It's Friday! I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching to share five random things from my week!

1.) 
It's the last day of January and here's what our classroom calendar looks like! Yep, that's right, 8 snow days, a day off for Martin Luther King day, 3-2 hour delays, and 2 early release days! We were actually in class 7 full days, and 5 partial days this month! I'm ready to get back to normal!!

2.) 
While we were at school we were testing! Four days of Las-Links testing (testing our ENL students to see how well they have learned academic English) almost all day long! It's almost over! Just one more day and we should have it wrapped up. 

3.) 
While I was home enjoying all those snow days I had time to finish up this blanket and hat for a co-worker who is having a little girl in February! I was so happy with how it turned out and excited to give it to her!

4.)
I got these cute little cupcake holders 2 for a dollar at the Dollar Tree! Stay tuned to see the valentine center I'm working on using these! 

5.) 
Finally, in case you haven't noticed my blog has a whole new look! I'm most excited about this because I did it all myself! I love how it turned out, so bright and clean! I even figured out how to make clickable links in the header so you can find my facebook, pinterest, instagram and TPT accounts just by clicking on those little banners! What do you think?? I'd love your feedback!

There's a little peek into my week, hope you've all had a great week! 
 photo 38534be4-f920-4e5f-8228-d98145eda40a.png
It's been a crazy start to the new year schedule wise! We've had snow days and 2-hour delays several times. This week we are completing some testing so I'm not working with normal groups. Thus the reason I am looking forward to February when I will be seeing all my students on a regular basis again. So I've been working on some new Valentine's day products and wanted to share my latest creation with you!
Just a few fun activities for the little guys. Includes a word search, crossword puzzle, color by sums and sight words and a scrambled word decoding sheet. I would love to have your feedback if you can use this! click on the picture to get it from my TPT store! You can leave feedback there if you like!

Hope you are all having a great start to your new year, and a very happy Tuesday!
Well the new year started off with 3 snow days and a 2 hour delay! So our first week back was incredibly short and sweet! We started off setting some new goals. I used a page from Tracee Orman's free activity pack to get my students thinking of things they could do this year.

Each of the numbers in 2014 had a prompt for them to write about. TWO things you look forwards to, one thing you want to ZERO in on, ONE thing you want to improve, and FOUR things you want to accomplish this year.


It took some time but they all did a great job coming up with personal goals they wanted to achieve! Then we colored them, cut them out, and glued on their favorite color paper so they can be displayed where we can all be reminded of what we want to do in the coming months.




I love how they turned out! I love that the kids took personal interest in them and that they want to look at them when they come in the room. I am hopeful that many of their goals will be met as we finish up the school year! 

How do you celebrate the new year in your classroom? Do you set new goals too? I would love to hear how others get off to a good start after the holidays!

Well I should be at school teaching away, but I'm not! I'm still home, relaxing, planning, cleaning, going stir crazy!! We were suppose to go back Monday but the big winter storm hit and we've had two extra days added to our break! It's been fun but now that I've been out of the classroom for 17 days I'm ready to get back and start putting all the stuff I've been working on to good use.

The extra days did give me time to update some products and I'm happy to share with you the newly updated Valentine's Fluency Practice Pack!

I'm so excited about this, and decided in honor of the snow days to offer it to all of you for just $1.00 for the rest of today! Click on the preview above to head on over to my store. Pick this up for a great price, and get ready for some Valentine Fluency Fun!

Hope you are all staying safe and warm! Thanks for Reading.
If you've followed me very long or seen pictures of my classroom you know that I love organization! I've got more plastic bins, baskets, and tubs than I will ever need but when I see them I just can't resist! My classroom is small and time with each group is limited so I've made it a point to make sure things were well organized and easily accessible by my students, me, and any other teacher who happens to be working with me. It makes for smooth transitions and easy planning. I love it!

I am always on the look out for more bins and storage idea that match my classroom colors and was so excited to find these gems this week......
I got these adorable drawers and tubs at Dollar Tree. I'm not sure what I will put in them yet but they were just too cute to pass up!

I snagged this file holder at Target in the dollar spot, and after careful searching in two different stores this was the only one I could find...so sad! I love it and would love to find more to use as student book boxes. Hopefully my store will get more of these!

Now, organizing my home is a different story. I love to be organized but the other members of my family don't care about it nearly as much as I do. This makes for a difficult situation, especially since the hubby and I share a closet and all four of us share one bathroom.

My main goal for 2014 is to keep these two areas nice and neat, and to stop trying to figure out who used which toothpaste and whose razor is whose in the bathroom! So here's what I've come up with!
These baskets from Target's dollar spot now hold each persons items in the bathroom cupboard, I'm working on name tags too! It looks SOOO much better and I think my family actually liked it. They can take their basket out while they are in there, use what they need then put the whole thing back! Simple and organized!!  LOVE!!

Now for the closet.....part of the problem is I own way to much stuff! Yep I admit it, I love to shop and I often by things because they are on sale and then I don't really like how they fit but I keep them anyway because they are nice, and I got such a good deal, I might wear them someday right?

Well I've decided wearing something once a year doesn't warrant keeping it! So I was ready to get rid of some stuff and get the closet under control. As I was searching for closet organization tips I ran into this blog post about having only 40 hangers in your closet! I was intrigued.

Then I looked in my closet and thought, there is NO WAY I could get all that down to just 40 hangers!! I was still determined to get as much space freed up as I could so I headed to Bed Bath & Beyond with a gift card I got from sweet friends at work and a 20% off coupon (savvy me) and came home with these.

Now I had a 50 hanger challenge! I should have taken a before picture of my closet but I didn't! I just got right to work purging and rehanging. About half way through the closet my bed looked like this!


I never realized how much was just hanging there never, or hardly ever, worn. I never realized how many ugly hangers I had. I never realized how much better I would feel when my closet finally looked like this!
You can see it's a small closet. A small portion holds my husbands suits and dress clothes (I did not count his clothes in my 50 hangers). I still have plenty of variety and, I did it, I made it down to just 50 hangers with out feeling like I just couldn't part with something!! I am so excited!! Next I think I will tackle the shoes!! But not today! Here's a look at the hangers I freed...


All 100 + of them!! I told you I was a clothes hoarder! It feels wonderful to be organized! Don't you agree?

I love seeing how others organize themselves as well so head on over to Blog Hoppin and link up for the final day of 2014 goals! Show us your best organizational skills!

Thanks for reading! Hope your all staying safe and warm if you're anywhere near the massive Winter storm we are getting. It's cold out there! Enjoy your last day of break (unless you get a snow day out of this for tomorrow) and have a great Sunday!

Hi eveyone, I'm over at Blog Hoppin, today sharing my professional goals for this year! I'd love to have you come over and check it out!

Then link up and let us know what your professional goals are for 2014! I look forward to reading about what you all want to accomplish in the New Year! See ya over at Blog Hoppin' friends!
Break is winding down! Why does it always go by so fast??? I still feel like I have so much to do! I did get one thing accomplished that I'm excited to share with you! I updated my January Fluency pack that was actually my first product uploaded to TPT last year! It is now the Winter Fluency Pack and I have to say I'm in love with it!

It includes all new adorable graphics, and easier to read fonts; black and white versions of the poetry, timed reading passages, and readers theaters for minimal color ink printing; and new activities to go along with the poetry! If you already own this, go re-download it, I think you will be happy with the updates!

If you don't own it yet, it is an awesome resource for practicing fluency with five different activities/centers to use and two fun additions (unique voice cards and trackers/spy glasses) for keeping students engaged while they read!

I hope you are all enjoying the last few days of  your break if your fortunate enough to still be off like me! Thanks so much for stopping by!
Back to Top