Cyber Monday Blog Hop Stop #16

Primary Powers and GoNoodle have created the dynamic duo!  We are sharing all of our best ideas on using GoNoodle.  You have landed at hop stop #16.  You can also start from the beginning!  :)

We have used GoNoodle in so many ways in our classroom, but an idea I had this year was to use it after fire drills/tornado drills/lockdown drills.  Some of my first graders have a hard time readjusting after such an intense interruption.  Others have just gotten off task and have a difficult time settling down again.  Those situations can either be scary or exciting for students.  Therefore I turned on GoNoodle after these drills to give them a couple minutes to bring them back and help settle their hearts and minds.

Imagine going from this...curtains drawn, doors locked, students huddled in a corner...

...to turning on this!  Did you know GoNoodle offers calming and relaxing videos and exercises?  There are several options so that you can find something to best suit the needs of your students.

I watched this video again to get some screenshots and I wanted to fall asleep.  ;)  

These GoNoodle videos have done wonders for helping my students cope with the stress of different drills that go on during the school year.  Give them a try!  There are so many options with GoNoodle that help my students in SO many aspects.

Now that you have yet another idea on how to use GoNoodle in the classroom, let's move on to the swag!  Want a chance to win this FUN GoNoodle tumbler???  I drink out of these all the time at school. ;)  Enter through the Rafflecopter below!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

So what are you waiting for?  Keep hopping!  More great tips, free swag giveaways on each site, and a great last stop!  Your next stop is Ashley's blog at Flying High in First!

BOB BOOKS Giveaway!

Have you heard of BOB Books?  I first stumbled across them in a Scholastic book order.  Now I keep seeing the everywhere!  BOB Books offered to send me a set of books to try with my students.  I ordered Set 3, Word Families because I have some students who really struggle with vowel sounds.  I thought they might be good to use with those kiddos and may give them some additional support.

In this sweet little box is a set of 10 books.  8 books focus on different word families.

I started out with this book.  I love how they fit so perfectly in their hands.  They are so simple and I LOVE simple!  The font is just the right size and the simple pictures really helped him focus on the text while still having that picture support.

I noticed my student was having troubles every time he came across the word was, so I used some of my highlighting tape and placed some over the word each time in the book.  It really helped!

Each book has a list of words used on the last page.  It was helpful when I was trying to figure out which book to use with him.  He needs a lot of practice with short vowels, so this quick glance was perfect in helping me make my decision.  It also gives a list of sight words in the book, which I love as well.  You could also easily perform a running record with one of these books!  It even has the total number of words listed.  :)

The last 2 books are small activity books.  If you purchase these for your own child, they can write directly into the book.  I prefer to make copies so that I can use them year after year.  ;)

I was so in love with this set that I purchased the sight word set!  Each book has a few sight words that it focuses on, with the words listed at the front of the book.

Instead of activity books, the sight word set comes with a set of flash cards.  The words are printed on one side and are used in a sentence on the other side.  I'm a huge advocate of practicing sight words in context, so I was totally surprised and in love with this feature!  They are perforated so that you can easily tear them apart.

I honestly can't wait to get my hands on more BOB Books!  They are so perfect for RTI and my students love them!

How would you like to win a set???  BOB Books and I are teaming up to offer one lucky winner a set of books of their choice!  Enter through the Rafflecopter below!  In the meantime, check out the BOB Books website so that you can decide which set you want!  The winner will be announced on Wednesday, November 26th.  Good luck!!!!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Happy V-Day!

Don't hate me, but this really is my least favorite holiday.  BUT, being home with my family and ordering take-out really has made it a lovely evening.  I stayed at school until 5:40 working on stuff, so it was nice to come home and not have to cook.  ;)  Don't get me wrong, celebrating love is great, but I'm just not a fan of Hallmark holidays.  Well...that and all the sugar at school.  ;)

Just wanted to pop in a quick second and let you know that the winners were picked for the giveaway! Kelly Stahl was the winner of the lanyard, Angie was the winner of the necklace, and Amanda Nickerson was the winner of the Scentsy warmer/scent bars!  You ladies should have an e-mail from me.  Thanks for all who entered! :) :) :)

I want to encourage you to keep checking back because since I'm a consultant, this will NOT be the last Scentsy giveaway!  And just to get you excited, I'm going to do another giveaway for Teacher Appreciation Week in May!  :D

In the meantime, I've been working on my new Guided Reading Galore pack.  I have had SO many requests for the template, so I'm putting together a huge pack with all sorts of things you can use for guided reading.  But since this about YOU, is there anything in particular you're wanting included?  Anything you're specifically looking for to help with guided reading?  Let me know and I will try my hardest to add it!  :)

Thanks, friends!  Have a nice, long weekend!!!! :)

A Giveaway Just for YOU!

This is the time of the year that I typically get overwhelmed and just worn out.  There's not much of a break between Christmas and Spring Break.  And we are going on two years now without a single snow day.  Talk about depressing!

I have thought long and hard about what my very first giveaway would look like.  After a lot of pondering, I decided to treat YOU!  Not your students (directly).  Not your classroom (directly).  Instead, I came up with an idea to throw a sweet little giveaway that is a little something for you!

So what all is included?  

A rainbow rhinestone lanyard from Doliphine!  She has such a huge selection.  I ordered a gray one and brown one for myself!  A little sparkle can make any day better, in my opinion!  ;)

 I'm also giving away a necklace, complete with 3 (real) Swarovski crystal beaded balls handmade by me!  It's my newest hobby!  These tiny little beads are threaded and strung by hand.  It takes about 15 minutes for me to create one.  My first one took 2 hours!

And last but not least, since I'm a Scentsy consultant I thought I would give away ONE warmer and THREE Scentsy bars!  The new Spring/Summer catalog comes out March 1st for the public.  Instead of picking one out to give away, I decided it was way too hard to pick one, especially when I don't know what YOU will like!  That's why I'm letting you choose everything! :)  And let me just say, the new catalog has the BEST new warmers and scents!  I am SOOOO excited about it!  I have 2 Scentsy warmers in my classroom.  In case you don't know what Scentsy is, they are a line of wickless, flameless candles!  You put a couple of scented wax into the top of the warmer, turn it on (just like a lamp), and the warmth of the lightbulb melts the wax and gives off an amazing scent!  The wax gets hot, but it won't get hot enough to burn you.  In my demonstrations I always dip my fingers into the wax to show that it's completely safe.  ;)

CLICK HERE TO BROWSE THE NEW CATALOG TO PICK OUT YOUR WARMER AND SCENTS!

If you ask me, there's no way you can go wrong on winning any one of these!

So how do you enter?  Enter through the Rafflecopter below!  :)  The winners will be picked on VALENTINE'S DAY!  The giveaway will close on midnight Wednesday.  I will choose 3 winners (one for each prize) when I get home that evening!  :)  If you're chosen, I will send you an e-mail to get your mailing address to send you your goodies!  :)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Winner and A Great Book...

First of all, congratulations to Jen Jenkins Vukosic on winning Michelle's awesome Dental Health Craftivity!  Jen - you should have an e-mail already!  :)

A couple weeks ago I received this book in my Amazon order.

Let me just tell you, it has REALLY made me reflect a lot on my classroom.  I am SO excited about the things I'm learning.  I read just a few pages a night, which helps with trying to apply it.  Every single day, I think about what I read and implement some of the techniques she mentions.  For example, last night I read about how to respond when kids give silly answers to questions.  Today when some of my kiddos gave silly responses just to get attention and laughs from the class, I went with it.  Just like Debbie said, if you show them you're serious, they'll be serious as well!  It was pretty funny neat to see their faces just drop as I turned the tables on them.  ;)  Here's an example of the conversation we had:

Me: "What do you think might be something scary about moving to a new place?"

Class Clown Student:  "All the creepy, scary spiders!" (It wasn't a for real answer...he had a goofy grin on his face and started laughing...then the other kids STARTED to laugh, BUT....)

Me (without missing a beat or giving him a look): "What makes you think your new house would have spiders?  Why would that be something that would scare you?"

TOTAL change.  My kids just stopped.  And he tried to continue thinking, trying to justify his answer. This happened a couple of times throughout the day.  My normal reaction would've been to say something like, "Ok, it's not time to be silly," and then give them the death stare.  But usually they just keep cracking the jokes here and there.  You probably know that your class clowns will always be class clowns.  And for some reason, your stare-downs and "stop it" comments only seem to fuel the fire.  Oh sure, they might back off for a minute, but these students thrive off the negative attention sometimes.  So if you let them know you're serious and turn it around on them, you might just notice that it really does put an end to it!  And then they're roped into a serious discussion about books and therefore LEARNING!  Amazing how that works.  ;)

Anyways, I hope you all had a great Hump Day!  Only 2 days left before a long weekend!

P.S. Stay tuned for my first big solo giveaway!  I have some FUN plans for this, friends!!!!  Coming this weekend.... ;)  You won't want to miss it!

Product Swap: Dental Health + A Giveaway!

Hey there friends!  I'm super-pumped because I'm participating in my FIRST product swap!  I'm linking up with Jessica from Mrs. Stanford's Class for a fun linky!

I partnered up with Michelle from Just Wild About Teaching!  You MUST check out her blog!  She has some fantastic ideas and some oh-so-cutesy stuff!  She is one of my new favorite bloggers!

Since February is Dental Health Month, I decided to try out her Dental Health Craftivity!  And ohmygoodness...CUTENESS!

Inside, you'll find everything you need to make a cute Tooth Fairy craftivity for the kiddos to take home and leave their tooth in!  Then the Tooth Fairy can leave money.  ;)  Here's how it works!

Michelle includes all the patterns you need to cut out the pieces.  I used sparkly white felt for the teeth and then pink and blue felt for the wings.

These are all the pieces cut out to make a boy Tooth Fairy and a girl Tooth Fairy!  :)

Once I got everything glued on the front, it was SO CUTE!

On the back you glue a little pouch for the kiddos to put their teeth in in exchange for some money!

                         

How cute is that?!?!?!?

She also has pages GALORE to put together a booklet!  I made ones with blue covers for the boys and pink covers for the girls.

I have everything set, created, and ready to go for next month when we cover Dental Health!

Are you totally excited about her product?  Would you just LOVE a chance to win it?!?!  Well, here's your chance!  Enter the Rafflecopter below for a chance to win Michelle's Dental Health Craftivity Pack!

The giveaway well end Tuesday at midnight, so enter now!  :D  Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Who DOESN'T want a Nook Color???

I wish I had one!  But you actually have a better chance than I do.  :)  Wanna know why?  Because a bunch of us have teamed up to pull together ONE. AWESOME. GIVEAWAY!  And the grand prize? That's right.  A NOOK COLOR HD!!!!  What a cool Christmas present that could be for yourself!

It gets even better!  Even if you don't win the grand prize, you still have a shot at winning LOTS of free goodies donated from various bloggers!  I know I'm using tons of exclamation points, but I'm super-excited about this giveaway.  ;)  So how does one enter, you might ask?  Easy.  Head on over to www.tipsfortopteachers.com and enter through the Rafflecopter!  You can earn a total of 27 entries.  I'm done blabbing for now, because you need to get over there and enter!  :P  GOOD LUCK!!!!

I'm giving away a copy of my December Math Centers - CC Aligned!