A few of my favorite things..

Tis the season for favorite things.
Thought I would post some of my favorite things.
1. Freebies
So I have been really working on my Teacher Pay Teacher Store lately, trying to redo some of my older products and give them a fresh look as well as improve them.  My favorite doodle borders that I use to spice my products up are from Teacher Pay Teacher seller Krista Wallden These are free to use on your products.  Got to love a freebie!

2. Teacher Pay Teacher
While Im on the subject, love, love, love Teacher Pay Teacher and all the opportunities it has brought my way.  Not only has it brought in a new source of income for many sellers on the site including me (us teachers need that), it has also made me want to learn more about elementary curriculum, broaden my educational network, and provided me with a place to meet other educators like myself.  Can't say enough about Teacher Pay Teacher

3.  Banana Pudding Cupcakes
You can probably tell from my blog title that I am more than a librarian, Im also a baker.  I bake cakes and cupcakes for all kinds of events.  Love to bake for my staff and one of my principals favorite cupcakes that I make for the staff are Banana Pudding Cupcakes.  If you haven't tried them, you should.  The recipe I go by comes from Confessions of a Cookbook queen.
Here are some pics of the Banana cupcakes as well as others I made.

These are a few of my favorite things!

ThursDIY

Oh it's been so long!  I have been a busy bee like most of us teachers who are off for the summer.  Checking off all the long overdue projects we have saved for the break.
Cleaning out closets, cabinets, pantries and more!

Well I decided to start ThursDIY.  I am a sucker for a good DIY project so I thought each week I would feature one that I would like to try, one I've tried or just some thing I really like.

If you want me to feature one of your DIY projects, follow and comment below.  I prefer ones that are educationally related but am open to others.

So...
My first ThursDIY...
My sons classroom teacher wants chair pockets.  So what does a mother do?  Make chair pockets.  I purchased denim material, a little pricey but sturdy.
I will post pics when I finish.

There are a lot of REALLY great chair pocket tutorials and ideas but my fav is Pamela's at Classroom  DIY.  Here she has a printable PDF with easy to follow instructions!  Check her out!
Picks of my chair pockets to come!

It's A Blog Party!

Im linking up with Aspire to Inspire blog and sharing the neighborhood blog party!
Be sure to visit all the great blogs and link up.  Great way to meet new bloggers and share!

Teacher Appreciation

This week is Teacher Appreciation at my son's school so I thought I would share some of my Pinterest gift ideas I found.  I LOVE PINTEREST and all the cute ideas.
I hope they are Pin worthy pics :)

Love this idea, mason jar from Michaels and candy.

Got this cute container at the dollar store, put styrofoam in the bottom, pencils in the foam and yellow grass from the dollar store as well.  I purchased the flowers at Michaels for less than $2! and hot glues them on the pencil tips.

The containers were buy one, get one at Kirklands.  Filled them with lemonade and fruit punch drink powder, and tied a sign that said, "You quenched my thirst for knowledge"!

Please share some of your cute gifts you made or received.

My passion!

I am so excited to introduce my FIRST library lesson plans pack!  I teach media classes k-2 each day so I have been working on my orientation packet for back to school.
This packet last 5 weeks, meeting with a class once a week.
Includes my Library Manners posters as well as detailed lesson plans.
Be sure to pick it up at my TPT store!

WOOT WOOT!

So I did want to shout out that as I was scrolling down Facebook the other day, TeachersPayTeachers Facebook page featured one of my freebies!
I was so honored that they filtered through freebies and mine was one that was shared for Library Month.
It was my library scavenger hunt.  You can pick it up HERE!
Thanks TPT!!!!

Alliteration with Some Smug Slug

I love Spring when things are coming alive outside!
I started this week with reading Some Smug Slug and talking about all the critters we begin to see come to life in the Spring.
My second graders are working on Alliteration and what better book to show them then Some Smug Slug!
After reading the book we came up with our own alliteration using my anchor chart.  I got the idea off another website but could never find the original.  Mine isn't quite as artsy but the kids got the point.
You can find the whole unit on my TPT store.HERE

I created a retell paper for my kinders and firsties to draw what the story was about and retell in their own words.  They loved sharing their work!

Dr. Seuss Oh the Thinks you Can think

I wanted to follow up on my previous post and post the poster I made for the hallway with some of the students work.
I drew the "befts" myself and then posted the students work below it.  You can get the whole Dr. Seuss unit here.

The colors don't come out as pretty and clear but it looks Dr. Seussy!

Oh the Thinks Dr. Seuss Thought

In celebrating Dr. Seuss bday, YAY!  I read Oh the Thinks You Can Think by Dr. Seuss.
Love the book and what it makes you think.
My kids and I then brainstormed why a Beft turns left.

Had to prompt them first and give an example but then my kinders had fun thinking of reasons why they turn left.
Then I allowed them time to illustrate and write their answers.

They had so much fun.  The things those kiddos come up with are so cute!

For this and more Seussical fun check out my unit here with Seuss writing, math, and reading.

Happy Love Day with FREE FONT

I wanted to share my favorite Valentine's Book.  I am a media specialist so I read a book to each class and tie it in to some reading strategy each week.. This week with Kindergarten we focused more on print concepts and talking about the author and illustrator.  I LOVE SPLAT the Cat.

The kids really loved "Love, Splat" and it gave me a chance to ask some Bloom's higher level questions, like why did Splat's stomach rumble every time he saw kitten.  Some kids said because he was hungry lol.

Rob Scotton also has some free printable! http://www.harpercollinschildrens.com/harperchildrensImages/Printable/Splat_Activity[2].pdf

Love FREE STUFF so I printed the coloring page.

Here is one of my ks coloring!

Check out the Sticker on the Hand.  Love the power of a sticker with kindergarten!  They were a little chatty and loud so I pulled out the stickers, and magic!  They were back to soft whispers :)

And since I am in the mood for LOVE lol!  Here is a free font for you that has hearts on it.  I created this font for V Day.

Summers Spin

enter # 3871 when you click the link.

Hope you enjoy and HAPPY VALENTINES!

100th day

A couple of quick pics of the students working on a free 100th day printable I found at www.teachthechildnwell.com. The really got into coloring the dieffenbachia 100 tags.

After the children colored the pics, we counted all the different tags and added them up for 100.

How do they do it?

So I always wanted to know how all the creative lesson plan makers out there, make those cute, creative covers and printable.  After several months of searching, googling, trial and error, and talking to other creative teachers, I have decided to share what I have learned.  Everything I make, I make on powerpoint and then save as a picture or PDF.  I created a tutorial on TPT and TN to share with others who might be interested in making their own cute printables.  I don't have the money to spend on purchasing graphics, fonts, and frames.  Therefore, I make all my things in pp and save it to use in my products.  I hope this helps a lot of educators in creating and selling!

Linking with Love!

I'm joining Tessa at Tales from Outside the Classroom for her Linking Up with Love Linky.

She has the cutest blog with great ideas and what a great idea to throw a linky party right before the month of LOVE :)  So the party is about who you love, what you love, and the products you love.

Who I love?

Well other than Maksim Chmerkovskiy (what a name) from dancing with the stars....

LOL! Hahahahahaha  On a serious note, I love my two boys!

I also LOVE MYCUTEGRAPHICS.  That is where I get all my clipart including the one above!

I am a media specialist so I am exposed to so many children's books so I have to share the LOVE with two of my favorite books especially for this time of year.  I love:

He is just too cute! and his stories are adorable to.  The students really love them and get into them.  I can't seem to keep them in the library.

Another fav of mine is 

This story is sooooo sweet and the illustrations are adorable.  I love this book because it also shows students how character changed over time!  Here is a link to the packet I made to go along with the book and character change.

 And of course I can't leave out a Valentine's Day packet for that special day of LOVE.  And a shout out to TPT for all their LOVE!

So share the love and get on over to Tessa's Blog to show yours.

I love YouTube for learning!

Recently I shared with the teacher librarians in my county the YouTube videos I use to make teaching easier!  I was surprised the response I got from how many of the teacher librarians had never thought of looking on youtube for helpful links.  I want to share them here.  After Christmas break I wanted to spend time reviewing with the students behaviors and expectations.  I found two videos on YouTube that really touched on the most important expectations I wanted to review.  Hope you enjoy!
Teach my alligator library manners!
Sammy the shelf marker!

Confession

So just wanted to make a confession about my experience so far with Teacher Notebook versus TPT.  If you are trying to decide which one to use, I will tell you, I really like the lay out and look of TPT better.  I feel like it gets more traffic than Teacher Notebook as well.  It has an easier platform to upload your materials.  Teacher notebook wants you to upload your digital file and then you have an annoying box you must wait for and press ok before you can move any further.  Then you must upload a preview of the file.  Again, you have to wait for the upload to complete and press ok to the annoying box before you move on.  The annoying box is the one that says your file was uploaded successfully.  Once you have uploaded those files, then you must add an image file?  Yes, and wait for the box to pop up before you continue.  With Teacher Pay Teacher, you upload one file and it generates preview pics for you.  You do have the option to upload a preview image, but I LOVE the quick upload.  TPT also ask you to put one descriptive message about your product where TN wants Item Description and Social Network Description.  Ugghh.  So in short, at this time, I just feel like TPT is the better option over all.  The look and layout is easier to navigate and not as busy.  Well, there are my two cents, hope it help.  What are your experiences?

Freebie!

Made this real quick to assess my 2nd grade students on searching skills.  I needed something to see whether they really understand how to search for books or not.  We will see how it goes.  There are five different printables so that all the students are not searching in the same place.  Hope you can use this as well!

Click HERE to Link to the printable!