks around so the kiddos couldn’t put

Hello! If you are anything like me, you are busy. Super busy. I teach full time, blog, create, wife, and mommy. I NEEDED a way to keep it all together! I have tried everything. Thank goodness my husband is an engineer.  He is very organized and can keep track of stuff for the boys most of the time. He can’t keep track of me though. I have to do that. So!  I have been searching for one planner that can do everything. I think that I have finally found it! This is my Erin Condren Life Planner!   I am not

Hello again!  So glad that you are back! So, today I am sharing my calendar board set up. Short confession time first. I greatly dislike (I am trying to stop using the H word)  doing the calendar. I really, really do.   But, I know that even in 2nd grade the kiddos still need those skills. I tried to get away without doing calendar.  I really tried. I was not successful. So, I try to do a bit of calendar everyday during our morning meeting. I have tied it in with my number and word of the day and so

Hello all! Thanks so much for “hopping” by today! Now that we are back in school, I am working on setting up our classroom routines and procedures (as we all are I am sure). So, for Reading Workshop (I use the Daily 5 framework tweaked to work the best for me) once we have some stamina built up I start in with mini-lessons! We have so much to cover don’t we? So, I usually start with Check for Understanding and back up and re-read. I do this lesson several times, so I always try to pick books that I love.

Hello all!  I am participating in the Teacher Time Savers Linky Party hosted by Literacy Loves Company! This is a little tip that has saved me a ton of time and aggravation over the years! So, in my district we are required to wear a lanyard with our I.D.  I also have a “keychain” wallet, my keys and my trusty chapstick holder on my lanyard.  I wear it from the time I leave the house in the morning, until I get home after school. Yes, I am a huge Harry Potter fan.  I was officially sorted into Ravenclaw on Pottermore.

Hello friends!  It is good to see you! Today I want to write about a book that I recently found. It is called Rip the Page by Karen Benke! This book is so much fun.  It has all kinds of fun and engaging (for lack of a better word) prompts to help get your creative writing juices flowing! It also has quotes and words of encouragement from famous writers such as Lemony Snicket and Patricia Polacco. I don’t know about you, but when I teach Writer’s Workshop I like to spend the first few minutes of our quiet writing time,

Oh my goodness! I am still recovering from the awesomeness that was the TpT conference in Vegas #tptvegas15 ! I went with my friend Hilary from Rockin Teacher Materials. We are now “The Hilarys!” We didn’t fly out until Thursday morning, so it was a whirlwind 2 days in Vegas!  We stayed at the beautiful Palazzo hotel!  This this is HUGE! Sign out front (darn palm trees photobombed!) Inside the hotel lobby!  We learned a ton!  I brought all of my favorite pens to take notes! We ATE.  The food was WONDERFUL! My favorite meal was breakfast at the Grand

All teachers know that kids learn more when they’re excited and engaged. Today a team of bloggers come together to help your students take a BITE out of learning with a theme your students are sure to love! My Shark Week freebie is a few shark-themed writing prompts from my Pick a Prompt series! If you haven’t tried these out before, they are a fun way to get kiddos writing.  There are three sections with pictures: Character, Setting, and Plot!  The kiddos pick one (or more) from each section and write a story.  There are also other types of prompts