Mrs. Wishy-Washy: Review & Giveaway!

I love getting things in the mail! 

I never knew when I started blogging that companies would send me products to review and then keep. This has been such a blessing to me as I have collected some great things and discovered some amazing products! My first classroom won't be as empty thanks to this hidden surprise!

So... what did I get in the mail now? 

Mrs. Wishy-Washy Books!

Oh! I love getting books in the mail. There was a bit of a fight as my sons love them to. Any book is devoured quickly around here and if there is a book in the mail there is always a competition for who can open it first. I lost! =(

Have you read Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle? My homeschool friends will remember my obsession with her. She cracked me up!! Its a little Amelia Bedelia in style but so fun. This is what Mrs. Wishy-Washy reminds me of.

Mrs. Wishy-Washy and the Big Wash is designed for students who are ready to read but still need the support of controlled vocabulary. Most pages have 1-2 sentences.

This particular story focuses on rhyming, onomatopoeia, and compound words. The inside of the back cover provides a list of vocabulary words as well as activities for before, during, and after reading. The information provide allows you to easily align it to the core.

What I love most about this reader is that the story is one children can get into and love. My own children are in 3rd, 4th, and 8th grade. My 3rd grader loves this story. My 4th grader likes it. You know a reader is good if its still loved when children can read way beyond its level.

Wishy- Washy Clothes.... This book would be perfect for my struggling 4th grade ELL readers. They need a book that has controlled vocabulary support but still one that has a story they can loved.

This would have been the perfect reader for my youngest when he was in 1st/2nd grade. He has always been at the top of his class. This has the same focus and vocabulary as the shorter reader but with more details. LOVE IT!

So where can you learn more about these books? They are produced by Hameray Publishing who makes all kinds of fiction and non-fiction (can we say hello common core materials??) books for the early elementary set. You can find them on Pinterest and Facebook. 

Oh speaking of which... they are having a huge giveaway on Facebook! Stop by to enter. 

You can also win a big book from my site by leaving me a comment with your favorite Joy Cowley book. I will use random.org to select a winner on April 23. Make sure you leave your email in the comment to win. US and Canada addresses only.

Hameray is offering a 20% discount on any purchase for my readers through June 30, 2013 with coupon code ZJCC13..... this means we all win!

Just in case you missed my disclaimer above.... I received complimentary products for review. The opinions are my own and I am not compensated for this post. 

End of Year Read Alouds

If you missed my last post then you missed out on all of my excitement over finding my perfect classroom decor. And YES! I am still drooling!

Today, however, we have a serious topic to cover and I need your help! My current mentor asked me for suggestions for End of the Year read-alouds for her class. Each year, she wraps up the school year with the same book. The problem is... she is getting bored. And if the teacher is bored then the students lose engagement.

Sooooo.... I know you all have amazing ideas! Below is a form for you to share your favorite read-alouds. I can't wait to see what your recommendations are!



I am hoping to have such a huge list of options that I can create a free ebook to share with all of you. Please feel free to pass the link to the form around. The more responses the better!

Textbook & Teacher Resource Secrets!

Yesterday... I shared with you my Gains for 2013. One of the gains I am planning on is recovering financially from my bankruptcy. I want to never be in this situation again!

For me, I can't control if my cancer returns. I am in remission but as any survivor will tell you... each day we are given is a gift. No one can guarantee it will not return nor can they say when it will return. It is a wait and see kinda thing. The best thing I can do is plan for the what-ifs and pray that it will never come to pass.

One of the things I am doing is learning to manage my money better. So today.. I have a great secret for you!

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this place! I started using it as a cheap alternative to buying my book. I can choose my due date which means that I can rent them for the time I need them rather than some arbitrary choice of 30 or 60 days like other sites.

BUT I really fell in love with this site when I discovered you can rent teacher resources. Check this out.

I can rent books like this for 30 days. Make copies of the 1 activity I like in the book and use it with my class and mail it back. This will save me soooo much money. So this is one of my money saving secrets... as an added bonus it decreases the amount of clutter I have in my home and classroom.

What tops to do you have for saving money on teacher resources?

The Potato Chip Champ

I am so excited today to share with you Maria Dismondy's new book!!! I have had this guy in my hands now for a month and love it. To tell you the truth, the message hidden within its pages arrived in perfect timing and left me in tears the first time I read it.

Shhhh! Do not tell my boys. 

They will start laughing again!

Isn't this such a cute picture of Maria? I just love it! If you have not met Maria yet, let me introduce you to her. I first met Maria through her blog "Be the Difference." It is an amazing site that focus on character education for parents, teachers, students, and adults! YES, even adults can learn something amazing from Maria. 

Her latest book (her fourth one!) is called The Potato Chip Champ. Its funny... my sons were saying she needed to write a "boy book" and here it is! Maria writes all of her stories based upon her own experiences as a child. Due to this each story feels real. I love this characteristic of the story. 

This story arrived at my house at the perfect time. My sons all had a bad case of the "I wants" (it was Christmas, can you tell?). I have tried so many times to teach them 'the reason for the season' but the "I wants" remained. 

This book did a great job at curing that! The message of empathy, respect, responsibility, integrity, and forgiveness were beautiful woven in between the pages of the story. This book was a home run in my home and the boys each took a turn taking it to school to share with their classmates. 

My sons came home super excited! After reading the story, their class decided to focus on random acts of kindness rather than I wants. They came up with a contest... they would create a paper chain to see which class could do more random acts of kindness by winter break than the other. 

When the other 3rd and 4th grade teachers heard of the competition between 2 brothers and their class. They joined in. So now it is a 3rd vs 4th grade challenge. I am eagerly awaiting the school assembly to see which child won. 

What a great idea. Can you imagine what a difference we can make if we all choose to honor others and focus on our character than the I wants? 

Leave a comment below with how you would use this book in your classroom. I will be randomly drawing a winner for your own signed copy!!!

Thanks Maria for another great lesson!!! I can't wait to read your next book! 

Helping kids cope with books

I LOVE books a many of you know. I think that this is an appropriate time to introduce our students to some new stories to help them understand the loss of their friends and teachers.

I was first introduced to this book when a friend's daughter was dying of cancer. We used it again to help my children deal with the loss of an aunt to cancer as well. It talks about the cycle of birth and death and the ability to live in between.

 

This one is written for younger kids and has the same concepts as above. Each of the pictures above is linked back to Amazon as it has the "Look Inside" feature so you can preview the books and see if they are appropriate for your class/situation.

This one is obviously religious and should be used with caution. I have read this many times along with the Lifetimes book above.

This is a great book about dealing with separation. I think it may help to know that the string can reach to Heaven.


The rest of these books I have not ever read but perhaps they will help you. Do you have a favorite book for helping children deal with death, violence, or tragedy?

The Together Teacher Winner

I was thinking this past week about how I could make my life easier. After selling off most of our belongings in preparation for our relocation out of state, I realized NOW is the time to plan, organize, and recreate our lives to make things simpler in the future.

One of the things that I realized I was lacking on the most was a schedule for my blog posts. Right now it just depends upon my mood what I share with all of you but there really is no rhyme or reason to it. In an effort to make things easier I created a schedule for me.

I love my Melonheadz calendar! So simple to plop things into and plan. So... anyways. This is what I plan/hope to accomplish each week.

Monday, Tuesday, and Friday's I left open for whatever I want to do. I am learning so many new things that I want to share with you but I haven't ever scheduled them in. Now I am. =)

Wednesday I scheduled for my freebie day. I am hoping to share more with you or share some of my favorite freebies from other teacher-authors. I also want to start doing a monthly linky party. I LOVE linky parties.

If you have a free item you want me to feature... send me an email.

Thursday is my blog stalking day. I have to schedule time to blog stalk and this is the perfect day for me. My classes always start a new week on Thursday so it is the day of the least amount of homework and thus the most free time each week.

I have been getting a lot of requests for guest posts so I will post these on Thursday as well. I love reading what others have to say and sharing some of my favorite bloggy authors with all of you.

If you would like to be a guest blogger for me... send me an email.

On Saturday, I am planning on sharing new products with you. I have been working hard with Melonheadz Illustrating and we have soooo many ideas and things we want to share with all of you. I am hoping for a product every other week. I have listed as weekly but that is being extremely optimistic. 

If you have a product request... send me an email. 

Sunday is my day for reviews. I get a lot of request for these or perhaps it is a new book or supply or something awesome that I just want to share with all of you. Sunday is my day for this. 

If you would like me to review your product, app, or book... send me an email. 

I feel so much better having a schedule. And I love that I have blog stalking time available as I have missed that in the chaos lately. Plus... my blog is getting a make-over soon and I am planning on trying to make things even easier for you to find. It just seems like making it easier to know what I will be posting will help as well. 

 

So moving on... the winner of my new favorite book is:

Congrats! I will be emailing you shortly for your information.

The Enriched Teacher

Life for me has been chaotic since I was laid off in 2010. Cancer, adoption, unemployment, career changing, and bankruptcy are a few words I would use to describe my life. In short... chaos.

As I continue to clean up the mess left behind from an unstable economy... I have begun to view things differently. I started searching for ways to be economy-proofed. I never wanted to be here again and then I discovered a great site for teachers and well just anyone!

I asked the author of this blog if he would be our guest speaker and he agreed! I hope you enjoy his wisdom as much as I do!

How to Create Money Saving Habits That Actually Work

This is a guest post by Steven Daar from the Teacher Retirement Help blog, a site that has been featured  by CBS, NBC, ABC, FOX, Yahoo News, & Morningstar.

Have you looked at your savings & checking accounts and wondered where your paycheck went? What about the last 3, 5, 10 (or more!) years worth of paychecks?

Did you resolve to change your spending habits to save more money? Did it work?

Alright, that’s enough questions for now. Changing your lifestyle is a very difficult thing to do and it is why so many people struggle with saving money or exercising more or eliminating a long term habit.

It’s why the vast majority of New Year’s resolutions don’t last beyond Martin Luther King Day. Think about how you probably went about trying to save money: looking at where you spend a lot of money and try to eliminate that expense as much as possible.

You see many so-called “Money Experts” give advice that talks about extreme cutting of discretionary spending. They’ll tell you to participate in the “No Restaurant Challenge” where you don’t dine out for a whole month. Or even more extreme, they recommend an intense limiting the number of times dining at a restaurant for perpetuity (which for those of us who like eating at restaurants, just can’t be done).

The problem with the “No Restaurant Challenge” is that some days you don’t feel like cooking, there are special occasions or dates with friends or loved ones that shouldn’t be missed. But more importantly, let’s say you eat at a restaurant twice a week so 8 times each month.

Even if you complete the challenge, you save the expense of 8 restaurant meals. What happens after that month? You’ll probably feel pretty good about accomplishing something and then go back to your old spending and dining habits.

What if instead of depriving yourself completely for a month, what if you simply kept track of how many times you dined out and made sure you never dined out more than 7 times per month? You don’t have to deny yourself of the pleasure of being cooked for and waited on AND eating out 1 less time per month saves you the expense of 12 restaurant meals.

That is 50% more savings than the “No Restaurant Challenge”. As you get comfortable with dining out a little less, you can reduce your limit to 6 times per month. That would be saving the expense of 24 restaurant meals per year.

Assuming you’re only paying for yourself and spend $20 per visit, that is an extra $480 each year……and a whole lot more if you have a whole family dining out or spend more than $20 per meal on average.

This doesn’t just apply to dining out at restaurants, you can use this in a whole ton of different areas: Entertainment, Clothing, Night Life, or whatever it is you find yourself spending money on regularly.

This is just the tip of the savings iceberg! If you would like to get a copy of the Enriched Teacher Guide with 5 more insanely practical money saving tips that are focused on saving you as much money as possible with as little effort……

Then Click Here To Get Your FREE Copy of the Enriched Teacher Guide!

Halloween Stories - FREEBIE

Welcome to my eerily fantastic day 2 of Halloween Freebies! I am so excited about this week and so happy so many of you agreed to share your own freebies with me.

I love books as most of you know. So what could be better than Halloween Book Freebies!

Check out this free vocabulary worksheet on bats!

Jen over at The Teacher's Cauldron created this to go with the book Stellaluna. Love that story!

Diving into learning has this cute pumpkin counting book available for free!It would be great for PK and K! It would have been an awesome resource for my adventures in Kindergarten time!

We have been busy here reading some of our favorite Halloween books. So I created a few different story maps to go along with any Halloween book. To see what we are reading simply visit my Amazon store and check out the books for October list!

Stop by tomorrow for more Halloween Freebies!

In other news....

An error with my financial aid has resulted in a change in my schedule. So instead of graduating in May... it has been delayed to December. Instead of doing my student teaching in January... I will do it in August. In stead of being a finalist for Student Teacher of the Year... I had to drop out of the running. I made it to the final selection!!! Bummed does not begin to cover my thoughts on this but it is what it is. 

The Together Teacher

The first quarter of the year has been wrapped up. By now, you have noticed what is and is not working in the classroom for you. The question is how to make changes that will assist you throughout the remaining portion of the year.

I have read A TON of books on classroom organization. As a new teacher (and one who some claim is OCD. I am still in denial.) I need all the tips and tools I can get. When I was asked to review another book on organization, I was hesitant. What could it actually teach me?

I saw the review on Good Morning America and it dealt with a lot of tips on how parents can get their kids organized for school. Soooo... I thought I would review it based upon how it can help me as a parent.

 

The Together Teacher is so much more that what I was expecting! Maia has spent a lot of time doing her research and it shows throughout the book. I was surprised by how many different organizational theories and "gurus" she quoted. She pulls the best of each of their theories into one, simple, easy to use program.

One of my favorite parts is the Comprehensive Calendar. I have always color coordinated my schedule but I have to admit... I have A LOT of calendars. I have one for grad school, one for hubby, one for the kids, the puppy has her own, another for teaching, and another for personal things. Nothing every stays together!

The comprehensive calendar puts everything together and teaches you how to maximize your energy levels AND your time. I love the idea of blocking time for specific tasks. I have been known to lose entire days as I spend all of that time working on a particular project.

The picture above shows my schedule. I added in what the colors mean to kinda help you see what is going on. The purple is me time.... things I do on my own like blogging, design work, creating products, grad school homework, and bubble baths! =)

The blue colors are family time. Different shades of blue represent different things we are doing. Green is my alone time with hubby and orange is my student teaching time. The boys are pink if they have something specific that needs to be done for them.

Anyways.... the colors tell me what I should be scheduling to do during that time. I just put in all of my meetings, etc... on top of the colored section and it all fits in. This was just a quick sample of my schedule so it is missing things like house cleaning and exercise which is also on my to-do list.

This is just one way of many to create a comprehensive calendar. I love how Maia gives step-by-step directions for a paper method, an electronic method, or a hybrid method.

The rest of the book is also wonderful. It gives tips on how to keep track of notes (notability is still my favorite and Maia would approve I am sure!), creating routines, managing email (where does it all come from??!), and how to set up your classroom to contain the chaos.

It also has great ideas for parents and homeschoolers. LOVE the chapter on "the backpack explosion." If only Maia had a way to keep my boys from using their backpacks as collectors for bugs and crumbs. Oh... and a way to guarantee their room does not smell like a locker room but I will digress on those.

The reflection questions throughout the book helps keep the reader focused and engaged. With these questions it is like having Maia there.... talking you through it. Asking you to look around a little harder and guiding you to the method that works best for you.

The book includes a CD with more examples and templates.

The Together Teacher would be great to helping resolve those issues that have been plaguing you throughout the last quarter and now is your chance to win your own copy!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

Books, Books, & More Books!

I love books. I rather read than watch tv. During family movie night, I usually have a book on my lap and sneak in some reading while pretending to watch the movie. Shhhh! Don't tell my family my secret.

My children shares this same love of reading. Perhaps I should have not taught them how to read by flashlight on that one camping trip oh so long ago as now I find them up late at night under the blankets with a book and their flashlight.

To make it easier to find books that I love and want to add to my collection - I created a store with Amazon! These are books I either own, am planning to buy in the future, or have access to in my classroom.

I tend to be horrible at keeping up with things but I am trying to get better. In an effort to help all of you, I have now added my monthly book suggestions to my Amazon store. You can click on the button in the sidebar or the picture above will take you directly to my October book section.

Don't ya love how I got it to match my colors! =)

The site above is the one I created just for Think, Wonder, & Teach. It has so many of the things that I love on there. I have to remind myself to update it but it is a great starting point for ideas.

I have a separate store on my classroom website... I list recommendations for parents and students. This contains lists of favorite series, my monthly book recommendations, stories to read together, books without pictures, and more!

I always figure the more details I can provide to my parents the better! Each month when I send out a notice for the monthly Zebra Quest Family Challenge... I link to this month's list of books. A lot of these books appear in my monthly activity packet but not all.

I also add recommendations from other people. So if you have a favorite book for October (or November!) please leave me a comment and I will add it. =)

Note: These stores are revenue generating (supposedly... although I have personally never made money off of them). Revenue comes back in the form of Amazon gift cards (yea! More books!). I just like that I can create a custom site with pictures and reviews easily!

First Grade Common Core

OH MY!! Have you seen this? I have goose bumps and am beyond excited!

This is a workbook for the First Grade Common Core. They also have one for Kindergarten and it looks like there might be one coming for Second through Fifth Grades in the future as those grade levels have pages set up.

This book is A~MAZ~ING! I was looking at their free download and feel in love. As a brand new teacher this is just what I need! If you are switching to CCSS you need this too.

What's included?

This book has a TON of activities for your students all aligned with the common core. Some of the pages are even in color which means I can copy them onto cardstalk and print them as my classroom objectives. This book is going into my easy pile.

Cut and paste... check

Handwriting... check

Art projects... check

Writing prompts... check

PLUS... the worksheets are so simple I can use them as emergency sub plans. I know that no matter what my kids do that day they are still learning and are on task with the standards.

Oh this one with my core mapping book will make my life so easy!! Can you tell I am excited?

Library Cards

Do you remember when everyone used to have a library card?

Perhaps I am being nostalgic...... but I believe EVERYONE should have a library card and know how to use it. September is National Library Card-Sign up month and I believe as teachers... we should challenge our students.

GOAL:

Every child has a library card

in your class!

You can even use it to rent eBooks. You can order books on line and then receive an email when it is ready for you to pick up to save time. Some libraries even have movies, video games, music, and software you can rent. Exploring what the library has to offer is a lot of fun!!

GOAL:

Teach your students how to

search their local library catalog

online!

Miss Foote wrote about her great library idea last year. I was casually browsing to see what I could find and loved her idea!

She created a special club for students who have their own library cards. She then takes a picture of her student with their library cards and hangs it on the wall. I love this idea!

GOAL:

Create a Bulletin Board 

displaying students with their cards.

OR 

Families all getting their cards!

OR

Or using their cards!

I ran over to Vistaprint to create my own membership card for my friends. The club name I decided on was library pals.

I want to encourage my friends to visit and use this source often. Over summer break, I am planning on offering my students a challenge to participate in the summer reading program over the summer. Students who complete the challenge will be listed in the Library Pal Book of Fame. They will become the role models for future students.

What do you do in your classroom to promote your community library?

I would love to be able to take my students on a field trip to our local library so they know where it is and talk about how to use it. Perhaps then they would be more willing to visit. I am also debating about doing this as an annual Zebra Family Quest Challenge.

CD Chap 2: The School Family

It has taken me forever to get to writing this next chapter. I had so much fun with and learned so much about myself on multiple levels. I have been wanting to get to the second chapter of Conscious Discipline but alas I have been overwhelmed with other things.

UNTIL TODAY!!!

This chapter is about how to create a school family! I was so excited about this chapter. During the first month of school, I feel that creating a school family is just as essential as setting up rules and procedures. This chapter talks about how routines and rituals are the heart of the school family.

Principle 1: 

We are all in this together!

Routines create predictability. It supports the school family like our skeleton supports our bodies. I love that analogy! Rituals creating a caring culture with a common goal. They do take some time away from learning but are the most important part of establishing a school family. Rituals help build trust!

 There is a long list of types of different types of rituals and attitudes about them. Rituals including caring for all members of the classroom and include classroom jobs,

This is the song we sing each morning with the students in my current classroom which is a grade 1-2 combo class. There are actually several songs and chats that we do/use as part of our routine. I wonder if my mentor teacher has ever heard of Conscious Discipline? I will have to ask.

Teacher:Good Morning To You 

(students repeat)

Teacher: And how do you do? 

(students repeat)

Together: We are all in our places

With bright shining faces

And this is the WAAAAAY

We start off our Day

I love this absent routine from Heather's Heart. Have you seen it?

 Principle 2: 

Contributing to the welfare of others

This section talks about how everyone wants to feel needed. It has a great list of classroom jobs and why they are important. It suggests that you should have a job available for everyone to do. HEY! That is what I said before! LOL! I really like some of the "specialty" jobs and maybe mixing up some of the jobs I use to add these in. 

It also talks about the importance of community service, valuing others contributions, and helping parents become involved. All things I highly recommend!

Principle 3: 

How you see others defines who you are

This  section hit home with me on such a personal level. It asks you to simply answer "Who am I?" and then talks about how the answers color our interactions. This is SO TRUE! The tips in this section are AMAZING! I need to re read it. I need to really learn to retrain myself on what I am noticing. 

Principle 4: 

We are all unique NOT special

I laughed so hard when I saw this! One of my pet peeves is people thinking they are special. They are not special. Special implies you are better than someone else. I do not believe I am special. I am not better than everyone else. I am simply unique. My own person with my own unique strengths and weaknesses. I will save you all from my soapbox moment!

Principle 5: 

Some forms of praise can be discouraging. 

This section was also very interesting to me as I have heard my professors say "Never praise a student. You can notice what they are doing but never praise. Praise is making a judgment about the person. It is not helpful!"

Oh how I struggle with this one! 

My favorite part is when it says you should act like a football fan when you are encouraging students. Are you sure about that? Have you ever seen me during a Bears game? I might scare my kiddos!

Praise is a judgment. It tells a child who you think they should be and is a sign of conditional love. Instead we are to notice and describe behavior. There are some great tips to help you notice rather than praise. 

Principle 6: 

Children need encouragement especially

when they have made a poor choice. 

I LOVE LOVE LOVE how discipline issues are handled. This is truly the type of teacher I want to be. A lot of open questions, a lot of solutions, and discipline that is done with love and understanding!

So once again, I feel like have not done any justice to this chapter at all. There truly is so much in each one that you really have to read it to understand.

Here is the next video in the series. I hope you enjoy!


So are you reading this book with me? If so, what are your thoughts on Chapter 2? If not, what are your thoughts on this anyways?

The Power of Picture Books

I LOVE using picture books to explain confusing concepts to students. One of the things that I have taught my oldest son is to never be afraid to access a lower-level book to understand a tough concept. He is in eighth-grade this year and sometimes the information in the textbook makes ya go "huh??"

That's when you need a picture book! I especially like to go to picture books for social studies and science; sometimes even math.  I struggle finding good math books that I like. I want them to explain more of the how to not just application to life.

For example, my son has a chemistry test coming up. He was just not getting the Periodic Table. So I found this great picture book all about it. He read it and suddenly the complex vocabulary of his textbook made sense. 

That's the power of a picture book!

I will admit it, I even use this same concept for my college courses or anything that I want to know about but don't understand. Sometimes those picture books give me just the write word to google to open up the flood gates to knowledge!

Plus the visuals help me remember! And I like the colors! Oh and the rhymes. It sticks in my brain that way. See why I am a teacher? I will not grow up and give up my picture books!! You can't make me!!

  

This is another one of my textbooks for my current class. I have mixed feelings about this book but maybe that is just because I love books and this seems like common-sense to me.

If you have ever thought about adding more picture books but weren't sure how or if you just don't understand what all the fuss is about, the introduction of this book gives some great arguments for using literature across the curriculum spectrum.

The book is written for grades PK-8 and would make a great resource.

It has sections broken down in later chapters by grade levels and then stories. It gives a summary, standards addressed, objectives, key concepts, materials lists, ideas for discussion and activities, assessments, connections to real life, a list of similar books, and websites.

How do you use picture books in your classroom?