Hall Pass and Giveaway News!

So excited to join Reagan from Turnstall's Teaching Tidbits with her great linky party!
Product Just like Reagan mentioned - my favorite product is also whatever I'm working on at the moment. Everything I have created I have made and used with my own kiddos.  It's rewarding seeing the materials in action in the classroom.   So, my newest product is this.  The second set of Froggie Fraction Task Cards.  The first set includes task cards for equivalent fractions, simplifying, and changing mixed numbers to improper, and improper back to mixed.  This set is adding and subtracting like and unlike fractions.  The first 24 cards are with like fractions, with the last 8 the students have to change one denominator to be able to add.  Just wanted to give students a little challenge.  
Area I have a ton of favorite places in my classroom.  Hey, I love my classroom! (Ha Ha - Do you get it?)  It makes me happy.  My absolute favorite place to sit is at my desk.  Now, I took this picture a while back when I joined up with the Desk Linky Party.  I don't get a chance to really sit at it throughout the day, but it is a sense of calm especially during prep, recess, lunch, or after school.  I love my picture of my family, having things organized by the end of the day, and just having a small space for me.  It's definitely my little teacher "office" in the entire room.  I call students over to chat, to have them read to me one on one.  The rest of the time students use the area to sit on the floor during centers, to lay down during silent reading.  It gets a lot of use.  I love it! Here are other pictures of my classroom - I have quite a few different pages with pictures to share!
Signal I have used quite a bit of stuff over the years.  This year I started with Whole Brain Teaching.  It kind of works with my class.  I say kind of because my class needs things changed up a lot - keeps them on their toes.   I'm stuck in a rut though, I'm used to doing the DA's.  Meaning, "Da-da-da-da-da" - with the class response of "da-da".  I also will clap it out.  Sometimes I will say, "Give me 5" - 5 meaning ears listening, eyes watching, hands still, sitting/standing frozen, ready to participate.  The thing I used on Friday the students really liked.  I said the first part to a phrase, and they did the second.  Example,  I said "Captain", they said "America".  I said, "Iron", they said "Man".  I said, "Spider", they said "Man".  It got their attention pretty fast.  Of course my brain froze up pretty quickly with trying to remember all the Superheroes.  
Sanity My team keeps me sane this year at work.  They are awesome to work with.  We can laugh together, cry together, be frustrated together, and share the workload.  They are creative, they are caring, they are friends.  It's so nice to work with friends.  Real friends that you can count on for a hug and a smile.
I think keeping things organized and keeping up with a written to do list also helps my sanity.   Last summer I found this on one of my school shopping sprees.  It's a set of monthly to do lists.  At least I use them at school for my monthly to dos.  It's amazing when I'm tired or feeling overwhelmed, how easily it is to forget what I need to work on.  My brain starts to hurt and it's just over.  There have been times lately that I would just sit at my desk, knowing I have tons more paperwork to complete, and I couldn't remember exactly what it was without looking at my written list.  Anyhow, just wanted to share that it really helps.  :)    
I also wanted to share that Tonya from Tonya's Treats for Teachers is celebrating 700 followers.  :)  She has a massive giveaway going on, and I get to share in her joy.  Fun fun!

    Hope you are having a lovely Sunday!

20% off TODAY ONLY!!

Just a quick little post that everything in my TPT store  is 20% off for the rest of today.
Here are some of the things I've added since my last sale  in case you want to stock up.  :)

The images all linked directly to my store.   I hope this helps someone out there.

Five for Friday (on Saturday)

Again - another day after the fact kind of thing.  I really try, just I'm so exhausted on Friday afternoon/evening to try to get this together... though I totally know I could plan ahead to link up!  I'm sure you already recognize Five for Friday with Doodle Bugs Teaching.

5 random things about this past week...

1.  This past week I got into Downton Abbey.  My friends convinced me that I needed to start at the beginning... I said I wasn't going to, but Season 1 being on Netflix sucked me in.  Now I need to find Season 2 and 3 to catch up with...

2.  Figurative Language went wild in my classroom.  I had an observation this past week regarding it, and then created some fun templates for my students to continue to practice over the next couple of months.

  

3.  I am addicted to Trader Joe's Just Mango Slices.  They are so good!  I guess it's a good thing that we don't have a Trader Joe's in our town.  It turns into a special thing when we go once in a while to stock up on our favorites.  

4. Last weekend I read 3 books by Sunday night on my Kindle.  It was a wonderful weekend - full of lazy days and staying up way too late reading.  The 3 books were actually the 3 in this series by Sandra Byrd.  The first one was free way back when, and then I had to buy the next 2 in the series as I whipped through them. 

5.  Other random lessons in class... We celebrated President's Day and wrote a 3 paragraph compare/contrast write on Abe vs. George.  The writing was then tucked into a student created book that included coordinate graphs of the presidents' faces.  We also celebrated Black History Month and made our gigantic placemats of information about famous men and women.  We have been working hard on Fractions - finished them up yesterday, though I know we will still need to review again before the BIG TEST.

Hope your week was awesome!  Happy Saturday!