Meet Rita!

You are probably wondering…..who is Rita?  Well, I humbly post Rita as my first attempt at clip art.  This is a little frightening to me, considering some the amount of talent that exists in this realm.  But after practicing for quite a while, I've finally got up enough nerve to share.  She's not the prettiest, but she's a start.  

I have a lot more to learn, but I am excited.  I am ready to create my first clipart set and need some inspiration.  What type of clipart are do you need?  What would you like to see?  If I use your idea, I will send you a free copy of my finished set.  I can't wait to read your ideas!

Many thanks to Just So Scrappy for Rita's hair bows!  They are from the School Rules set. 

That Crazy First Week Back

It's been so long side I wrote a blog post, I almost forgot how.  I have been a self-contained classroom this year and all the additional planning has somehow taken over any free time I had.  I had reverted to blog-stalking, but thought I'd make a go of it since I had some downtime over the holiday.

I'm thinking about the first week back in January.  After two weeks off, the kids will be tired, out of sync, and off schedule.  Some may even be jet-lagged, in my neck of the woods.  I've found a few back-to-school activities that may help ease the transition.  

New Year's Goals

Creating goals really starts the New Year on the right foot.  Here is an example of a goal setting template you can find for free at my TPT store.  

It would look great matched up with the craftivity show below.

 

I love this freebie posted by A Cupcake for the Teacher.  It includes the pattern to make the New Year's hat shown in the picture above. I like the idea of copying the patterns on white card stock and having the students color their hats.  



Write Your Own MAD LIBS

MAD LIBS has published the following directions for "Write Your Own" Mad Lib.  

This would be a great opportunity to practice grammar.  Ask the students to write a brief story and include a certain number of nouns, adjectives, verbs, proper nouns, etc.  

Snapshots of Winter Break

This freebie is from Aimee VanMiddlesworth.  Students draw pictures of several different winter break memories then write sentences or paragraphs about them.  I like the idea of writing "captions" (NF text features!) for each picture.  Thanks, Aimee!

Enjoy your first week back!  

My TPT Store is on Sale!

Today is the day to shop at TPT!  My Teaching with Moxie Store is having a 20% Off Sale for today only!  A*N*D if you add the code "FB100K" during checkout, you will received an additional 10% discount!  

See you there!!!

Who Doesn't Need This? Giveaway

Can you use a $10 Dollar General Gift Certificate?  How about some awesome Proctor and Gamble products?  

I thought so! Read on!

In celebration of educators everywhere, Dollar General is teaming with Procter & Gamble to honor our nation's schools and teachers who make a difference in the lives of children through its Every Day Heroes program .  The Every Day Heroes campaign honors educators who teach students to be their best by offering great savings on school supplies and other products for the heroes closest to our hearts.

Dollar General has a strong commitment to education through the Dollar General Literacy Foundation and believes learning to read, earning a GED or learning the English language are investments that opens doorways for personal, professional and economic growth.

During September, Dollar General is recognizing Kimberly Shearer, an English teacher and library science teacher at Boone County High School in Florence, Ky., as its Every Day Hero.  As an eight-year veteran of Boone County High School, her commitment to educating our youth and advocating for 21st century literary skills through the use of technology helped earn her the title of "Kentucky Teacher of the Year."  When she is not busy helping her students succeed, Kimberly is spending time with her husband and two daughters.

You can learn more about this wonderful program and in the September P&G brandSAVER® found in local newspapers. You can use P&G brandSAVER® coupons at Dollar General to get high-quality P&G products at great prices. I love to use Febreze Air Effects with Gain Fresh Scent, which sweeps away stale odors and leaves a fresh scent at the end of the day.

Want to try some of these products?  Enter the following Giveaway which will include the following prizes provided by Proctor and Gamble:

*       A $10 Dollar General Gift Card
*       CoverGirl Black Ink Eye Pencil
*       Tide PODS Spring Meadow (sample size)
*       Febreze Fabric Refresher Gain Scent Spray
*       Febreze Air Effects with Gain Fresh Scent
*       A Dollar General reusable shopping bag

I recently received the same product group and loved every one of them!  Enter today!!!


a Rafflecopter giveaway

Made it Monday (Sort of)

I'm joining Made it Monday to showcase a few really neat items I purchased from some talented ladies on Etsy.  Okay……I won't link up since I didn't make any of these items.  But I had fun buying them!

This adorable T-Shirt was made for me by Carla from Sewing Sassy.  Oh, how I love it!  The colors just POP and the owl is precious.  Click here to see all the designs that Carla offers!

 When I saw this custom rubber stamp, I had to have it.  I will be teaching language arts this year and have had many teacher-friends donate books to build my class library.  I was blessed to receive about 150 books!  Writing my name in all of them would be a tedious task.  My problem is solved with this stamp made for me by Little A Designs.  The best part is it matches my owl theme!   Awesome!

How do you like my snappy mouse pad? When things have my name on it, they are less likely to walk away.   It was a gift from my dear friend, Megan, and her Etsy shop, A Bird in Hand Designs.  I love this combination of orange chevron and a pink stripe.  Check it out and pick up a monogrammed koozie, too!

On another subject, I have never started this late getting my classroom ready.  I have not stepped one foot in the door and we go back to work on Monday.  After spending the last four weeks helping my parents move from Ohio to Florida, my non-school, to-do list is very long.  I want to blink my eyes like Jeannie and have my classroom instantly look like this.  I know……I'm dreaming'!

Stay tuned!

C. Jayne Teach

Every once in a while something really awesome appears in your world that you just have to share. Meet.........

"C" is for Chandra.  We have never met, but our mom's have a connection, which is how I discovered Chandra. I love her blog, but today she launched her full website and shopping hub.   The simplicity and crispness of C. Jayne Teach.com is refreshing. It is laid out beautifully and her products are first class.  

The shop at C. Jayne Teach features an all-in-one teacher resource called the Teacher Anchor.  It is unique as it is intended to simplify your teaching day so you are able to leave school on time to be with the important ones in your life.....your family.  The prospect of leaving on time makes me giddy, as it usually take a minor miracle to get me out of school before 5:00.  Another awesome feature of the Teacher Anchor is that you always have access to a free printable library which allows you to print extra pages or other forms you may need.  Genius!  Here is a video from Chandra that explains it perfectly.

The best part is that C. Jayne Teach is currently having a Teacher Anchor Giveaway!  Click the previous link or the picture below to enter.  

Stop by and enter today!

Back to School Goals!

I just love I {Heart} Recess's Monthly Goals Linky!  This month's theme is Back to School. 

Are you inspired!  If so, click on the picture above and commit to your Back to School Goals!  

Why did this happen?

Why did this happen?

To read Moxie's latest Commentary, click below:

HUGE Giveaways

My dear friend, Kristin, at Teach n' Tex, is having a HUGE giveaway to celebrate over 400 followers! Yippee!  Here are the details:

The giveaway ends at at midnight on the 29th and the winners will be announced on the 30th.  

And don't forget to stop by Learning with Mrs. Leeby for her giveaway.  Times running out!

Goodluck!

Feeling Nostalgic

Hello friends!  I am visiting my parents in Ohio.  It's a bittersweet visit as I am helping them pack and move out of my childhood home.  It's a stage in my life that I've been dreading. 

When I got there, my mom had everything that belonged to me in the corner of the basement.  My first job was to go through it all to see what I wanted and throw away the rest.  UGH.

I'm not good at throwing things away and got anxious as I faced the task before me.  The first box I opened was my wedding gown.  Great.  Let's just go straight for the jugular.  Keep or donate?  I have two boys.  It's unlikely anyone will ever want to wear it.  But, it's beautiful and I can't imagine anyone having it but me.  I kept it. 


The next several boxes were all my college "teaching" stuff.  What a trip down memory lane that was.  Most of you whipper-snappers won't even believe me when I tell you that I found a box full of hand-made bulletin board sets.  They were works of art by my-20-something-self.  I had traced, cut out and decorated all the borders and lettering.  I hand drew all the graphics and colored them.  If they weren't so faded and crumbling, I might have used them. Now they are trash.

Back then, cross-curricular themes were all the rage. I found folders of units I had built with handwritten worksheets (with required excellent penmanship) and hand-drawn graphics on purple ditto masters (what are those?).  If you were a good typist (no personal computers existed in the early 1980's), you might be brave enough to type your ditto masters before you ran them on a, now-extinct, ditto machine (there were no copy machines, either).  When you passed out freshly run dittos, the students all smelled them because the chemical had a uniquely pleasant scent to it.  I wonder how many brain cells were fried by ditto chemicals?

One thing I did love about my college prep program is how much time we spent in the classrooms of Columbus, Ohio, practicing what we were learning.  I visited every type of school, every grade level, every socio-economic area, public and private.  As I read all my observations and documentations, the memories came flooding back.  I could feel the excitement I once experienced and remember the anxiety I felt, wondering if I would be worthy of the profession I loved.  

It's funny, for as much as things changes, some things stay the same.  All the things I documented in my observations and journals are situations I still continue to encounter year after year. 

On the other hand, I miss how wonderfully pure teaching was.  Teachers were more keenly aware of developmental theories, which played a bigger part in our lesson planning.  I miss how there was room in the curriculum to explore and extend based upon a class's interests.  It created such excitement and engagement in the classroom.  There was more time for children to be creative in the classroom.  Now, I always feel like I am rushing.     It is so sad that there is no time to do these things in our current environment. The art of supporting a child developmentally is gone. Curriculums are jam-packed with expectations to master its standards because, come h*ll or high water, the test is coming.

I'm a sentimental soul. By the time I finished going through my pile, I was emotionally exhausted.  I never thought I would be one of those people who would refer to the "old days".  Education seems to swing on a pendulum.  Maybe we'll swing back to a little "old ways" someday 

Freebie Tour!

I have found so many awesome freebies lately, I just have to share them with you.  Check them out!

Monkey Math

Lory Evan's TPT Store

"Practice Parts of Speech" Freebie.
Link on Amy's July 15th Post.



Daily 5 Goodies (ELA)

From Teaching with Love and Laughter

Hello Fonts

Money I Have Who Has

From Jason's Online Classroom

Science Weekly Five Start-Up Kit

From The Science Penguin

Word Work - 26 pages!

The Creative Chalkboard

One last tip!  Tales from Outside the Classroom is publishing a list every week with where all the back-to-school shopping deals are.  Look for this graphic on her blog and and the date will tell you when she updated the list.  Woo Hoo!  

Back to School Shopping Linky

Boy, am I glad I've started to do some back-to-school shopping.  About a week ago, I bought three rolls of the cutest Duct-Tape with owls on it at Michaels.  I used it to make a classroom set of whisper phones.  Didn't they turn out cute?  

Today, I went to Michael's and was in shock when I saw their giant supply of Duct Tape that was there a week ago was nearly gone! Wow!  If there's something you really want, don't wait.

After shopping, join my Back-to-School Shopping Linky Party.

If you've already written a post about your shopping finds, link it up!  Looking forward to see all you've found! 

Moxie's Commentary

The mission of my teacher blog is to share and reflect upon my teaching.  But, sometimes I encounter topics I'd like to blog about that do not fit my mission….and they usually involve expressing my opinion.  So, I began to brainstorm about how I could reconcile  staying true to my mission yet creating an outlet to express my opinions.  Then it hit me!  I'll create a new page on my blog. And here it is:

So, today I published my first commentary.  It is about Big Box Blogs.  What is a Big Box Blog?  You can read about it here!

As always, thank you for visiting my blog!  

Rigorous Primary Math Problem Solving

I'm terrible about dragging myself away from the computer at night.  I look at the clock and it's 10:30.  Next thing I know, it's 1:00 am!  I wish I knew what it was about myself that keeps me from going to bed at a decent hour.  

Well, if you are a night owl, like me, you might be thanking your lucky stars tonight!  Stay tuned!  

I just finished my latest product for TPT.  It's a packet of twelve Rigorous Primary Math Problem Solving Practice problems.   

Each of the problems is a real life situation and is illustrated to support problem solving process. They are perfect for discussion within small group instruction, especially if you use Guided Math/The Daily 5 in your classroom.   

Are you still with me, night owls?  I am so excited about this product and would like to get some feedback.  I will give a FREE copy to the first three people who leave a comment with feedback or how you would use this in your classroom.    Also, please leave your email address so I know where to send it!

The Time Has Come.

Fellow-Bloggers, the time has come.  It is time to shop for "Back to School".  The retailers know we are coming and have begun to put out all their cute stuff and new products to entice us to include them in our classrooms.  

Last year, I got a little behind on this time frame and missed out on some awesome bargains.  And, I still have not been able to find them!  One of these items was a bag of blank foam cubes at Dollar Tree.  I read about this item on a blog and thought, "I have all summer to get those".  WRONG!  When I finally decided to get them, they were nowhere to be found.  I must have visited 20 Dollar Trees and never found them.  So many times during the school year, I wished I had those foam cubes.  This will not happen this year.

I'm hoping we can help each other by scouting for any awesome "Back to School Shopping Finds", then linking up to share with us.  

Here are some guidelines:

1.  Blog about your shopping find or finds and be sure to include a
     picture(s) 
2.  Tell us where we can find the deals and in which state you
     were shopping.  
3.  Include the price and any other important details. 
4.  Link up with your blog post to the Back to School A+ Shopping
     Finds Linky Party. 

Here's an example:

In Texas, Sam's Club has these awesome education-themed rugs.  They are $19.96 and are 46" x 52.5".  The themes are the solar system, alphabet, world map, animal names, USA map, and counting 1-10.  I got the solar system rug!

Happy shopping and don't forget to link up!

Bloglovin' Giveaway Winner!

I feel so blessed to live in the United States!  I celebrate with you all today and join all Americans in thanking those whose sacrifice and service have kept our country free!

I will be celebrating at the Red, Hot and Blue Festival in our community.  I can't wait!

I am also excited to announce the winner of my Bloglovin' Giveaway.  The winner of a $20 TPT Gift Certificate and choice on one item from my TPT Store is fellow Houston Blogger, Juan G. from Teaching Third with Mr. G..  

Check out Juan's new blog design by my BFF, Megan at A Bird in Hand Designs.  Megan designed my blog, too!  In fact, her website has a new design, too!  She is one busy lady!

On a completely different topic, I cracked up when I saw the new Geico commercial yesterday.  

You see, I love owls…..I have a co-worker, Megan (mentioned above)…… and a husband that doesn't always listen to me.  So funny!

Enjoy your day!