Sell It Saturday with Teaching In A Nutshell

Hey, ya'll! My apologies for missing last week's edition! I was off to South Carolina with the Mr., enjoying the very short window of true summer break I get this summer! It's already flown by so fast. Next week, summer school begins and runs almost all the way up to the school year. Yikes! Because I've been gone, I haven't had much time to create, but I still want to throw this out there and participate!

So here's what I have:

First off, I made a little freebie.

It's super simple, but it works. I'm customizing it for my classroom to go with our reading series. Click here to download it for yourself.

Also - as I previewed in a previous blog post, I've been working on my own blog design. I've started a second blog that I'd love to get up and running so that I can sell my blog designs. It's funny that when you work on someone else's design, you can do it really fast, but when you're working on your own - it takes forever! As such, That Fancy Blog Boutique is still in progress.

Even though the blog isn't done, I'd still be happy to work something out with anyone who is interested. I know it will be important to build a portfolio, so I'm offering discounted pricing to the first group of blogs that I design.

Leave a comment below or email me if you are interested in having your blog designed! And as always, be sure to link up with what you're selling this week!

Monday Made It - Blog Design!

I'm super excited about this Monday Made It! I've been working hard on learning the ins and outs of blog design. I am mid-process on creating a new blog design for my good friend Sarah's blog. Check it out and let me know what you think! I'd love for this to turn into something, but I'm still trying to figure out how I would get started and if there is even interest. 

Here are a few previews of Sarah's blog so far.

I love her blog button! What do you think?

Sarah's new custom signature

It's missing the background in this image which matches her blog button, but I just love how her header turned out!

I'm also really excited that I finally finished going through the entire 2013 Charlotte Danielson framework. Illinois adopted this as the official teacher evaluation tool beginning next year, and I need to get prepared as far as what I will need to build a portfolio next year. Now that I'm done with the book, I have a list of artifacts I can use for my portfolio and when I get a minute (do we have those?) I will be able to begin making some of the ideas I got while reading come to life!

It will have to wait a bit though. Only three more days until a much deserved trip to South Carolina! What have you been up to this week?

Sell It Saturday - June 14th

It's that time again! This week, I haven't been able to do much TPT work. I'm planning on doing some today, but I wanted to get this blog post up earlier in the day.

Earlier this year, I started making a few of my very own fonts! I think it is so cool to do! I personally think they're awesome! You can head on over to my TPT store to get them half off today! They are good for personal, classroom or commercial use!

 

If you do grab either the freebie or the commercial license - please please take a chance to rate them! I am trying to build up my store and as some of you may know, the more ratings on a product, the better!

On a side note, I just claimed my blog at Bloglovin! I'm so used to my plain Blogger feed, but I know so many people use Bloglovin, so I figured I'd set that up too! Follow my blog with Bloglovin!

My First Five For Friday

Hey there! I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching today for my very first Five For Friday! Check out all the fun I had this week!

I went to the fabric store in search of some new decor for my classroom. I am pretty much in love with all of these, but I'll probably go with the green and grey on the top (although I wish I could do the blue, grey, and orange!).

A Work In Progress

Today, I'm linking up with Kim from KinderGals for their Workin' On It Wednesday series. While I am nowhere near as organized as Kim is this summer, I really should be!

This week, I went into school for summer school training. I'm feeling the pressure to get things done even more this year because I will be teaching summer school in my own classroom beginning in July. There is so much to do and so little time since I will be off visiting Charleston for six of the eighteen days I have left. 

This summer, all the classrooms in our school are being installed with TeamBoards which is super exciting! Because the installers will need to do some work on our white boards and such, I needed to take everything off of my walls and I decided to hold off on switching the fabric on my side bulletin boards!

So, here is my to do for the picture above:

- Recreate reading focus wall on left

- Create goal setting board on the right

- Create math focus wall wherever there is leftover room after my TeamBoard is added

- Move classroom rules to under the white board

I think I saw class rules in the space under a white board in a blog or on Pinterest. I love the idea! When there aren't desks pushed to the middle of the room for summer cleaning, this are is our gathering spot. Under the board would be a perfect spot for quickly reviewing rules with friends.

Above and below are the two areas that need the most work, and I don't even know if I am at the point where I can make a to do list for them. The area above looks different during the school year. The students put their backpacks along this wall, and the shelves are rearranged in the right two cubbie areas to create our library. But I want to cut our library down a bit. I also want to make sure that all my buckets on the shelves match and get rid of the ribbon word wall. I just don't know where to move the word wall!

Below is where my small group table usually sits. This area needs some revamping as well. The two bulletin boards back here do not have any specific purposes. Part of me wants to make the word wall on this super tall board, but it's really not where most of my students can see. Dilemmas!

As of right now, my last project is my small group seating. I made super cute crates, but they are a few years old now and breaking. I can't decide if I want to make them again or come up with another option. I saw these at Target today and thought they'd be super cute too! Price wise, though, I can't decide.

Aside from normal summer school prep, that's what I'm working on!

I'm also working on my own link-up for the summer - Sell It Saturdays! We had our first one last weekend. Be sure to stop by this Saturday and link up with a product you are selling on TPT!

School's Out! and Sell It Saturday

School let out this week, and, like many of you I'm sure, I am very excited! One of the reasons that I'm so excited to be done with school - at least temporarily; I am doing Summer School - is because now I will have time to work on my Teachers Pay Teachers store! I'm really excited to get some more things up before the new year begins, which is why I'm going to begin a Sell It Saturday Link Up!

Sell It Saturday

I only have a few products up, but I am starting to see some sales, especially for my products that go along with our new reading series. Here is a link to my current product that I have up. It goes along with the second grade Reading Street 2013 series. Unfortunately, it's pretty specific in it's use so it isn't for everyone, but for those of you that use Reading Street, it's pretty awesome!

I plan to get some more Reading Street supplemental materials up, but I'm also working on some general products as well. For instance, I'm changing my room colors a bit this year, and I am working on some new name tags (among other things) to reflect the changes. My colors have always been green and teal. This year, I'm accenting with yellow and grey.

I recently saw the "Hello my name is" idea at Second Grade Shennanigans and loved the idea of adding that to my own name tags. I'm still unsure if this is what I'll go with or not, but I think they are super cute so far!

Linking Up

So what have you been working on? Scroll down to the bottom and share a TPT product that you've been working on and want to share with everyone. Be sure to visit at least three others, and check out what they're sharing!

End of The Year Madness

It was quite the interesting last day of school. We were supposed to have Picnic Day, but we got rained on, so we had to change some plans.

In our classroom, we did a "Find Somebody who..." game, passed out bags, worked on our End of The Year activities, had a Frozen sing along while coloring pictures of Elsa and Anna (even the boys got in to it).

We also danced to some GoNoodle videos, played Down By The Banks, and had an indoor picnic before finally settling down to watch Wall-E.

We love us some GoNoodle! Try it out if you're looking for a brain break.

At the very end of the day, we clapped as our fifth graders paraded through the school. With only five minutes left before dismissal, we all sat around in a circle and shared our favorite second grade memory, and, if they wanted to, why they were going to miss second grade. Surprisingly, I only had one jokester during this time. The rest of the kids were super serious. It was fun listening to what their favorite things were. Some were things I didn't even remember doing! Many of the kids thought that our modified picnic day was the best day of all (of course! we never get to do so many fun, nonacademic things in one day after all).

One student's favorite memory was making a house for the fourth little pig.

By the time the kids were dismissed, I had about six students full-on sobbing because they didn't want to leave their friends and our classroom. It was heart-wrenching. Our admin talked about it the next day at our Institute Day because apparently it happened in a number of places throughout the building. It really shows how much our school has changed in the past year. I've always had kids who wish they could go to school all year long, I've never had the level of emotions that we had this year.

How did your end of the year go? Let me know in the comments below. And don't forget to link up for Sell It Saturday!

An InLinkz Link-up

June Currently

It's the first of the month! That means I'm linking up with Farley at Oh Boy Fourth Grade for June's Currently! I'm super excited to actually be posting this on the first on the month, unlike the two previous months!

Listening: I think I sit in the silence all the time. At least if feels that way every time I do my currently. Last time I put something down, I sat around waiting until I actually heard something interesting. This month, all I hear is the air conditioning. It is a sweet, sweet sound! The air conditioning in my car is broken and it is SO hot in there every time I drive. I need to enjoy this wonderfulness in the house when I can!

Loving: I love my students, and I will be sad to see some of them go, but as of right now, I'm pretty ready to start fresh with some new kiddos. This year was chaotic with our new reading program. It will be nice to not start from scratch again next year.

Thinking: It's the kids' last three days of school! Tomorrow is our last 'teaching' day because Tuesday and Wednesday are Field/Awards Day and Picnic Day, respectively. We were told to stay 'academic' but I'll have to throw something together in the morning. Last week and this weekend have been so busy!

Wanting: I'm in the final stretch! I'll graduate in December with my Masters in Curriculum and Instruction, with a focus in ESL and Bilingual. I actually took those classes to get my endorsements. I'm all done with the ESL component and need one more class for the bilingual endorsement. I've been waiting for it to be offered and no such luck. This weekend, I got an email saying that it is being offered (basically just for me) as a second summer school session. So my last six weeks of summer - yeah, say goodbye to those!

Needing: I really wanted to type in a break, but I know one is coming! What I really need is food! I've been trying to lose weight and it's really hard to do when you don't have any groceries in the house. My husband has been pretty patient with me about not going - I'm pretty sure that's only because he doesn't want me to tell him he needs to go though. It's going to happen soon! I keep telling myself that, but I mean it for real this time.

Summer Bucket List:
1) There are so many things I could put on here! So tough to choose! I definitely want to make some changes to my classroom colors, but they should just be minor. I need to get started ASAP though since I'm teaching summer school and taking a vacation in the few weeks that I do get off. Right now, my room is kind of a hodgepodge of blue, green, teal, and brown. I'm hoping to make the switch to teal, lime, yellow, and grey. Part of me thinks there's not enough of a difference to matter, but the other part is saying it's necessary.

2) I DEFINITELY want to get some more TPT products posted! I really enjoy creating materials and I get a warm, fuzzy feeling every time someone buys one of my products. I need to expand a bit if I want to keep selling though because right now, my products are pretty specific. I'm working on some math games, and I hope to create some reading materials as well. I'd like to do classroom decor packs as well though - eventually.

3) I need to do some reading. Every year, I make a reading goal with Goodreads. I'm pretty sure last year I had to change my goal at the end of the year so it looked like I succeeded. I try to average at least a book a month. Summer comes in handy for that, but I hope to make it more like two per month this year. I'm at either three or four books right now (not including grad school reading), so I'm super behind!

So that's what's up with me! What's up with you? Leave a link to your blog in the comments and I will go and check out your June Currently!