Five for Friday: Back to School (and back to blogging!)

What a week! I have always loved linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday and am setting a goal to get back on a blogging schedule and not miss joining in on the Friday fun!

My life right now is a little crazy, but the absolute best part of it is getting to be this little guy's mom! He is growing so fast! We love cooling off and playing in the pool! 

I have such a rambunctious crew of little ones this year! I needed a creative way for them to keep our rules in mind so I made these fun little (FREE!)  Rules Rings! 

I blogged about my Back to School Favorites and Freebies and I'm giving away a few of my favorite back to school resources! Hop over to this post to enter!! 

Kole and I are anxiously awaiting the arrival of his cousin, Ella! She is due any day and we had fun making some cute onesies for her! 

If you are looking for a few fun new stories, I just got these two and they didn't disappoint! I already have so many great lesson ideas and can't wait to read these stories to my kiddos! 

Back to School: Favorites and Freebies!

I know what you must be thinking...where the heck has she been and why is this her first blog post in MONTHS?!?

Okay, so admittedly I have been awful about blogging. I had to take a break for a while to focus on family and my life outside of my MacBook! But I am back! And I can't wait to share with you some of my favorite back to school goodies!!!

I have a VERY rambunctious group of kiddos this year and found out fast that they were going to need A LOT of reinforcement with our rules this year! ENTER: Rules Rings!
These little rings serve as such great reminders of our rules! I made a color copy for me and then made each kiddo a set with colored cardstock and VOILA! a perfect solution to my little ones' memory problems! Not only will your kids love taking ownership of their rules with these rings, they will love the picture reminders! As an added bonus, try giving out stickers to students to put on the back of specific rule cards when they are doing a great job mastering that rule!
Oh and did I mention that they are FREE?! :)

Another one of my must use beginning of the year resources are my (also FREE) Back to School Reading Surveys for Beginning Readers. I LOVE using these little surveys at the beginning of the year to get to know my new kiddos and learn all about their reading interests! This year I am even making them their very own reading interest packs, stay tuned for more about that later!

If you know much about me, you probably already know that I really really love sight words! Sight word sentence strips are an absolute staple in my classroom and I love creating different themes to use throughout the year! These Back to School strips are such a fun way to introduce school vocabulary and have your students practice their sight word fluency at the same time! 

If you are looking for a GREAT and easy sight word center, check out my growing bundle of strips for over 15 different themes (and many more to come!)

One of my other favorite ways to start of the year is to begin collecting data about my kiddos.  One of my favorite parts of teaching has always been seeing the growth and transformations my students go through as the year goes on. I love using these data collection pages to be able to watch my students learn and grow! They make for great talking points during conferences and you can put them together at the end of the year as a gift for parents! It is AMAZING to see how much your students grow! (Plus, let's be honest, administrators always love to see those data collections!) 

What are your Back to School favorites??

Five for Friday!

How is it already almost mid-February?! Gosh how the time is flying by! I've started Five for Friday posts the past two Fridays but life with a little baby has kept me from finishing them. I'm DETERMINED to get this post done today though, so here we go!

This week was *supposed* to be my first week back to work, but I think God knew I wasn't quite ready to leave my little man. After a team planning day on Monday,  mother nature gave us two lovely snow days on Tuesday and Wednesday, followed by our already planned winter break yesterday and today! This momma was pretty happy to only have a one day work week for her first week back! (And of course my little man had to wear his snow day onesie!)

One of the big ways that I prepped for heading back to school was spending a day stocking my freezer with some crock pot meals. I have 15 bags of yummy meals ready to take out, pour in a crock pot, and head out the door. I love how much cooking time it is going to save me from in the evenings because I know I am going to want to snuggle my little man as soon as I get home every day! If you have any good crockpot freezer meals, please share!!! 

Have you ever played Ticket to Ride?! It is easily my new favorite game! We got the board game for my parents for Christmas and loved it so much that I had to download it on our iPad as well! Kole is such a great helper every time I want to play :) 

I finally finished up the 4th case in my Daily Language Detective series and I have to say, I think this one might be my favorite! If you are looking for a great way to practice adjectives, determiners, and conjunctions, head over to my Facebook page for a chance to win a free copy! 

Because I can't get enough of my little love bug, and because he is easily the biggest part of my every day life right now, here are a few of my favorite faces from the last few weeks! :) 

 

Five for Friday: Snow, Sales & Snuggles!

Hey everyone! It's been forever since I've made the time for a Five for Friday post and I've been missing it!

For those of you who missed my last post, I have been MIA the last few months because I have been hanging out with this cutie pie! 

I am absolutely loving being a mommy! 

My sweet boy helped me finish up some new products just in time for the TPT sale!

I can't wait to play these games with my firsties! 

If you are looking for a fun digraphs center, this one is FREE! (I promise to update you with some live photos when I am back at school!)

Has anyone else had crazy weather this week? Here in Georgia we tend to err on the side of caution...they've said snow so many times this week, but the most I've seen of it is this....

Do you use Donors Choose? I was so pumped this week to get a project fully funded! My little sister goes to Clemson and she and my mom just went to the national championship game and they gave out Donors Choose gift cards! Pretty cool, huh??

I am setting some goals for this week to finish up a few Valentine's resources! Wish me luck! :)  

Life updates (& why I've been MIA!)

For weeks I have been telling myself "today is the day I am going to open my computer and jump back into blogging and TPT and creating things for my little firsties"...and for weeks I just haven't been ready!
Here's why--

On December 2, after a week and a half of early labor, my husband and I welcomed the most perfect little boy into the world. I could not have ever imagined a sweeter, snugglier, more calm and better baby. Little Kole has been the best addition to our family and I have jut been soaking in all of his sweetness!
He has already grown and changed so much in his almost 6 weeks here on earth and I have loved watching every moment! And so every time I thought I was ready to open my computer back up, I would just get distracted by his sweet little cheeks and perfect little toes and would just need "one more day" off. Even now I am sitting here typing with one hand while my little Kole is snuggled up in my other arm because when he wants to be snuggled, nothing else in the world is more important than that!

I have 4 more weeks of daytime naps and endless snuggles before I go back to school. And I have to admit, I'm scared. I can't imagine going so many hours without having my baby in my arms and the idea of anyone else getting to watch him grow all day every day makes this momma cry every time! So I'm calling out to all of you who have done it and survived--advice, encouragement, empathy-I'll take any and all of it!

And just because I can't keep so much cuteness to myself--here are some of my favorite moments from the last few weeks with my little man!!

 

 

 

If you love his sweet little face as much as I do, hop over to my Instagram to check out even more precious moments! Thanks for sticking with my through my time off the grid-I'm not promising consistent posts, but as long asI can type with one hand, I promise I'm trying to get back in the swing of things! :)

Currently....November!

I'm excited to link up today with Farley over at Oh Boy 3rd Grade for another Currently link-up!

It is hard to believe that it is already November! This month is so exciting for so many reasons! 

Listening- Yesterday I didn't get any house work done AT ALL which means that today is full of catching up on dishes and laundry and cleaning. 

Loving- My baby is due on December 14 which means that I can now officially say he will be here next month!! I know these next few weeks are going to fly by and I am so excited that he is almost here! 

Thinking- Now that we have gotten the majority of the nursery put together, it's time for me to figure out how to fit baby stuff into the rest of the house! First step-figuring out where in the world I am going to fit all the baby bottles and dishes! 

Wanting- Wouldn't it be nice if daylight savings gave us an extra day in the weekend instead of just an extra hour? After such an insanely long week last week (Red Ribbon Week, full moon, Halloween, picture day, parent/teacher conference week, PTO trick or treat AND my hard drive crashing) I could DEFINITELY use an extra day to catch up! 

Needing- I truly wish I had a personal shopper that I could send out with my grocery list! The list is made and the coupons are in a pile, but I just hate going to the store! 

Yummy- I'm going with the idea that the faster I eat all of the Halloween goodies, the faster they will be gone and I can go back to eating healthy, right?! :)