Therapeutic Thursday

My therapy....

I mean really? Did you all not know??

Some of you may be vaguely familiar with my wine obsession. I tried to go without it for a week, but I think we all know how that turned out! LOL (I swear I'm not an alcoholic, I just really love wine!)

My other forms of therapy...

I have recently become obsessed with Trader Joe's chocolate!! I LOVE it!! If you have a Trader Joe's near you, you MUST try it!!

WHAT WHAT!!?? I love Julie Chen and the whole Big Brother drama!!! I might be watching right now while I blog...

These are my forms of therapy!

What are your forms of Therapy!? Please go visit Blog Hoppin' by clicking the picture below to link up with yours!

Technology Tip Tuesday

It's day 2 of Teacher Week 2012, but before we go there, I have a few more pictures from my room! I know I showed you my halfway finished birthday bags! Well here they are complete!

And the students come tomorrow, so I had to get everything ready on their desks!

That adorable "All About My Summer" sheet is from K-2 Texas Teacher! Just click the picture below to go grab your copy! It's only $1.00!!

Okay, onto Technology Tip Tuesday!

In this segment of Teacher Week, we will be sharing websites or tools that we use to teach or manage our classrooms!

My first favorite website of choice is Class Dojo! It is used for classroom management and behavior! You can view my post about it on Technology Tailgate HERE!

I also use Youtube and United Streaming ALL the time to show videos in the classroom or show read alouds with someone other than me reading!!

I love this website for Interactive Read Alouds!

Our faculty is receiving ipads next week and I was told about an app to help administer running records for Fountas and Pinnell! I am so excited to test it out! You can download it free on your iphone! Not sure if they have it available for other smartphones!

I discovered Prezi.com last year and it is like the new and fun Powerpoint! It twists and turns and does cool stuff! You can check it out by clicking my Meet the Teacher Prezi below!

And finally, the technology that I can't live without and use ALL the time, every day, are my Activ Expressions! They are interactive devices that connect with your Promethean or SMART board. You can put questions up on the board and students send their answers with these devices! You can informally assess, give quizzes and tests, practice math facts, give self paced tests and quizzes, and so much more! Our school is fortunate enough to have sets for most all classrooms! 

TIPS: Set them up with your students names so you can see exactly who hasn't answered and who answered what! I also keep them in a bin at each group so I don't have to distribute them every time we use them -- which is OFTEN! You can see the little bin in the desk preview above!

I start school with the kiddies tomorrow so I am kinda nervous!! I will probably be having those new class nightmares tonight! Wish me luck!

Go link up your Teacher Tip with Blog Hoppin' HERE!

Classroom Reveal and Must Haves Monday

I know you all have been DYING to see my classroom reveal! HAHA Well, we had Meet the Teacher tonight so I had to have it ready! Meet the Teacher went well, BTW. =)

And after the reveal I will be showcasing my Classroom MUST HAVES and giving you a FREEBIE for back to school!

Every teacher has things they can't live without in their classrooms! Here are my MUST HAVES!

Go link up with your must haves HERE!

If you click my Ginger Snaps button below, you can download a copy of some of the forms I send home for parents to fill out for the teacher. This is a ZIP file, so you will not be able to open it unless you have an unzipping program.

1500 Follower Giveaway Winner

Congratulations to Meagan from Buzz Around in 2nd Grade! 

I will back with more later! 

We have meet the teacher tomorrow, so my class should be ready for the full reveal!! YIKES! I'm so excited! I'm already so pleased with how it's turning out! Just have some finishing touches!

Have a relaxing Sunday!

Some freebies and a 1500 follower giveaway!

So my first day back today was fabulous! Our meeting that was scheduled to last until 2:30 ended up ending at 11:30! Then, I got to go to lunch with my teacher gals and finished the day working in my classroom -- though I'm not really sure I got much of anything accomplished. 

You guys might know that I am completely obsessed with Nikki's clipart! You know Nikki, right?? The Melonheadz Illustrator! YEAH! Her! Well, she just opened up a clipart shop on TN and I am like jumping up and down with excitement over the instant download! This girl - ME - is impatient, especially when she's working on a project! You can check her out and follow her new shop HERE!

Anyway, I have been meaning to get some things done around my classroom, but realized that I kept forgetting to make them and print them home so that I could take them to school, laminate them, and you know...actually use them! Well, I needed some NEON months of the year signs for my calendar and so I came up with these, featuring the ever so talented Nikki's clipart! Just click the images to download each file!

Then, I made some birthday balloon toppers in different designs. And of course, they don't have to go on straws...you could use glow sticks, pixie sticks, pencils...anything really!

So I saw this cute idea on Pinterest.

And so I decided to  make my own version to match my themed of course for meet the teacher night or the first day of school or whenever!

And last but CERTAINLY not least, I made it to 1500 blog followers sometime today! So, to celebrate, I will be giving away 3 items from my shop to one lucky winner! All you have to do is leave a blog comment telling me you favorite student "Get to Know You Activity" that you use in your classroom! I will use a random number generator on Saturday-ish to find a winner!

Good luck!