LEAP SALE DAY REMINDER

JUST A REMINDER,  LEAP OVER TO MY STORE TODAY TO SAVE MONEY!

CLICK ON THE PICTURE:

Jan Berenstain: Leaves a Heartprint

Heartprints, by P.J. Halliman is a book that should be on every elementary teachers' bookshelf.  The story tells that when you help others, you leave heartprints.  

Jan Berenstain, co-author of the Berenstain Bears book, passed away yesterday.  Along with the beloved bear family, she and her husband, Stan, left heartprints on all their many readers.  Along with being entertaining, the Berenstain Bear books, teach important life lessons.  Through the years, their books could be found in many teachers' lesson plans.  In fact, I wrote about one of their books in my post called Golden Manners.  Why not take a few moments during your journal lesson to remember Mrs. Berenstain and the legacy she leaves behind.  Here is a picture prompt you can use.

What do you do when you get sick in the middle of the night?

If you teach long enough, you'll eventually get to join the "Oh! No! . . . Club".  Which really means, "Oh!  No, why didn't I organize my emergency sub plans at the beginning of the year when my principal suggested it?!!!"  We've all been there and done that at one point or another, and hopefully learned from our mistake.  How does the old saying go . . . plan for the worst, but hope for the best.  That should be the motto for all teachers.

Through trial and error, notes left from substitutes telling me the information that I forgot to leave in my Benadryl-induced haze, and talking to substitutes in the teachers' lounge, I developed an emergency sub kit that will give you peace of mind because you know your class is running smoothly.  According to the substitutes or guest teachers, this kit has information that teachers frequently forget to leave, but they need.

When I went out on maternity leave, which is the Mt. Everest of sub plans, I knew I wanted my students' education to continue to be at the same high standards, but I also realized that a long term sub was going to be so busy learning our procedures and all the other day-to-day stuff, that I wanted to help her out with some of the busy work.  At the time, I was teaching kindergarten and part of our routine was morning message on chart tablet paper.  It took a good chunk of time to write these messages each day.  I felt like my LTS's time could be better spent doing other things.  So, I tried a new method of morning messages.  I typed up my morning messages.  Each student got their own copy and I showed an example on the overhead projector (yes, this was 12 years ago).  The first couple of times we completed it together, then we graduated to the students at their table-teams working together to complete the assignment and sharing their team's answers at the end , and in the end almost all of the students were able to complete the morning message independently.  Below is a packet with 5 morning messages that you can try out.  These work great for emergency sub plans or those days when you get pulled from class for a last minute meeting.  If you like this, there are more morning message lessons for sale on TPT.

This is the complete kit.

TPT - $5

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$2.50

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$2.50

LEAP TO THE Teachers Pay Teachers SALE!

In honor of Leap Day this next week, TPT is going to have a LEAP SALE!  If you use the code L2P9Y you will get 10% off of anything you buy on the website.

In addition to this sale, I am putting the lessons below on sale from February 26th - 29th.  All of these lessons are 20% off!  Add that to the 10% code and you can save 30%.

Four worksheets and four signs for: text-to-text, text-to-self, text-to-world,                                   and visualization that may be used with any story.

Regular price:  $2

This Read Across America unit is packed with too many
activities to do in one day. It's a week's worth of fun!

Regular price:  $5

A few of the things in this packet are:

*5 job signs
*job rotation wheel
*3 text connection signs
*C.E.O. Resource page
*Map-maker resource page
*Quiz resource page (higher order skills)
*Additional ideas page which gives ways to differentiate the assignments
*Organization & management ideas page
*Lit. circle groups: blank forms
*What do I need? Form
*Reading assignment forms: (blank)

Regular price:  $5

Activities for phonemic awareness, fluency,

sight words, digraphs and more.

Regular price:  $5

Dealing with late work is my least favorite task! It doesn't matter what age of students you teach or how wonderful your students behave, there is always a handful of students who suffer from late work-itis! I've tried many different approaches with different ages of students and finally found this combination that works for me.

Regular price:  $4 

This packet includes:

Writing Wallets:  Perfect for students with organizational issues.

Home Journals:  A year's worth of writing homework.

Idea book:  The perfect solution when students have writer's block.

Regular price:  $5

I SPY GAME
This is a game that is played in a small group setting.
included are:
-18 Game boards
6 boards on 1st grade level
6 boards on 2nd grade level
6 boards on 3rd grade level
-3 teacher word lists
-9 i-spy pointers
-25 paw prints
-2 happy notes
**You could also use these game
boards as BINGO CARDS.

Regular price:  $3

Hope @ Shenanigans in Second is having a Leap Day Sale Linky Party.  Thank you Hope!  

St. Patrick's Day: A Bit 'o Fun

St. Patrick's Day is one of my favorite units of the year!  Today I added some of my favorite St. Patrick's Day activities to my store.  There is a FREEBIE below for you try out. Add enrichment to your curriculum and a wee bit of fun, too!

Click HERE to visit my TPT store.

*Please note:  I revised this packet on 3-2-13.  If you previously purchased it, you may go to "my purchases" to download the new version for free.

Click HERE for your freebie.  Don't forget to leave feedback!

Permission to Pin

Pinterest is definitely the latest craze.   Sometimes when we get so busy jumping on the bandwagon, we forget to read the fine print.  Laura Candler has a blog post about what exactly the fine print says and how it might affect you.  Go check out her blog post, it's full of helpful information.

Click below to find out more about this!

Do you like prizes?

My V.R. (virtual reality) buddy, Brian @ Hopkins' Hoppin' Happenings, is having a 200 FB Fan Giveaway/Contest.  It's pretty simple to enter the contest.  Hop over to his blog and check it out!  Here's a list of the lessons that are prizes:

Click here to go to Brian's blog:

Picture Prompts

They say a picture is worth a 1,000 words.  There are times as a teacher when we would be happy to get 100 words out of our students, but how do you spark their creativity?  Try picture prompts!  They are fun, open-ended and sure to get the creative juices flowing.

Kathie @ The Diary of a Not So Wimpy Teacher is hosting a picture prompt linky party and I'm joining the fun!  Thank you Kathie for organizing this.  She is also going to make everyone's picture prompts into an eBook. She also has a pinterest board for picture prompts.  So, hop over to her blog to check out all the great stuff!

Here are a few of mine:

To get your own copy click on the picture below:

New blog - FREEBIES!

Yesterday, a new blog called, Best Practices 4 Teaching,  joined the teaching blog community.  This blog is actually a group of blogs, organized by subject, is dedicated to providing FREE lessons to teachers. Subjects are:  literacy, word work/grammar, writing, math, science, social studies, classroom management/organization, and best practices.

Best Practices 4 Teaching is looking for some volunteers who would contribute free lessons.  If you have some great lessons that you would be willing to share with your fellow teachers, click HERE.