Summer So Far

Last week marked halfway through summer “break.”  For me, I’m not sure “break” has been the word—more like “busy.”  Please accept my apology for lack of blogging and the ensuing list of excuses as to what I’ve been up to.

As soon as I packed up my classroom and finalized grades, I hit the road to help chaperone our youth group at church camp on Oak Island.  Caswell has been a longtime summer highlight for me; I always love making some summer memories with the teens that I’m so blessed to help lead at church year-round.  Caswell is an amazing place for strengthening friendships as well as that most important relationship with God, and I highly recommend that anyone involved in youth ministry check in out!

I plan to enroll in graduate school classes this fall, so when I got back from Caswell, I had less than a week to study for the GRE.  I quickly found myself regretting some of the “this is a piece of cake” pep talks I had given my own students only a month before.  I ended up with the scores I needed but not without reaching my limits of frustration and exhaustion.  Being on the taking side of a test again was an eye-opening experience for sure; I’ll take more pity on my students next end-of-grade testing season!

Next came Fourth of July week and we headed off to my parents’ vacation home at White Lake for a few days.  Our dog, Skittles, loves when we go to the lake because it’s the only time she gets a vacation.  She was even more excited this time because our friend Amy was both her backseat and bedtime companion.  My husband Brent, otherwise known as Olan Mills, did some Internet research and came away with some pretty cool fireworks photographs with his Canon digital SLR, even if I do have to admit this after making fun of him for a half hour straight.

The lake weekend began a three-week stretch in which Brent and I lived out of our suitcases and next we headed to Las Vegas.  The reason for the timing of the trip was that I attended the Teachers Pay Teachers Conference at the Venetian, where I learned so much about taking next steps on my TPT journey.  Teacher friends, stay tuned for some major changes from me to this end come fall.  However, the trip wasn’t all work and no play and we also had a great time with our friends Jeff and Janice who came with us for their first trip to Vegas.  We all enjoyed an amazing view from our 53rd floor hotel room at the Elara!  

We were home for less than a week after Vegas before heading to Florida with my sister and brother-in-law.  We visited Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure in Florida for the second time in three years.  Our love for Harry Potter sucked us in both times, but our love for these theme parks will keep us coming back!  We were very impressed by the new Diagon Alley section in the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.  The Gringotts ride is amazing and Universal outdid themselves with the Hogwarts Express.  It’s definitely worth a trip in itself If you’re a Harry Potter fan. (And who isn’t?)

In a completely unexpected turn of events, I also braved my first real roller coaster EVER when I decided to take on the Hulk.  Anyone who knows me knows this is shocking (I’m afraid of heights and my adrenaline threshold usually maxes out at about 20 mph).  I'm still not sure what got into me and I honestly wasn’t sure I could do it until it was halfway over and I acknowledged to Brent and Donnay that I was still conscious.  I wouldn’t say that I loved it, but I do think I could learn to love it.  I blame my friend Lisa and her daredevil kids who have been dragging me to theme parks and water parks the last few years and slowly testing my limits.

Over the weekend, my parents joined us and we enjoyed a relaxing couple of days by the amazing pool at the Parc Soleil in Orlando.  This was perhaps the first time I had stopped to breathe in weeks and this is when it occurred to me that summer was over halfway over.  While it’s been a whirlwind, I certainly can’t complain about summer so far. 

Now it’s on to next week’s adventure: Vacation Bible School!  I can truly say I’m super excited.  Anyone who thinks teachers prop their feet up all summer doesn’t know what makes a real teacher tick.  Can’t wait to see how much I can cram into these last four weeks! 

Make Your Masterpiece

It’s Week 3 of the TPT Seller Challenge and luckily it was a 1½ week challenge because I’m coming in at the last minute!  This week, the assignment was “Make Your Masterpiece” and I decided to add another FREE Novel Unit to my TPT Store.

I recently created a “blog button” (see sidebar to the right near the bottom) and chose a polka dot bow for the graphic.  One of my favorite things about my Novel Units, and the reason I started creating them for my own classroom originally, is that I wanted to have everything I needed to teach a novel WELL, covering as many standards as possible, tied up in one neat package.  While my free products aren’t bundled together due to the ten page limit for free items, you can still find everything you need to teach the novel following the links to each free product.

It’s no secret that I love Roald Dahl.  My Comprehension Packet for The BFG is my best selling product and I now have eight different Novel Units for Roald Dahl books available in my store (three of them are FREE).  The Twits was an easy choice for this challenge because I can easily exhibit everything my Novel Units encompass with any Roald Dahl book.  Dahl’s strong characters, plot twists, rich vocabulary and relatable humor have kept his books favorites in most every elementary school classroom since I was a child. 

A popular Roald Dahl quote reads, “If you have good thoughts they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.”  I didn’t realize until writing this Novel Unit that the quote comes from this book. (The Twits, p. 9)  That isn’t the only treasure found in this little novel, as Dahl snuck in several important life lessons amid the humor.  The theme is clear: the way you live your life will catch up with you in the end- good or bad.  It’s never too early to learn that lesson!

Make sure you snatch this freebie and while you’re there, check out my freebies for The Magic Finger and Esio Trot as well. 

Dare to Dream- Immeasurably More

It’s week two of the TPT Seller Challenge, and this week’s challenge is called “Dare to Dream.”  I will admit I laughed when I first read the title, as my thoughts on this cliché have become more cynical in my thirties than they were in my twenties.  It’s not that I don’t “dream” anymore, it’s just that I fully realize “my” dreams may or may not come true the way I envision them.  However, the good part is I also realize THAT’S OKAY! 

Last week, I attended church camp with the youth group from my church.  The theme for the week was “More” and it was based on Ephesians 3:20, “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us.”  I can’t help but see a connection between this week’s challenge and last week’s theme; for me, they go hand in hand.  Rather than choose a particular dream for my career, my personal life OR my spiritual life, I’d rather live day to day and put it in God’s hands, knowing that it’ll be immeasurably more than I can ask or imagine, as I let His power work through me.

While I do think it’s important to have goals and to visualize where hard work toward those goals can take you, for me it’s all about the journey.  One day at a time, one step at a time or in the case of TPT, one product at a time, one follower at a time.  I truly believe my personal quote on my TPT page that says, “To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived.  This is to have succeeded.” (Emerson)  I clearly remember what it was like to be drowning as a new teacher, and it thrills me that TPT can hopefully alleviate some of that for new teachers now.  I want to reach new teachers, as well as veteran teachers who are just looking for new ideas.  I’d also like to help colleagues get started with their own TPT business.  In short, I’d like to reach more teachers!

I also love the fact that more success on TPT means more resources for my own classroom.  Whether you’ve been teaching one year or ten years, there are never enough hours in the day to create everything you’d like to offer your students for optimal learning.  TPT is such a timesaver, and I like to think of it as a bartering system.  The money I make on TPT creating resources that I’m good at creating allows me to get resources that I’m not so good at creating.  Knowing that little people around the world are using the resources I create in their classrooms also makes me smile.

When I first started teaching, I struggled with the lack of genuine feedback about what I was doing in my classroom.  Administrators and colleagues are so busy with their own responsibilities that it’s hard for them to get a handle on what’s REALLY going on in individual classrooms.  I love the fact that TPT allows me to receive genuine feedback on products I’m using in my own classroom.  Being able to compare what worked well or didn’t work well for my customers to my own experience has taken my teaching to a whole new level!  For me, TPT means more feedback that helps me do my job better.

Let’s be real for a minute.  Everyone likes more income.  I’ve always scoffed at the fact that I work just as hard as my husband (or harder) (well for ten months a year anyway) and make a fraction of his salary.  TPT still hasn’t exactly leveled the playing field, but it makes me feel like it could one day if I keep up the hard work and the stars align.  I love that feeling of professional empowerment- that what I do IS valued and DOES matter to more than just the twenty-some kids I teach each year (not that it wouldn’t have been enough if it was only them). Most importantly, more income means more opportunities to do good for others.  Again, "to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived- this is to have succeeded."

With TPT, I really do feel that the possibilities are endless.  It’s been an amazing journey so far and I can only hope that there’s immeasurably more to come.  If you’re a teacher and you haven’t yet given it a try, either as a customer or as a seller, I’d love to tell you more!

A Book Report Makeover

Today I was going through posters I had my students make entitled, “Top 4 of 4^th.”  They highlighted four things they enjoyed about fourth grade, and I’ll hang them in the hall for Open House in August.  Most of the students illustrated topics like field trips, games they played at recess, or even talking to their friends at lunch.  But what really surprised me is that a couple of kids drew their book report they just completed for an end-of-year project.  Granted it was fresh on their minds but I was still surprised to see it made anyone’s Top 4 list.  Must not be half bad for a book report if I do say so myself!

One of my greatest missions as an upper elementary teacher is to get kids excited about reading QUALITY literature.  No offense to the wimpy kid and his diary, but sometimes I cringe at the difference in the average book I find in my fourth graders hands compared to the ones we read in elementary school.  One way that I encourage my students to read meaningful books is by requiring each of them to read and complete a book report on a Newbery Award winning book as their final project at the end of the year.  Then, we share these book reports the last week of school and it gives the kids some ideas for summer reading (hopefully).  

I signed up for a TPT Seller Challenge and the first challenge was to make over an existing product from your TPT store.  Since it had been on my mind today, I chose to make over my book report.  I love this product because it is Common Core aligned for third through fifth grade, so you can mix and match the pages that fit your students.  There is a page for EVERY Reading (literature) Common Core standard for each grade level.

For Makeover Madness, I updated the color on the cover and changed the title so that it could be used for any quality or award winning novel, not just a Newbery winner.  I had unnecessary headers and footers, so I nixed them and updated the fonts.  I also noticed this year that my students had trouble fitting their writing on some of the pages, so I enlarged the graphics to give them more room to write.  I'm so excited about my new and improved book report!

My Award Winning Book Report a great way to review the standards from the previous year at the beginning of the year, or it can serve as a capstone to review a year’s worth of standards.  And the best part is it’s on sale for 20% off (only $1.60) Tuesday through Friday this week!  Check it out…

ACC Math

In North Carolina, March means basketball.  Everyone has a “team.”   And if you’re a kid and you don’t have a team, you pretend to be a fan of your teacher’s team just so you can get in on the banter.  My coworkers and I spend the Friday of the ACC tournament doing ACC math, and the graph outside my room of favorite teams is always mounted on yellow paper and a little heavier on the Wake Forest tally than a general population survey would reflect. 

I’ve never been too good at encouraging holiday fun in my classroom.  That’s one reason I teach upper grades instead of primary grades (the older kids are a little more forgiving if you aren’t into crafts and glitter).  But if March Madness counts as a holiday, it’s hands-down my favorite.  I’ve always spearheaded the “ACC Math” push on my grade level the second week in March.  I have one coworker who isn’t from around here and she has yet to figure out what all the hysteria is about.  When I start pushing worksheets and activities with basketballs and brackets her way, she still looks at me like I’m a little bit crazy.

Maybe I am… But I’m betting some of you are too.  So for all of us who take March Madness both seriously and literally, I’ve got a new product in my TPT store.  I used actual player names and team statistics from the 2014-2015 basketball season, and I plan to update the document annually by March 1^st, so purchase now and be covered for ACC Tournament week year after year (this year it’s March 10^th-14^th). 

Start planning now because there are 60 math problems (4 for each of the 15 ACC teams) suited best for 4^th and 5^th graders in my ACC Math Task Cards.  Topics covered include multi-digit addition and subtraction, long division and multiplication (including multiplicative comparisons and multiples), measurement conversion, and rounding.  Recording sheet and answer keys are included.  

Happy March Madness and Go insert your favorite team here!!!                  (…if you don’t have one…pick fast if you live in NC!)

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Last night Brent asked what I was working on.  “A novel unit for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” I answered.  He said, “That was a book before it was a movie?”  I just looked at him, blankly.  Sometimes I forget the difference in regular street knowledge and teacher knowledge.  “Of course it was a book before it was a movie!” I answered, “Don’t you remember reading it as a kid?”  Brent shook his head so I checked the copyright on the book.  It was written in 1964, over a decade even before my older man was born.  “A classic!” I told him.

There’s something extra special about writing a novel unit for a book I loved as a kid.  I found myself rereading passages, both as I relived the way I pictured them 20 years ago and in awe of how exactly they planned the original movie to match the book (think Gene Wilder, not Johnny Depp).  This may very well be THE most fun children’s book to read and then watch the movie adaptation for—it’s just delightful the way the characters and setting were brought to life to life so accurately 40 years ago without the benefit of computer technology.

This novel unit finishes off a set of Roald Dahl units that I plan to use in my own classroom in April for a Roald Dahl author study.  I simply love Roald Dahl.  None of his books are necessarily my very favorite stand-alone children’s book, but he IS my favorite all-around children’s author.  He was a creative genius, plain and simple and his books are rich with inspiring and heart-warming themes. 

It’s always different to study a book as an adult than it was when I was younger, and this time I was struck by the fact that Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is about a whole lot more than Oompa-Loompas and chocolate rivers.  It’s about hope and a mind-blowing turn of events for a boy named Charlie Bucket whose life had seemed hopeless.  As Willy Wonka told Charlie in the last chapter,  “You mustn’t despair!  Nothing is impossible!” (p. 152)  Let this classic novel remind you…

(20% off in my TPT store through Saturday)