New Year, New Me!

Before I get to the reason of this post, I just have to share this Christmas picture with you! Yes, we did the matching Christmas jammies and I LOVE it. Every year, we will get new jammies and open them up on Christmas Eve. It is a surprise to everyone, including my husband! I am already ready to order next years jammies. If you are interested, I ordered them through pajamagram.com

Can you believe it is already 2014? Christmas break is over. School starts back tomorrow (unless snow or ice appears). The kids are going to be tired and we are going to be...well tired too! I am for sure out of the routine of going to bed and waking up early. Tonight is going to be hard getting to bed on time!

The first week back is all about getting back into the groove. For me, this also means a very HIGH possibility of gaining multiple new students. Right now I have the lowest number of kinders out of all 8 classes. (I am sitting at 19 where everyone else is at 24-24) Yes, I am the revolving door this year. I hope that if I am receiving new students that they arrive tomorrow when we are remembering/re-teaching rules and procedures. :)

My motto for 2014 is: New Year, New Me! It is the year to try new things and not give up. There are many things on my to do list. In fact, I might need to shorten it and maybe some of those things will happen! :) One of my latest adds to my list was inspired over the Christmas Break.

I did a lot of procrastinating over break, as any great teacher would do! :) I did some blog hopping, reconnected with friends via various social networks, stayed in my pjs all days (now come on you know you did it at LEAST once!) and spent lots of quality time with my little family. But it was through the blog hopping that I landed at On the Way to Mrs. Bearfield's Class and became inspired.

 Mrs. Bearfield was so kind to share her new TOU and it gave me lots of ideas. I had put updating my Terms of Use and some general updating to my TpT store on the back burner lately. So I decided to procrastinate and update my store picture on TpT and start working on a new Freebie. I must say I am really happy with my new picture and freebie, though! :) Well after all that procrastining and looking at my new freebie, I just knew I needed a new TOU and Credit page to jazz it up some. So off I went creating.

 I created it in powerpoint and probably changed the background oh a thousand times until I decided on this design. I decided with adding the glue bottles at the bottom that I need the background to be great accent but not the focus. I then printed the powerpoint to my Adobe where I was able to hyperlink anything and everything! My logo at the top is linked to my blog and the glue bottles at the bottom are linked to my appropriate social media networks! (This is just a picture so you can't click from here) Thank you Mrs. Bearfield for the great idea!

Now do you remember my motto? Well we need to add one new part: New Year, New Me, New Freebie!!! I cannot believe how fast my facebook page is growing and as a thank you for your support, I wanted to share a freebie. This mini Happy New Year writing unit is perfect for getting back into the groove. Included is a bubble map and 2 different types of writing paper to describe new things our students will try this year! It is perfect for stressing to our students that we can always try new things. Click here to grab it!! Feedback is appreciated :)

 

Best of luck as you and your class begin the end of the school but remember it is never too late to try new things!

 

Don't forget the HUGE giveaway ends TONIGHT! Make sure you have entered and used your "tweet" entry for today. This is a pack that you will definitely want in your classroom!

Ringing in the New Year with a CONTEST!!!

The BIG announcement is finally here! If you have been following my facebook page, you know that I have been hinting around that a huge contest was on the way. The time is NOW!!! I am so excited to give you the opportunity to win 11 AWESOME products from TpT sellers. I have to tell you that I have had the opportunity to look at these products and they are FABULOUS! You do NOT want to miss out on the chance to win this whole pack. If you do not win, you will definitely want to check out these stores and products. I promise you will not be disappointed!

Here is what is up for grabs!

1. I have included one my most popular sellers for this time of the year: Sight word Snowball Fight Game. This game is perfect to review over 100 common sight words for 2-6 players. It is perfect in a small group or some buddies to play together during literacy workshop times. They will stay engaged and will have to watch out for the snowball fight!!
2. Discovering and Designing Educational Activities: Facts to 20 (addition and subtraction Clip Cards. These addition and subtraction clip cards help students gain automaticity of facts from 11 - 0 to 20 - 10 and 11 + 0 to 20 + 9. They can be made self checking by using a marker to indicate the correct answer on the back before the students use them.
3.  Triple the Love in Grade 1: Rhyming activity using word families.  Students say the name of each picture and decide if it rhymes with the word family in the center of the page. They then color the pictures that rhyme with the word family. No reading required. Meets kindergarten CCSS but can be used as review in grade 1
4. On the Way to Mrs. Bearfield’s Class: Super cute digital polka dot paper set. Over 30 different papers!!! LOVE!
5. Mrs. Black’s Bees: Working with teen numbers game. This packet is common core aligned and designed to provide children with practice on the tricky teen numbers.
   
   Students can:
   -Color the number that is inside the circle
   -Search for the number, and color the boxes that contain the number.
   -Practice writing the number.
   -Color the ten frames.
   -Write numbers before and after.
   -Practice writing numbers 1-20
6.   Kennedy's Korner: Dr. Martin Luther King Powerpoint and a ELA unit!!!!
7. Georgia's Peach that Loves to Teach: Goldilocks and the 3 Bears reader theater script!! . There are parts for 6 readers highlighted throughout to make it easy for early readers to track.
8. The Teacher’s Post: Chinese New Year readers. There are 3 reading levels (3 versions at each level) and pocket chart vocabulary cards.
9. Pritchett's Printables: Rhyming Clips. 30 rhyming word clip cards/task cards (color & black & white) to use at centers plus 6 rhyming worksheets. Loaded with graphics for CVC rhyming words - perfect for non-readers. This set focuses on 15 pairs of rhyming words. The set includes:
   30 color rhyming word clip cards
   30 black and white rhyming word clip cards
   3 cut and paste rhyming sheets
   3 select the rhyming word sheets
10. Sing With Me Sight Words: Each song spells out a sight word. Each song comes with a power point slide and worksheets to practice the lyrics and the spelling of the sight word.
11. Techie Turtle: Long Vowel Puzzles.   There are 18 different puzzles for different vowel patterns.  Students match the words that follow the same vowel pattern.  There are cut and paste activities for each vowel where students glue the words on the correct vowel sound puzzle.

Together, we are so excited to provide you with this opportunity to win these great prizes! There are endless possibilities to enter this awesome contest!!! The best news is you can enter every day by just tweeting about this contest!!!!! Contest ends midnight on Sunday and the winner will be announced within 48 hours. The winner will then have 48 hours to claim their prize otherwise a new winner will be selected. So get to entering!!! Remember to tweet EVERY DAY for extra entries!!!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Merry Christmas!

It has been a LONG time since a post. Just wanted to drop by and say Merry Christmas! We had VERY busy weeks leading up to the break. We traveled to many countries to learn about holiday traditions, decorated gingerbread cookies, candy cane investigations and so much more!

The biggest addition to our classroom was a 3D printer!!! I just posted a video on my Facebook page. Make sure you check it out at https://www.facebook.com/GlitterGlueGigglesAKindergartenBlog/posts/584640154938060. If you are not following the page, start today!!! Lots of updates and freebies to debut SOON!!

Enjoy your WELL DESERVED break!

!