An Abundance of Giveaways!

Well I have another giveaway to let you know about. Seems Fourth Grade Froggies' linky party pushed a lot of bloggers over the 100 and 200 follower mark!

Lifelong Learning is the newest member of the over 200 group...congratulations!

Check out her giveaway. . . especially if you like LOVE Target!

Lifelong Learning

Another Giveaway...awesome!

Stellar Students is celebrating reaching 100 followers. . . woo hoo . . . by having a contest to win some fab gifts!  Check her out:

Interesting Education App

I just got an iPhone ... love, love, love it! So, of course I've been downloading apps galore! LOL

Well, I wanted to share an educational app that I think might be very useful for teachers. I've got it on my phone, but haven't had a chance to really use it yet. The app is called TeacherPal and it's for the iPhone, iPad, or iPod. It's also FREE...which is a bonus! :)

Basically it's a personal organizer where you can keep track of attendance, grades and behaviour of your students. It also stores information about each student (phone numbers, email addresses, etc.) Where I really see this being an extremely useful tool is during those times when your out and about with your students ... aka ... Field trips!

 I don't know about you, but I bring a backpack with me every time we go on an outing, and its not just because I need a place to keep my lunch...it's for the class list, and the sheets of student information I have to have on me any time we leave the school grounds. That's where I see this little app shine ... because you've got all the information on your students right in the palm of your hands!

And here are some other reasons why I like this app:

1. You can use the attendance feature to check you have everyone (I've never lost a student and I   don't plan to any time in the future) 
2. If you ever do lose a student (god forbid!) you have a picture to show people what they look like 
3. You can use the behaviour feature to keep track of student behaviour when not in the classroom (and let the kids know you're doing it. . .tee hee) 

If you have this app, I would love to hear how you use it. TeacherPal . . . get it!

Another Giveaway!

Seems like a lot of people are reaching milestones. Mrs. Tolbert over at Daisy Days for Learning is celebrating surpassing 100 followers...wow! She's offering everything in the TpT store to one lucky winner. Get over there before Tuesday.

Lessons with Laughter Giveaway!

Molly, at Lessons with Laughter is giving away a $25 gift card to Target! Contest closes soon, so enter now!!

A Blogging Learning Experience (aka...I Had a Major Blonde Moment!)

For pete's sake!!...I couldn't figure out why Fabulous 4th Grade Froggies wasn't showing my link I had posted for the linky party??? I was typing in the URL correctly, wasn't I???  Turns out, I wasn't...using .com instead of .ca <grrr>

Of course, I've been busy commenting on other blogs, inviting them to come visit me...well, that's not going to happen any time soon, now, is it??  <heavy sigh>

Oh, well...chalk it up to a learning experience.  I won't be making THAT mistake again! LOL

3rd-5th Grade Linky Party!!!

My first linky party!  It's quite ironic that it happened today, as i was reading how to get your blog 'noticed'...I mean, what's the point of having a blog if people don't know it exists...right??! And then 3rd Grade Gridiron posted this!...<tee, hee>  Oh, and if anyone can tell me what the purpose of grabbing a blogger's button is, I'd appreciate it! LOL

Teacher Resource Alert!

My teaching partner left me a welcome back gift!  Is that not the sweetest thing to do?! This particular resource is a kind of sequel to two other resources that I absolutely love.  All three books are very detailed and laid out in a step-by-step manner, which would be very helpful for new teachers, but veteran teachers will find useful ideas as well.  Check out the author's website, Reading Power.

Writing Power is the new book and takes the best of the writing workshop format, melds it with Six-Traits writing, to come up with a comprehensive, systematic way to engage children's thinking through writing.
I'm going to be spending some of next week (we have Spring Break...although, looking outside, you wouldn't think we're close to Spring! LOL) reading through the book and seeing if it will be a good fit.  I kind of do writing workshop with Six Traits, but, sadly, writing workshop tends to be hit and miss for me...there just isn't enough time in the day for everything, and I tend to be more inclined to reading.  <sigh>

I Must Have Been a Librarian in a Former Life!

Having been off work for the past little while, I had a lot of time to do one of my most favourite things to do in the whole entire world...shop for books! My husband thinks I have an addiction, because I CANNOT walk past a thrift store without checking out the children's book section.  I know!...I get almost giddy when I find, 'like new', Horrible Harry, Secrets of Droon, or Magic School Bus books for like, 50¢ or <gasp> 25¢. 

Of course, this means I now have to 'process' all of them...and because I'm a bit anal when it comes to my class library, it involves a number of steps for each book:

1. Find the Guided reading level
2. Put the corresponding colour code on the back of the book
3. Put a label on the back indicating which basket the book will go into
4. Print up a 'library card' for each book that will go into the pocket I affix to the inside front cover of each book
5. Scan each book into my database with my new scanner! 

   

   I heart my scanner!

   I'm going to be a very busy lady over the next few days as I work my way through the collection!...Oh, joy!

I'm Baaackkk!

OK...I was going to wait until the end of the school year to 'start' my blog... it just seemed a natural time to begin...but I've been off on a medical leave since mid November (I have MS, but that's my other blog, LOL) and with the extra time on my hands, I started reading lots of teacher blogs (I know, I can't switch the teacher button off) and was totally awed, inspired, energized, etc by them that I really couldn't wait 'til June... plus I am sooo excited about going back to school, I need to share it with everyone!

Funny enough, I'm coming back right as we are in the middle of teacher job action (think 3 day strike...ackk)... But to me, it is a glorious feeling to be back in my classroom again.  How I've missed my 'kids'.  Thankfully, my job share partner, Angela, was able to fill in for me during my absence... well, except for the last 3 weeks, in which a teacher who did NOT want to collaborate/cooperate with the existing programs that were in place, took over (union rules).  I'm NOT going to go there, but let's just say that I owe him a big THANK-YOU because he was the one who pushed me to come back sooner,  rather than later (stated with a sweet, angelic smile and not a HINT of sarcasm). LOL  
 
Of course, thanks to my new teacher blogger/organizing guru,  The Clutter Free Classroom, I am now totally dissatisfied with the state of my classroom and feel the need to purge, purge, purge!  I will be taking before pictures, but no guarantees that they'll end up on this blog! (ha, ha, ha)