Five for Friday & Currently: March 8th- and a Birthday Sale!

I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for her Five for Friday Linky Party AND with Farley at Oh Boy 4th Grade for her March Currently!
First up is Five for Friday:

1.  I'm officially on my Spring Break, which includes my birthday tomorrow (the big 3-2)!  How nice of them to give me a week off for my birthday.

2.  Hubby and I are thinking about doing a cleanse to get us started off in a new, healthier direction for our eating and exercise (or lack there of).  Thoughts?  Any of you done a cleanse and have advice or recommendations?  What about the Insanity workout?  We are considering that, too.  OR I could just use the gym membership I paid for...just a thought.

3.  Exercise would also be good because exercise gives you endorphins.  And endorphins make you happy.  And happy people just don't kill their husbands.  (Or their students.  Ha.)  But seriously--I'm so thankful to have a week off, I can't even tell you HOW THANKFUL.  This year has been an interesting and stressful one thus far!

4.  My students just finished up a new unit I created this year on Fractured Fairy Tales, and I have been working to get it completed and uploaded to TpT, but it is taking me forever (what with all my spare time and all).  But seriously:  my kids LOVED the fairy tales, and especially the fractured versions SO MUCH.  At the end of the unit, each student wrote his/her own fractured fairy tale, and they were so cute!

5.  Did I mention Open House is over?  HOLLA.

Thanks, Farley, for hosting and creating another adorable CURRENTLY!

Do you watch The Mentalist?  It's very good.  Until tonight, I've only seen it on repeats.  There's a back story, but you can still pretty much follow what's happening if you tune in to a random episode.

God Bless SPRING BREAK.  Oh wait, have I already mentioned that in this post?

OK, so I can't actually AFFORD an iPad.  Those of you who have a Kindle Fire, what are your thoughts?  Is anyone familiar with both?  We use iPads at school, so I'm pretty familiar with that they can do.  I also have an iPhone, and I've got lots of apps already.  I have an old school Kindle that I like reading on.  I dunno.  I'm bad at decisions, and I don't like spending large amounts of money.  :)  I got a $150 Amazon gift card for my bday from my class (HELLO?  AMAZEBALLS!), so that would go a ways toward the Kindle Fire.

Shopping!  Tomorrow!  My lovely in-laws got me a Dillard's gift card (my fave), so I'm gonna go check out any sale stuff they may have!  YAY.  Also planning to look for a new comforter/duvet, because ours is just plain worn OUT.  We got it for our wedding, which was almost 5 years ago, and it's well loved.

I could really do with a long sleep.  A loooooooong one.  Baby boy is with the in-laws until Tuesday afternoon, so I plan to sleep in the next 2 days!

This was VERY hard with the letter G!
Like: glam sunglasses.  I have about 10 pairs (there'd be more if I didn't break them or lose them so much), and they're always $20 or less, and I like 'em glam.  The bigger, the better.  :)  I even have a pair with heart-shaped lenses that are outlined in fake tiny gems.   And a turquoise blue pair.  Yay!

Love: good days.  Like I said, the letter G was very difficult!  But you know:  those really good days that don't come very often?  Where you feel like your kids have really learned something, or you've solved a problem between friends or taught them a life lesson, etc?  I love those days.  I also love days where I get to spend time with my little guy and he snuggles me and gets the giggles!!

Hate: gossip that's intended to be hurtful.  I don't know why people do it.  Toxic people!  They need to go away.  Fun gossip is different--I'm all for that!




OK, finally--for my big birthday, my Teachers Pay Teachers Store will be 20% off tomorrow, Monday, March 11th, all day!

(Haven't learned how to make buttons yet; this is the best I could do!)

You may be interested in... (click each pic to view in my TpT store)

 

Engineering Station Pack: $1.60 after 20% discount

 

A Research Project Unit for ANY Topic:  $2.40 after 20% discount

 

Counting Coins to $1.00:  $1.20 after 20% discount

 

Place Value Numbers to 500:  $1.20 after 20% discount

 

Famous African Americans Research Project: $3.20 after 20% discount

 Have a fantabulous SPRING BREAK!!

Sale on Black History Research Pack!

Hey guys, I've been SUPER busy trying to prepare for Open House (this Thursday), so I'm really slacking on the blogging.

However, I wanted to let you know that I've put my Famous African Americans Research Pack on sale now that Black History Month has ended.

If you'd be interested in purchasing it for next year or for just anytime, I guess, then it will be 15% starting tomorrow, March 5th, through Friday, March 8th.

Here is the direct link to the product on my TpT store:
Black History Research Project with QR Codes

My students are all (but 2 who never finish anything) finished with the research part of their project and are totally taking off with their products to share their learning.  It is amazing to watch them be so self-driven about their learning!!  I wish every assignment were this engaging for them.  Sigh.  One lesson, one unit at a time is all we can do, right?

Many of them are making slide shows on Animoto, which is amazeballs and easy if you haven't tried it!

Here's one of their Animoto shows...this is his first draft--he has since made many improvements to punctuation, etc., but how awesome is it for an 8 year old??? His next task is adding some more specific details to his facts so we can learn even more about his famous American in history!



Several are writing and performing puppet shows, and others are making Power Point slide shows and using Apps like Educreations or Fotobabble to share their learning.

YAY for getting my 2nd graders excited about research and getting them working on something because they WANT to!  Yay self-motivation!

Hope you are all having a good week and are hanging in there until Spring Break--holla--my 32nd birthday (I told my kids today I was turning 25, LOL) is coming up on Monday, so I'm definitely going to host a big sale for the occasion in case anyone's looking to do some shopping over Spring Break, haha!

Thanks for stopping by my little blog, and I'll try to post something more interesting soon!

Update to Black History Month Research Unit!

Well, I originally wrote this research unit because our Native American research project crashed and burned, so it's only inevitable that I will continually be thinking of ways to keep THIS project from doing the same.

Hence, this new and improved unit!  I added several historical figures AND (my favorite part) QR codes that link to kid-safe websites for research.  I included 3 codes/websites for EACH person in the unit.

I've sold quite a few of these on TpT and am very excited that people think it's worth buying!  YAY!
If this is something you'd like, check it out at my TpT store or clicking on the images:

Famous African Americans-Research Project for Black History Month

Thanks for stopping by!  I'll try to be back soon for a more fun update!  :)

February(?!) Currently & TpT Sale!

How is it already February???  My little baby boy, who's not a baby anymore, turns two in May!  :(

But let's get to the good stuff.  It's time for Farley's Currently!  YAY.  So much fun every month to see what everyone's up to and meet some new peeps.

 

Anyone else watch Archer?  It's pretty offensive, which I find humorous, but it's definitely off-color enough to offend some people.  :)  If you like It's Always Sunny, Louis, etc., you'll like it.  (Don't watch it when your children are in the room, obviously!)  :)

I am loving the TpT app!  I am just starting out, so I've only sold about 15-20 products, so it is SUPER exciting to get the email or ding notifications after a new sale.  (Keep reading; TpT sale tomorrow!)

Well, I started this post last night, and my house is pretty clean now.  Don't get me wrong, it's not perfect (nor will it EVER be).   But it's definitely better.  :)

I want a vacation but I need to buck up!  Spring Break (and my birthday) aren't too far away, so I'm keeping it together.  Our job is one where you don't forget about work when you go home, and I have been lying awake at night many nights trying to figure out my kids and what I can do differently to help them.  At some point, though, I know there's only so much one person can do.

Insecure people are rarely fun to be around.  I want to tell them that NO ONE is paying THAT much attention to them because we are too busy thinking about ourselves.  I just don't get it.  

Mean people suck.  They are probably also insecure.

I hate slow drivers.  ARGH.  I don't go crazy fast, but when people go UNDER the speed limit, my blood gets to boiling.  :)  Yes, I do have some road rage issues.

Go link up with your own Currently over at Oh Boy 4th Grade!

Real quick, don't forget about the Super Sale over at Teachers Pay Teachers tomorrow!

Everything in my store will be 20% off tomorrow and Monday!  Don't forget to enter the code SUPER at checkout to get the extra discount from TpT!  Here are a few of my items you might be interested in this February:

 

Research Unit for Black History Month Using the Super 3

Somebunny Loves Place Value: Numbers to 500

 I also created Place Value units for Numbers to 100 and Numbers to 1,500:

Somebunny Loves Place Value: Numbers to 100

Somebunny Loves Place Value: Numbers to 1,500

 Somebunny Loves Money: Counting Coins to $1.00

 Happy Weekend!

Black History Month research project

Well, Friday, my team and I were discussing what the heck we were going to do for plans next month.  You know--that moment when you're looking through your state standards, your report card standards, and your district's scope and sequence...and you all realize that none of them aligns with the others?  Good times, folks.  Good times.

We used to do a small Famous Black Americans unit when I taught 3rd grade, but we haven't done too much on the subject beyond basics since I moved to 2nd.  BINGO, I thought.  So this weekend I made a unit for a research project.  LOL.  Um...I may have spent a biiiiiiit too much time on it.  But then again, I'm pretty new to creating my own lessons, at least to the point of making them like, cute. 

So anyway, I wanted to share in case anyone else is interested! 

A bit of a backtrack...my team had our kiddos do a research project on different Native American tribes earlier in the year...and it was awful.  Well.  OK.  It would have been better if they had EVER done research before.  Haha.  Well, we did spend some time before-hand teaching them about note-taking, but I think the biggest mistake we made was not providing structure for them to let them know exactly what we expected of them.  Hence, my unit using the Super 3 (Big 6?  Anyone?).  So yeah, apparently Primary teachers have adapted the Big 6 for their younger kiddos (praise glory be to the heavens), and it's called the Super 3.  You're welcome!  (That is, if this is new to you.  If you already knew all about this, then who do you think you are?  Do you want a cupcake or something?  Geez.)  But seriously.

Here's everything that's included in the unit:

 Our librarian media specialist looked over the unit and was excited to tell me that all of the historical figures except two (Zora Neale Hurston & Sidney Poitier) are included on the PebbleGo database.  Just in case any of your schools have a subscription!  We'll probably just not have them research those two so that all the students can use PebbleGo.  Just simpler that way.  :)  I'm also planning to have a few other websites for them to search, if I can find some good ones (ie., ones that don't talk about Sojourner Truth's sexual abuse...)  OY biography.com!

Here are some peeks:

OK, I've tried over and over again to upload another pic right here, but it just isn't happening.  It's the other page for Step 1: Plan It.  It's included in my free preview on TpT, though (see link below).

 I plan to use Martin Luther King, Jr. as an example of what good research notes should look like since we're spending all this week learning about him already.  Get this MLK, Jr. page in my free preview at TpT.  (Link below.)

Get this Step 3 page in my free preview file, as well.

If you think you may be interested, feel free to check out the free preview over at my Teachers Pay Teachers store.

YAY Research!  :D