Furry Friends Linky Party

I am SO excited to be linking up with Sandy at Soaring Through Second Grade. Since my husband and I don't have kids yet, our puppy is like our baby. We spoil him, discipline him, and love talking about him to anyone that will listen! I often have to hold myself back from saying "Hey! My Teddy does that too!" when people are telling stories about their kids because I realize that people may not be thrilled about their child being compared to my dog.

Sandy is keeping this party educational by asking us to discuss something we've learned from our pet. I would say the biggest thing I learned from my pet is what it feels like to be a parent. It can be difficult to view school situations from a parent's point of view since I don't have kids. I would often get frustrated with parents for not supporting classroom discipline or being reluctant to accept what I was telling them about their child's classroom behavior/learning. I know it sounds weird, but now that I have a dog I understand how it feels to have someone that you love and see the best in and having to take advice from professionals who may not recognize how wonderful that loved one is, despite their behavior. I know that my parent communication will continue to improve as I have my own children, but for now I am content learning to understand through the eyes of my adorable puppy Teddy.

These are pictures of our wonderful 9 month-old Boxer puppy named Teddy. He is playful, sweet, energetic, and loving. These pictures were taken at the photo shoot that my hubby and I had for our 1 year anniversary back in February.

Don't forget to link up here with my Font Linky Party!

Favorite Font Linky Party

I enjoy fonts so much! I can't help it. It looks kind of nerdy and weird to read that in print, but they are so much fun! The right font can completely change the look of a document. As teachers, we are constantly creating activities and worksheets for our classroom. I have found that the right font can make a plain worksheet look more inviting, less overwhelming, and fun. I've noticed that sometimes when I re-type a worksheet with less typical, more intriguing font, I'll get an eagerness from my students when they are asked to do it, even if it's just a sheet of math problems. Since I started selling products on TpT and TN, I have also noticed how font can make a product more appealing to customers. That being said here are my current favorite fonts (click here to see some of my other favorites):

(All fonts can be found at Da Font)

Please link up below to share your favorite fonts. I am eager to find out about new places to download font. Have a great weekend!

Today's Number Morning Work FREEBIE

So, last night while I was spending my Spring Break staying up late pinning and watching Golden Girls, I stumbled across a pin that took me down a rabbit hole.

I came across this picture on Pinterest from Our Aussie Homeschool

I have been thinking about putting together bound notebooks for morning work next year so this caught my attention and I clicked on over to see more of the notebook.

This post led me to more about Calendar notebooks from

Mama Jenn

The Teacher Wife

Aussie Pumpin Patch

As I was mulling over how to adapt these for 3rd grade, I got really excited and decided that I want to at least start the Today's Number and Sentence Editing portion this year. After Spring Break is the perfect time for new routines! Next thing I knew I was creating a morning work sheet for my students in PPT. I'm pretty excited about beginning this routine in my classroom and giving my students the mixed skill practice everyday that will help them with state tests in just a couple weeks.

The finished product is pictured below and available for free at my TpT and Teacher's Notebook stores.

I am eager for feedback so please let me know if you do something similar, how it works, or what you do for morning work. Thanks!

Multiplication Game FREEBIE

I have been using a math workshop model in my class for a while now and you could not get me to go back! I love being able to work with students in small groups while the other children are busy and engaged at other learning centers. One of the biggest struggles for me was planning for math workshop. Finding enough games for all the different units was easy at first, but became more of a challenge as time went by. For each game I needed to introduce it whole group, model how to play it, and then observe and help the students as they played it the first couple of times. This ended up taking a lot of time for each game.

Then I had a light bulb idea, keep the game the same and switch out the content!

I brought in some old board games from home and ones that I purchased for $2.00 a piece at the thrift store (Candy Land, Monopoly, etc.) and got busy teaching my students a new game. All the students need to play is the board, player pieces, and dice (everything else I removed from the box so the kiddos wouldn't be tempted). The students simply roll the dice, answer a game card question, and advance if they get it right.

The students LOVE using the game boards to play with the math game cards I have created. We have found many other fun ways to use the cards as well, but this is by far the favorite. Below I attached 8 multiplication game cards FREE for you to download. I will be uploading more to my TpT and Teacher's Notebook stores soon.

Download the Game Cards for FREE at my TpT shop or my Teacher's Notebook Shop!

5+ Fabulous Pins

I've been finding so many wonderful things on Pinterest lately and I wanted to share some of my most helpful pins. There is no official Pinterest app but I have an unofficial app for my tablet so I am constantly pinning goodies, which as you may imagine, leads to much inspiration but many unproductive days.

1. K12 Reader: This is a wonderful site for reading worksheets, articles, games, and activities. I enjoy the weekly content-related reading comprehension worksheets by grade-level.



2. How To Make a Bulletin Board Awning from Teacher Stuff



3. Transition Music from Mrs. Lirette's Learning Detectives



4. Organization Tips from Mrs. Terhune's First Grade

5. 100+ Writing Sites from KB Konnected

Other Great Pins

* 50 Ways to Inspire Your Husband

* Bunny Dog

* This is so my dog Teddy!

Show off your classroom! Linky Party!!

It's been a while since I posted pictures of my classroom, or perused pictures of other wonderful classrooms, so I am super excited to link up with Christi's Show Off Your Classroom Linky Party over at Ms. Fultz's Corner. Head on over to link up, find inspiration, or cram some more pics into (if your like me) your already overflowing Pinterest boards. :)

WARNING: These pictures were taken right before I jetted out the door for spring break so not all areas of my room are the neatest or most organized. ALSO these pictures were taken with my tablet so they are not the best quality.

The view from my desk

My desk corner BEFORE some spring tidying

My desk corner AFTER some tidying

Our Class Library

My room isn't too spacious so I try to get creative with spaces.

My reading and math group table covered with stacked chairs and our FIT balls

 Computer Corner

Data Wall & Daily Objectives

Views from different spots in the room

 I hope you enjoyed the tour! I can't wait to see even more amazing classrooms. Link up if you can!

Teeny Tiny Bloggers

This week I debuted blogging in my classroom with private accounts set up through KidBlog.org. The students LOVED it! I mean seriously, half of them blogged that I was the greatest teacher in the world. The more we use it, the more I am started to love it as well. The best part is that kidblog is set up for classes so I have complete control of everything! I can edit/delete their posts and I have to approve their comments on each other's blog before it's public. Also, all the blogs are private so the only people who can access or read their blogs are the other students in the class.

At first I thought it would be a good thing to do during computer center in Daily 5 (some of my students have already finished all the books in raz-kids) but I soon realized I wanted to use it for more. I quickly introduced it to my students in the computer lab and then gave them 20 minutes to write 3 sentences about themself and post it (since we don't get too much practice with typing I thought 3 sentences would keep them plenty busy). I was planning on having to run from computer to computer to trouble shoot, but the room was actually dead silent. About five minutes into the assignment I decided to walk around and see what the students were writing. To my suprise half of them had already posted and taught themselves how to change color, font, text, and add smiley faces. By the time I circled back around to my computer I noticed I had over 20 comments to approve. I was shocked the kids were able to grasp blogging so quickly. At the end of our time in the lab I had over 60 comments to approve and some students had written 2 or 3 posts. I went home after this 20 minute lesson and logged on to write a post for my students. It was then that I noticed some of my students had found out how to access our log-in page from the school's website (you have to click through 4 different websites/links) and were blogging and commenting from home! :)

Since they caught on so fast I realized I had to utilize their blog for something more substantial. I decided that every week I would post an assignment that they could complete during their computer time (they each get at least 20 minutes twice a week during Daily 5). The students know that they are not allowed to write any other posts or read their friend's blogs until they have completed their assignment. This week their assignment was to write two paragraphs about their favorite book; giving a summary and telling why they like it. The students who have already finished did a phenomenal job! In my opinion, it's better than what I would have gotten if they would have written it on paper.

I introduced some rules before we started blogging, but quickly after I realized that I needed to add some more. Here is what we came up with:
1. NO last names, phone numbers, or addresses
2. You cannot write mean things about other students or name mean characters after other students
3. You cannot leave mean comments (I had to clarify that writing a mean comment and then putting "lol" after it does not make it okay)
4. Our blog is NOT facebook or texting (some of my students were writing posts that just said "what's up")
5. You cannot publish a post that is not AT LEAST 5 healthy sentences (we talked about how we blog to become better writers)

And since I love lists, here are the reasons why I will continue to give my students ample oppurtunity to blog:
1. They LOVE it!
2. Encouragement: They leave each other such motivating comments about things that I wouldn't think to say. You can see how much it makes their day to read their friend's comments on something they wrote.
3. Modeling: I complete every assignment with them so they not only get to read my model of the activity but they get to read peer work that is more advanced or shows a different style of writing.
4. Community: All of my students get along for the most part, but I typically have groups of students who hang out all the time. Since the students have been reading everyone's blog and finding out more about them, I have had less arguments and seen more opposites choosing to work with each other. I have also noticed that one of my less popular students has become almost famous in our classroom due to her hilarious stories. It is good to see students starting to value her for her personality and want to get to know her.
5. Parents: Parents are able to read their child's writing and see how other students their age write. This is extremely helpful since sometimes parents of oldest or only children don't really know how their child fares against other students their age. (I've seen parents not believe teachers when they are told their child is behind or low).
6. I enjoy reading it as much as they enjoy writing it! The students also like to read my posts. They think it's funny that I am doing the assignments with them....maybe I will let them grade me?

Does anyone else use blogging in their classroom? I would love to hear how you make it work and what you use it for. All ideas, comments, and questions are welcome.

(Comments from another post)