What's in your cart????? A linky party!

I am excited to announce (as I'm sure many of you are as well) That Teachers pay Teachers  is having a huge back to school sale!

TPT is offering 10% off everything, and many sellers (including me) are offering an additional 20% off. Which, due to math or something, somehow equal 28%

Make sure that you use the discount code BTS12 to get the discount!

Check out I love First Grade's blog to see a gigantic list of sellers who are participating in the sale!

I thought it might be fun to do a what's in your cart linky party to share what we plan on buying during the sale. I know my cart is full ( and my wish list is even fuller) waiting for the sale!

If you want to link up grab the button and share what's in your cart!

Here are the rules!

1. Choose 3 or 4 items from your cart you plan on buying during the sale. 

2. Share a quick review of the product, why you are buying and what you plan on using it for.

3. Provide a link so the reader can find the item you are reviewing. 

4. Use the button and link back to my blog

5. Add the link to your post below.

First up is the math daily 3

This is similar to the daily 5 structure for reading. There's math by myself, math with others and math with the teacher. I can't wait to finally have a way to organize my math time that doesn't include me running around like a crazy person trying to help everyone. 

You can check it out  by clicking here

Next is the kids of character pack

There is a character trait for every week of the school year as well as a journal. I am excited to use this pack to structure my class meetings. I plan to discuss a trait each week and have the students give examples of when they have seen this trait being exhibited by others.

Click here to check it out

Finally I am super excited about this pack! It's a unit to teach greek mythology. I taught greek myths two years ago and the kids were absolutely crazy about it. This gives me more resources, and the clip art is killing me with it's cuteness. 

Click here to check it out.

So that's what's in my cart! (Well some of it) What's in yours? Link up until August 13th when the sale ends!

Of course I would love for you to check out my items which will be on sale as well. 

Here's a preview of what I've got in my store!

Click the button to go to my shop

Organizing the classroom library and a newbie blog hop.

So I went into my classroom today to start checking things off the list. Today's agenda was the library.

Let me tell you, my classroom library was a mess! I took all the books off the shelves in order to re-organize them. Here's what I was working with.

I have a ton of books, and last year I didn't have a very good organization system. Most of the books were labeled with stickers, but I got a lot more books through books fairs and donations, and in my rush I just put them in the library without putting stickers on them. 

Of course the kids didn't know where to put these books without stickers so they just put them in any 'ol box, and led to kids not putting any of the books back properly, and suddenly my library was a disaster. 

Anyway, my goal this year is to have the most organized library I can. That means EVERY book will have a sticker. I will not put any new books in the library without a sticker. 

So Here's the final product!

Fiction on the left and non-fiction and the right. I wish I had enough boxes to be match-matchy but I don't, one day.

Here's an up close picture of the books without a bin in the first picture. Many of the books in my classroom were mine as a kid. I was OBSESSED with this series when I was young. Many of the books have my name signed in them in my little kid handwriting, and the kids love that. Any information that gives them a glimpse about what I was like as a kid is fascinating to them. 

Here's a fun fact. When I was about 13 this series ended and I had pretty much outgrown them. I boxed them all up and put them in the basement. I told my mom I was going to save them for when I became a teacher someday. I love that it actually happened :-) 

Here's the rest of the books. These are mostly fiction. Once again wishing I had matching book boxes. 

Here's the backside of that shelf. 

So I still have to finish labeling all of the book boxes. I use the library labels from lakeshore, but they don't have a category for everything I need so I've got to make some of my own. 

So I did not come up with this idea. I saw it on another bloggers site. However I can't for the life of my remember who it was. If it's you, or if you know who it is please let me know so I can give credit. 

Her idea was to give the kids a little arrow to place on the book boxes when they check out a book. That way you can see at a glance who has a book out. I downloaded the arrows from her and wrote up that little sign. 

Here's how it will look when the students check out a book. 

So whoever you are thanks for giving me this idea! I'm think it's really going to help keep the library organized and prevent the kiddos from sticking the books in their cubbies and forgetting about them. 

Okay So I'm linking this up to the newbie blog hop over at Third Grade is the Place for Me. Go check it out if you want to join in! I've been blogging for just over a month so I definitely have a lot to learn. 

1.  what state you are in

2.  when you started blogging

3.  your current teaching position

4.  your teaching experience

5.  share a blogging tip / blogging resource

1. I'm in California! West Hollywood to be exact.

2. I started blogging at the beginning of June

3. I currently teach 2nd grade. I teach on a loop though so next year I will teach third and then go back to second. 

4. I graduated from my teaching program in 2009, and got my first job the following fall. It was a intern position and I taught a literacy block in first grade. A second grade position opened up the next year and they gave it to me! Yay! I completed my first loop and I'm excited to go back to second. 

5. Here's my tip- Join the linky parties that interest you. You don't need to try and do them all, but they are a fun way to get your name out there and find new blogs.

Monday Made it and a Freebie for you!

So here I am again linking up with Tara at 4th Grade Frolics for another edition of Made it Monday.

Loving this by the way. It's been giving me the added inspiration to create!

This week I was inspired by this pin found here at Suesstastic Classroom Inspirations.

I loved her coupon idea, but wanted something a little more relevant to my classroom, so I made my own!

Click here to Grab off Google Docs

You can use these a variety of ways in the classroom and they work well with any type of other classroom management system you might already have in place. This year I used an economy system, and when students would earn a required amount of money they could choose a coupon. You could also use them with the clip chart for students who earn top of the chart. 

Now I am a baby blogger, this being my second week in blogville and all. I had no clue how to make this kind of thing in power point, but with A LOT of trial and error, I was able to complete this and share it all with you. I'm pretty proud of myself.

Anyway, if anyone out there in blogville finds this useful, please feel free to take them and use them in your classroom. I just ask that if you do, you follow me, and leave me a comment.

Also, I've been thinking about having a giveaway to celebrate my one-month blogging anniversary. I was thinking about giving away a custom set of coupons. Let me know if you'd be interested!

Summer Reading Linky Party!

I'm joining up with the clutter free classroom for her linky party on summer reading.

The Clutter Free Classroom

When I was a kid I was the one you would see running into a pole because I was reading while walking. I still love to read. However, books kind of take a back seat during the school year.

I use the summer as an opportunity to read as much as I can both professional teaching books, and just for fun reading.

These are the books I read last summer that I found helpful, or inspiring in some way.






See me after class offered practical advice and was a very quick read. The cornerstone was incredibly helpful in setting up classroom routines and procedures, and the book whisper changed my life. It validated everything I had always know about teaching reading as well as gave me some new and innovative ideas for inspiring a love of reading in my students.

This summer I want to read

I'm going to join the upper elementary book club over at We Read, We Blog, We Teach for the daily five and cafe. I have wanted to implement this system since my student teaching when my mentor teacher used it. However my attempts at the style have proven unsuccessful so far. I can't wait to dive into it with other teachers and be able to implement it fully into my classroom next year.

As for summer fun reading I love memoirs. Something about reading about others struggles and how they overcame them inspire me. I just finished 

It's the story of Carolyn Jessop a woman born into the polygamist FLDS church in colorado city. It details    her life being married to a high ranking member of the church as well as her eventual escape with her 8 children. 

I have no idea what I'm going to read next, I'm probably going to download a bunch of samples on my kindle and choose that way!