We are super excited to link up with the wonderful bloggers at Blog Hoppin' for this {WEEK-LONG} linky party! Today, we are sharing a little bit about us! :)
We (Ashley and Amanda) work together at the same school in Texas. We met 2 years ago and became really close, very fast. We decided to open up a TPT store {FOR HIS GLORY} together which eventually led us to start blogging! We are truly blessed by all of the doors that have been open through TPT & blogging!
Now, a little more about us!
I have been a Speech-Language Pathologist for the past 3 years in the elementary and home health setting. I graduated from the University of North Texas (GO EAGLES!) with a Master's degree in Speech Pathology. I absolutely love what I do and truly feel blessed that God has called me to serve others in this amazing field. I have 31 children...on my caseload that is :) and they are all very unique and special. This year I have been selected to be a ClassDojo mentor and I am very excited!
This week, my husband and I will celebrate our 4th wedding anniversary. I am a coach's wife in every way and embrace it as much as I can! :) In our house, there are four seasons:
WINTER, SPRING, SUMMER & FOOTBALL! :)
I absolutely love crafting, running and shopping...but who doesn't?! God has blessed me with the most amazing family and friends and time with them is a gift! My husband and I have started taking piano lessons and we are loving it...Beethoven, watch out! :)
This will be my {third} year teaching and I absolutely LOVE it! I always knew I wanted to be a teacher, and when I went to The University of North Texas for my degree I never looked back! My first year, I taught 2nd grade. Last year I got moved to 3rd. I was nervous because I loved 2nd so much. I wound up LOVING 3rd even more!! It is the best age. They are so sweet, but so fun and get your humor! I am very excited to be teaching 3rd again with an amazing team!!
{my little sister and I at the 1D concert-I am the coolest sister everrr!! ;)}
I am a new {wifey}! The Mr. and I got married in December. It was the BEST day of my life. Everything about our day was perfect, seriously! I want to re-live it over and over! My husband is a band director at a high school in our area. He loves his job! I get to go to concerts, football games, and events galore! It is hard not seeing him as much as I want to sometimes, but I love supporting him in his passion!
We also built and bought a house last year (yes last year was CRAY!) We love our home and are enjoying decorating it and making it our own.
Some of my other favorite things: my family, coffee, crafting, creating, and JESUS of course!!
My cousins in law..but basically my sisters! :)
We are super excited to learn more about y'all so make sure to link up with Blog Hoppin'!!
We {LOVE} Instagram! Follow us for classroom ideas, crafty things and of course awesome TPT products!
Here's what's to come! :) Come back {TOMORROW} & every day this week!
Don't you just love Sundays?! It is time for our 2nd Scripture Sunday!
Every 1st and 3rd Sunday we are sharing with you a verse that is on our hearts. There will always be one for you, and one for somebody else. This is a great opportunity to pray and listen to who God is asking you to minister to, help, pray for, etc!
This week's verse is:
This verse is hard for even us to remember. The LORD will fight for you! You don't have to fight your own battles alone. If you just wait, quietly trusting in him, He's got it.
So, who comes to mind when you see this verse? Print off a copy to hang on your fridge or your desk at work, and then give the other to someone else! :)
I've been working extremely hard on getting my
classroom together and if you're like me, there is little money left for
back-to-school gifts! Well...I hit the jackpot at Dollar Tree!! Yep, you heard
me, Dollar Tree! I found great back-to-school gifts that I think students will
love!
I could have totally bought more, but I thought these were a great start!
And, of course everything needs a cute tag!! :)
An eraser and sharpener in one...GENIUS!! :)
These
would be perfect for students to store in their desk and use with there
personal devices or on the classroom computers!
Click {HERE} to grab all of the tags! Hope everyone has a great school year!! :)
Hey everyone! I am linking up with 4th Grade Frolics for Monday Made It!
I have been working like crazy to get my classroom ready for this year. Creating, printing, laminating, repeat!! I am still not finished but I am getting there! Here are a few of my made-its!!
I needed a new calendar but I don't really like how boring they all are! Haha! So I whipped up some days of the week..Melonheadz style! I love it!!
This project was so super easy! I bought an unfinished wood frame from Michaels & painted it. Then, I made a poster sized 11 by 17 to place in it with my name and quote! Thanks to Amanda for the quote idea!! (I made the 3 banner last year! SOO easy too!! burlap, scraps of fabric, DONE!)
This is one of my favorite things about my room this year!! I created some positive quote posters for my classroom, but I wanted a cute way to display them. I bought these frames, Michaels again!, and painted them. I hot glued a mini clothespin on them and hung them up behind my student computers!! (final picture will be in my blog reveal post next week!) You can check out these posters here.
These are some gifts I "made" this week for some techy friends I met this summer through a training! (I hope they aren't reading this post! ;) I am going to add a gift card and send it through our inner school mail system! I couldn't resist these iPad notepads!! They are magnetic too!
My last made it is *almost* finished. Is that cheating?! I am finishing up a Back to School Math Hunt. I have 4 other math hunts in my store for throughout the year, so this will be perfect to add to that bundle! The bundle will be the price of only 2 math hunts! 5 for the price of 2?! Yes please!!
Okay, I am not going to lie...this post has been a draft in progress for a week now! oops!! But I figured Doodlebugs Teaching Five for Friday linky would be the perfect time to *finally* post it! I am going to be posting about 5 amazing tech ed tools you can use in your classroom!!
Last week, I was invited to apply/got accepted to attend the very first Educational Technology Summer Institute through my district!! Holy cow did I learn a ton! I met some amazing teachers in the district(shout out to my techy friends!!) that are just as excited/in love with learning how to use technology in the classroom as I am!! I wanted to do a blog post just to share with you all some amazing tools you can use in your classroom and/or connect with other great teachers..aka..Professional Development online!! Do you ever feel like you just learned so many awesome new things and you are super scared you are going to forget it all?! That's how I feel!
Here are some great things I learned about at the first couple of days of ETSI:
TWITTER!
Okay guys seriously?! I knew twitter was blowing up for educators..but REALLY! Talk about a PLN completely all online at your fingertips all day! This has been so great for me (I just started 2 weeks ago..hehe) to collaborate with other teachers, MEET other teachers, chat with educators, & more! There are twitter chats pretty much every night of the week that you can hop right on and off to get some great ideas and chat about educational things! If you haven't gotten a twitter..just do it!!! and follow me! :)
Also!! A lot of teachers are using twitter in their classrooms! It is a great way to communicate with parents and show them what you are doing in the classroom! We will be starting a school twitter this year & I am super excited!
Mystery Skype!
Mystery Skype is something I have been wanting to do in my classroom since I began teaching. I just haven't! I WILL be doing it this year though!! Have you heard of Mystery Skype? Basically, you Skype with another classroom in another state. Your kids take turns with their students asking yes or no questions about where you live! The point of it is to try and guess what state the other class is in. Once you and your students have done it once or twice, it doesn't take that long! Which I love, because who has a ton of extra time throughout the day?! Before I Skype with another class I am going to have my kids practice their "jobs" with a partner. Looking up things in an atlas, asking questions, taking notes, etc! There are tons of resources online if you are interested in this! If you don't live in Texas (like me!) and want to Mystery Skype with my class..email me!! Once we get started on this in my room..I will "plot" all of the states we have "visited" on a map in our room!! I am sooo excited for this! p.s. remember twitter? You can use the hashtag #mysteryskype to see how others are using this and connect with other teachers skyping!
Kahoot!!! {one of my FAVS!}
Kahoot is a fun, engaging game based classroom response system. (that is straight from their website! ha!) Basically, it is like bringing a game show to your classroom! Ummm hello!! Your students use devices-ipad, tablet, phone, computer- to answer questions that YOU create for them! It gives them a timer and then shows them the correct answer after the 30 seconds. After the time is up, they can see how many points they have and what place they are in. Best part? It is SO easy & quick to create questions! You can plan it ahead of time or just do it on the fly! I believe there is also a "survey" feature if you wanted to something like that. ex: What should we name our class pet? So here is what you do: 1. Create your question(s) 2. Students go to kahoot.it and enter in the game pin you tell them 3. GO! Again..can't wait to use this.
Popplet!
Popplet is a great tool, online and an app, to organize ideas. There are so many options with this! Your students can use this during research projects, to show what they have learned about a specific topic, or as a whole group class discussion about what we already know about a topic. This is basically a thinking map on your device!!
Genius Hour!
I am sure a lot of you have already heard about Genius Hour or are implementing this in your classroom! I LOVE this concept! I will be honest and say it does freak me out a little bit (can you say, control freak?!) Watch the video above to learn more about what Genius Hour is. Students research a topic that they are passionate about. There are no limits!! They must get it approved by their teacher but other than that they go for it! They must show research to prove an answer to a question they have about a topic. They can do any type of project to show this information. Ideally you would want to spend about an hour a week on this. If you do Genius Hour I would LOVE for you to comment on this post with your thoughts!!
Those were just five, FIVE, things/ideas/concepts that I learned from the amazing ladies at our training! If you read this whole post: thank you!! I hope I inspired you somehow to use technology in your classroom! Not just as a tool, but as another way to learn and create!
So what did I do after all this tech talk?! I made some cute posters for my classroom of course! I created a BYOD stoplight (when to use their devices), technology rules for the classroom, Before you.. THINK! (tech version), and a digital citizenship poster. I think teaching our kids how to be good digital citizens is SUPER important!! You can get these posters here!
Happy Sunday! Are you ready for an amazing week?! Our "to-do" lists are overwhelming, but we are attacking it one task at a time! As we go about our busy days, we are reminding ourselves why we are doing this..FOR HIS GLORY! We wanted to start something simple, but will help to remind us that we are not in charge. God will protect us and guide us even on our more difficult days.
Introducing:
Every first and third Sunday of the month we will have a printable verse for you to place at your desk, on your kitchen memo board, anywhere that you are able to see it daily. There will also be one for you to give to a friend or coworker! We wanted to start with Romans 11:36 since this one holds a very special place in out hearts! Click the picture to grab yours and one to share! :)
We hope you enjoy these verses throughout the school year!
