A linky party and a meet up!

This last weekend I was able to attend a blogger meet up. It was a great way to start out my spring break! I was able to meet some amazing and creative teachers. I could have stayed all day talking to these ladies. 

Above is a picture of our hostesses and all the great stuff we got to go home with. These ladies put together one amazing event. 

Here is a picture of our whole group and the kindergarten gals. 

Here is a picture of the first and second grade teachers. 

Finally, here is a picture of some other great teachers that do some great work. Thank you so much to the hostesses of this great event. It was so much fun, and I can't wait till the next one!

I am also linking up with "Flying into First Grade's" Let's Get Acquainted Linky Party. 

So here are my favorite nouns!

Person 

Here is my husband and I on our summer vacation to Seattle last year. He is my favorite person. He takes such great care of me. He always makes me feel happy!

Place 

The beaches of Maui are for sure my favorite place to be. I love the beach and I love Maui! My husband and I have even thought about buying a vacation house there because we love it so much.

Thing

My favorite "thing" is really something like happiness and laughter, but if I have to pick something tangible I guess it would be my new ipad mini. It is pretty cool, and there are so many great apps out there. 

Animal

My favorite animal is our dog, Max. Here we were getting ready for a walk. 

Well, I hope you all have a great day and if you are on spring break, enjoy your time off!

Manic Monday

Hi everyone! I hope you are all doing well. This is going to be a super fast post. The weekend was super busy with a super fun blogger meet up! Last night I was up way too late, and I redid my class rules. They now have a fun apple theme. Next year if I am able to find a job and have a classroom again, I am going to do the room in an apple theme. I think it is pretty appropriate for me. Just click on the picture and it will take you to the freebie of my new rules. Are any of you on spring break this week? I am, and I am so excited to be able to sleep in and get things done! I hope you all have a great day!

I hope that you enjoy this fun freebie. Just click the link below to see what other freebies there are.  Have a great day!

Busy, and some freebies!

Oh boy, has life been busy, busy, busy! Today was my last day of student teaching for now, so after spring break I will be heading back to my school to finish off the year. Student teaching was a great experience and I learned a lot about myself during this process. I will really miss all the kids and amazing teachers that I got to work with.

This last week, I had the opportunity to watch some really great teachers. I learned so many new things to take back to my classroom. One of my favorite things that I learned from one of the third grade teachers was on questioning. She asks the kids to think of thick and thin questions. The thin questions are those that you can pull right from the book. They are found right on the page. The thick questions are those that you have to make predictions or inferences from. I really liked this way of thinking. One of the second grade teachers that I was watching today started her day with a dance party. This allowed the kids to wake up and get their brains ready to work for the day. These are two things that I will for sure take back to my classroom. I am excited to try them and see what my students think about it. 

Tomorrow I will be attending the Southern California bloggy meetup. What a great way to start my spring break. I am so excited to meet all these great ladies. I have to confess that I am a little nervous because I am going to be meeting some ladies that I really admire in the blogging world. I have been following a few of them ever since I first started following blogs two years ago. 

Well, I also have a few freebies to share with you today. For several years I have been doing a differentiated spelling homework for my second graders. I give them a contract that allows them to do the activities that help them learn the words best. This year, I started doing this same idea for my fourth graders with their vocabulary words. The students have lots of different activities that they can do. If you would like a copy of the vocabulary contract that I have been using, just click on the apple. 

This year, I also started a differentiated reading project each week for my fourth graders. They have really enjoyed getting to pick what kind of project they get to do. If you would like a copy for yourself, just click on the apple to download it. 

Do any of you use differentiated assignments for classwork or homework? How do you use differentiated assignments? Well, I hope you all have a great weekend. If you have started your spring break, I hope that you have some fun things planned for your time off! 

Bloggy Meet Up!

I am super excited about the So Cal blogger meet up! This will be my first meet up, and it will be so nice to meet some of the wonderful people behind these amazing blogs. Even though I have not been blogging for very long, I have been reading and following lots of blogs for a couple of years. I just love all of the creativity that is out there. 

If you would like to join in on the fun, come on over to Katie's blog, "Teacher to the Core" and sign up. Just click on the picture below to go over to her blog. 

After going to Katie's blog and signing up, head over to Kate's blog at "Second Grade Sparkle" and link up that you will be attending. 

I am so excited about this fun event! I hope that I will be seeing you all there. Have a great weekend! 

A cool tip!

I wanted to take a few minutes and share a cool tip with you. I really hate putting paper on my bulletin boards. The paper always rips and fades, and it also is just plain hard to get the paper up. At the beginning of the year, I use fabric on my boards. It is easier to put up, and I can keep it up all year. All I have to do is change the items on the board based on the seasons. And I don't have to put new paper up every time I change the board. I'm also able to keep the same fabric up year after year so in the long run, I save money!

 This is a picture of a map that I had up in my room. This was a piece of fabric that I found at a small store. 

 This was a spring board that I put up. I used a cute piece of fabric, and I used my cricut to cut out all the cute bugs and flowers. 

In this picture, you can kind of see that the bulletin board fabric is money. 

These two boards are some of my all time favorites. I just LOVE how they turned out. The top board was crayon fabric which went well with the theme, and the bottom board fabric looked kind of like honey combs. Have you ever thought of using fabric on your boards? I just love fabric in the classroom because it makes the room look so bright!