Fabulous Finds Friday NEW Linky & Five for Friday

It's Friday!

Today is an exciting day for us because it's our very first Fabulous Finds Friday link up! We hope you will join us for this brand-new link up that we are sponsoring...

  

We have three finds to share this week!

The first two were found at Sam's Club while my husband and I were waiting for new tires to be installed on his truck.  I always wander through the video and book sections, and I was pleasantly surprised to find two goodies!

The first is a fabulous set of DVDs produced by Scholastic---Treasury of 50 Storybook Classics: Animal Antics...and more!

The set contains 50 children's book on 7 DVDs.  The stories are brought to life through the animation of original illustrations. Some of the stories are shared in the form of movie shorts.  Here are just a few of the titles: Harry the Dirty Dog, Office Buckle and Gloria, Chrysanthemum, Make Way for Ducklings, Click Clack Moo: Cows That Type, Arnie the Doughnut, and Owl Moon.  Not to mention, most of the stories are Read Along DVDs (words are highlighted as the narrator reads). 

I plan to use the DVDs on our classroom computer as a listening option during guided reading time.  It's also great for kids to be able to listen to a read aloud of the text and compare it to the video adaptation.  

Price: $29.98!!! A steal--I think!

The second find caught my eye when browsing the books and magazines--Taste of Home's Ultimate Halloween Food & Fun (for Fall/Halloween).  As a lover of our Taste of Home magazine subscription, I figured it would contain some great recipes.  It does---BUT there are oodles of ideas included in this one.  Some of my favorites...

No Sew Superhero Costumes

Boo-Riffic Bunting

Monster Buster (Sock Monster and Monster Spray craft combo)

Wormy Orange Punch

Mini Chicken Empanadas  (inspired by the Day of the Dead) 

Blood and Guts Cheese Spread

Pudding Poltergeists 

Apple Brickle Dip

Fall is my FAVORITE season, and this find made me start counting the days until that cool front comes in and the leaves start to turn.  

Price: $9.99 -- Well worth it! Chocked with fun and tasty ideas!!

The last find Courtney found when rooting through those famous Target Dollar Deals.  These clear-view pouches were only a dollar compared to a four-pack from Really Good Stuff priced at $10.  Courtney plans to use these handy dandy pouches for math and literacy workstations. Nice and durable! 

Now, Five for Friday with Doodle Bugs Teaching...

#1 - NEW Friday Linky

We would love for you to link up with us for Fabulous Finds Friday! You can link up at the end of this post...

Teachers are forever coming across fabulous finds--so what better way to share them than with a new linky.  Pretty much **anything goes--as long as it's a FIND.

Examples might include, but are not limited to:

teaching resources 
lesson ideas
recipes for the classroom 
classroom gift ideas 
books and magazines 
gadgets 
apps  
websites
 bargains

items that make the job easier 
the possibilities are MANY...

 

**The only thing we ask is that finds are related to education and ARE NOT products/items created by you for sale.

Grab our button and stop back this Friday to link up with us! Please include our button and a link back to the linky in your post.

#2 - Second Grade Mathematicians

Both of our classes started the year off generating a wonderful list of what it means to be a mathematician.  Amy Lemons' beginning of the year math activity pack included this great craftivity.  We adapted it for our taste, of course.  Students' ideas will be a great reference as we journey through math this year...

#3 - Hanging Out in a Good-Fit Book

A fellow teacher came to me this week with a creative idea for making personalized book marks for the kids.  She has made these with her junior high kids in past years--an idea she found in an old NEA magazine.  

They turned out just wonderfully! The kids loved them!!  They will be hanging out in good-fit books all year...

#4 - Traits Tuesday Linky

We have also started another new linky--ambitious, I guess.  Anyway, we would love for you to CLICK HERE to learn more about our Traits Tuesday (Traits Writing) linky.  We could also use any help you can give in getting the word out!

#5 - Survived!

We are just happy to say we survived a week of heat! Our kids were troopers! Thanks to all of the parents/students who brought in popsicles to help the kids stay cool and our district for providing water bottles and popsicles as well.  We have our fingers crossed for cooler temps next week...

All the best to you and yours for a wonderful three-day weekend!

Made Its & Two Brand-NEW Linkies!

We would love for you to join us for two NEW linkies!!

New Linky #1: Fabulous Finds Friday

Come join us this Friday for our very first Fabulous Friday Finds linky!  Teachers are forever coming across fabulous finds--so what better way to share them than with a new linky.  Pretty much **anything goes--as long as it's a FIND.

Examples might include, but are not limited to:

teaching resources
recipes for the classroom
classroom gift ideas
books and magazines
gadgets
apps
websites
 bargains

items that make the job easier
the possibilities are MANY...

**The only thing we ask is that finds are related to education and ARE NOT products/items created by you for sale.

Grab our button and stop back this Friday to link up with us! Please include our button and a link back to the linky in your post (the button has a transparent background--the blue is a blog setting on our site).

We can't wait! 

Fonts courtesy of KG Fonts & Kevin & Amanda

Graphics courtesy of Graphics by Sarah Beth

New Linky #2: Traits Tuesday

Courtney and I just had the wonderful opportunity of attending a summer literacy institute where Ruth Culhum and Gay Su Pinnell spoke and led breakout sessions!  We were searching Ruth's website last year to see if she would be presenting anywhere near us this summer, and we were pleasantly surprised to find out that she was a keynote speaker and session leader at the institute.  Her speech and session were inspiring, as she shared her love for picture books and using them to teach kids about the different traits of writing.  She also shared how the traits coincide with the Common Core Standards for Writing. 

As we begin our school year, we thought we would try sponsoring our VERY FIRST linky, Traits Tuesday.  We are starting this linky as a means of learning through the sharing of ideas, resources, and experiences among fellow teachers. Whether your district has adopted the traits writing program, you implement traits writing with the help of various resources and mentor texts, you have infused traits writing into an existing writing program, you are just getting started with traits writing, etc--we would love to hear from you!

Traits Tuesday will start this coming Tuesday! We have included a topic guide for next week's and September's posts below...

Week of August 27 - How do you start your year with the traits? How do you begin talking about the traits with your students? What trait/s do you start with at your grade level? Do you have a favorite beginning of the year lesson/writing to introduce a trait?

We look forward to learning from all of you! Please come join us this Tuesday, August 27 for Traits Tuesday!

Feel free to grab either of our buttons below and stop back on Tuesday.  Please include our button and a link back to the linky in your post (both have a transparent background--the blue is a blog setting on our site).

Fonts courtesy of KG Fonts & Kevin & Amanda

Graphics courtesy of Graphics by Sarah Beth 

We hope to see you back here on Tuesday and/or Friday!

Made Its

Monday Made It with 4th Grade Frolics has gone back to a monthly schedule (second Monday of the month), but I still wanted to share a couple of made its this Monday...

Classroom Writing Center

I finished putting together our classroom writing center last week! Found some great children's dictionaries at Barnes & Nobles in their bargain books this summer, and some children's thesauruses are out for students to use, if need be.  The stack drawers contain writing ideas/monthly prompts and paper supplies.  The "regulars" are also included--Post Its, pens, and highlighters.  The clear containers I found at Menard's are great for storing pencil top erasers and paperclips.  Also found some wonderful small "clicker" staplers for small hands--they will come in handy when making little books.  I picked up the little metal buckets from Walmart. The bulletin board will collect writing resources throughout the year... The kids already love to sit in this area to read, even though we have not started using the center yet!

 Writing Portfolio Suitcases (Pizza Boxes)

I also folded and put handles on our suitcase writing portfolios. This was a snap--just some hole punching and knotting of ribbon.  The kids just need to color the suitcase straps and glue on the construction paper.  Decorating these is easy and quick--doesn't take a lot of class time. The kids are so excited about these! I will share some pics of some finished suitcases soon... 

Wishing you a wonderfully productive week!

Back to School Teachers Pay Teachers SALE!

Just letting you all know that Teachers Pay Teachers is having their annual Back to School Sale!

You can save 28% in both of my TpT stores---Sarah E Masters & Graphics by Sarah Beth!

Thanks to The 3AM Teacher for her wonderful sale button.

We will be back very soon with pictures of our classrooms and some other great tid-bits... School starts Monday!

Five for Friday--Classroom Library Edition

Thanks to Doodlebugs for the chance to link up once again--It's Five for Friday!

Since we have been busy back in our rooms--our classroom libraries have gotten a lot of needed attention--adding to, reorganizing, cleaning...  We thought we would take this opportunity to share our two different, yet equally as effective, classroom library systems.

Courtney's Classroom Library

I have been doing The Daily 5 in my classroom since 2007 after reading The Sisters' book in about 2 days. They stress that students need to read "good fit" books and learn how to pick these books out. I feel it is important to have a wide variety of books available for my students so that they learn how to pick out books that are not only at their level, but also are interesting to them. While reading The Daily 5, I noticed The Sisters put numbers on their books and then on the basket that contains those specific books.

I thought is was a genius idea and that summer took all my books home to number.  

 

Over the years, I have had to combine baskets of books because my library is just way too big, but now it is so organized and the kids can put books back in the correct baskets. 

Sarah's Classroom Library

In a previous post, I briefly talked about my classroom library system when sharing a rainbow key for the library...

Since books are color coded according to type, this works perfectly.  All baskets are simply labeled with an easy to read font that directly corresponds to the label on the back of each book.

This system works famously! The kids must read/match up the label on the book and find the corresponding basket label to reshelve a book.  The library stays incredibly organized, and the kids take pride in making sure books are in their places and easy for the next person to find. Here are some more pics. If you should see any dust bunnies or piles in these pics, please know they have had a happy home all summer, but they will soon be moving on... :0)

Chapter book series are coded yellow and are in a section with separate series labels. 

Favorite authors are kept on a shelf and are color coded pink.  I help students take these down when asked (no more room down low), and different authors are spotlighted throughout the year as well.

 

Clear View Organizers (Sarah)

I discovered these wonderful little containers earlier in the summer, but I just got around to filling them.  When I was walking the aisles at Menards, I discovered these handy-dandy little organizers--intended for storing nuts and bolts and such.  They are called VIEWTAINERS and come in different sizes.  I filled a larger one with pencil erasers and mini one with jumbo paperclips for the kids to access. They are easy to squeeze open (as you can see my mother-in-law doing with her arthritic hands)--just like those classic rubber coin purses from back in the day. The sticker comes off--just wanted to show you the brand labeling in case you want to pick up a couple for your classroom... :0)

 Monkey Joe's (Courtney) 

Because I go back next week, we have been trying to finish up our summer fun list. On Thursday this week we went to Monkey Joe's. For those of you that are not familiar with Monkey Joe's, it is a place kids can go and bounce their little hearts out. Our Monkey Joe's has about 9-10 different kinds of inflatables for kids to jump, hop, flip, and tire themselves out on. My little ladies loved it, and this little diva pictured below took a great nap after her fun day!

Destination: Registration!

Well, student registration was this week--another step closer to the beginning of the year! It was a pleasure, as always, to see the smiling faces of former students both small and BIG. Jeepers--those little buggers grow up fast! It's amazing to see former students come back as parnets to register their kids.  Quite the reality check to remind us of how long we have been at this... We are looking forward to meeting or new kids!

All the best to you for a wonderful weekend!

Five for Friday is BACK!

It's BACK! Five for Friday with Doodle Bugs Teaching...

 

Back at It! (Courtney) 

On Tuesday I went back in and stared at my room wondering what the heck to do first began arranging. This is what I started with....

Basically stuff everywhere. I am trying a new arrangement this year and we'll see if I stick to it. I will post pictures of the finished room when it's all done...most likely RIGHT before school starts!

Rainbow Classroom Library Key (Sarah)

I have a simple color coded system for organizing our classroom library.  More about the system will come in a later post... Since books are color coded in the library, I created a rainbow in Adobe Illustrator to use as a classroom library key. I have never had a key posted, but I think it will be a nice reminder of the oodles of books at their fingertips! :0)

 

At the Zoo (Courtney)

Because school is right around the corner, I'm trying to soak up time with my 3 little ladies. On Wednesday we went to the local zoo with some cousins.  Our zoo recently added an Australian walk about and one thing they had was this cage/bird house where you could go in with a stick that had bird seed on it.  This house held tons (not quite sure exactly how many...to me it looked like about a hundred, but I know I'm exaggerating:) of budgie birds that would fly to the stick. I did not go in...just didn't seem like a fun thing to me with birds flying all around my head, but my girls loved it!

Adventure Awaits!: Suitcase Writing Portfolio (Sarah) 

When I was student teaching first grade many moons ago (20 years ago now), we used a simple pizza box to store student writing portfolios. For the many years since then, I have used various other systems with older students—-binders, folders, files in crates, etc.  When I switched grade levels a couple of years ago (2nd grade), I began to think back to my earliest days of using a pizza box.  The boxes worked well because students were able to collect entries of all sizes, the boxes were easy to access in the classroom, and writings were taken home in a secure container at the end of the year. I decided to start using pizza boxes again—so I have created this fun way of decorating a pizza box into a suitcase.  Writing is truly an adventure for the kids throughout the year! You can learn more in my TpT store...

Smile in a Box (Sarah)

I received a "smile" in a box this week! The rainbow colored, polka-dotted ribbon that I ordered from Hobby Lobby arrived.  When I opened the box, it just made me smile! It doesn't take much... Anyway, I will be eagerly making supply caddies like we posted last Friday when sharing a fabulous pin.  Check out the caddies at Life...As I Know It...!

Finally, fly on over to The Polished Teacher to participate in her wonderful Bloggy Birthday Alphabalooza giveaway! You can win prizes from Sarah's TpT store and Graphics by Sarah Beth store.  Check it out!

So glad you stopped by! Have a splendid weekend!