Five for Friday

I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday for the first time this week! If you want to join in, all you have to do is grab the button for your post, blog about 5 things from this week (anything goes!), and link up on her blog!

It's tough to believe it, but we're already 4 weeks into a new school year! After talking several times about how to set good goals for ourselves, this week my students set their goals for fifth grade. I was so impressed that they were able to use the guidelines I gave them to set SMART goals for themselves!

The adorable goal pennants came from Fifth in the Middle's TPT Store, if you want to grab a set for yourself. Today I was fortunate enough to have a wonderful parent come in to string them all on the ribbon and help hang them for me. I love this display!

Tuesday was NOT fun! We had an unannounced lockdown, which was really scary! Thankfully, it ended up being a false alarm, but we had zero info about why we were in lockdown until it was over, so it was a very long 20 minutes.

I know it's been blogged about before, but oh.em.gee I am in love with my new Frixion erasable pens! They write well, and they really do erase completely. I have a set of the marker pens on the way from Amazon. No more embarrassing mistakes scratched out on my graded papers! Fun fact- on the barrel of the highlighters, it says they erase by friction. Guess that's why they have that little rubber part instead of a normal eraser. 

I did the Daily 5 shoes lesson this week for finding "good fit" books, and my kids loved it! You could see their little confused faces when I first started pulling out shoes..."um, Mrs. Doyle, were supposed to be doing reading right now..." Then there were all the "ohhh"s when I got to the part about how shoes are a lot like books, and we have to choose the ones that fit us and serve the right purpose. It was great! Plus, added bonus, I earned cool points for my motorcycle boots, and three of the girls want to borrow my wedding shoes! 

On a personal note, I am one happy mama this week. My little guy (at 17 months) is finally calling me mama! After months and months of "dada," "bye bye," "please," and even "light" he has finally decided it's time to say "mama"!

BTS Sale Starts TODAY! - and a Giveaway!

I'm sure by now, many of you have already emptied out your shopping carts and saved a bundle at TpT's big Back to School sale today! If not, don't forget to head on over and save up to 28%! (promo code BTS13)

Just in time for the sale, I have a brand new product up that I am so excited about! After several requests for a dated weekly planner, I finally decided to create one. This is my Teacher's Weekly Calendar for school year 13/14, and runs August 2013-July 2014. (I will be creating a calendar year 2014 version also for those on a calendar year schedule instead of a traditional school year.)

With it's editable sections for each day, this calender is versatile enough to be used as a family/life planner or as a lesson planner! And it matches perfectly with my Colorful Quatrefoils Teacher Planner that I blogged about a couple of weeks ago.

There are two cover styles, one for an actual cover, and a divider for use in your Teacher Binder or Planner. Both styles are available in 5 colors. The cover page is editable for your name and year.

     

The interior pages have four sections for each day Monday-Friday. Saturday and Sunday split one column.  The headers on each section of the weekday pages are customizable to meet your needs. Some suggestions are included on the preview pages. Added bonus - when I added the editable fields, I created them so that you enter all 12 fields on the first page, but that's all! They automatically copy onto the rest of the pages for you!

Pin it to Win it!

If you'd like to snag a free copy of this planner, pin it to one of your Pinterest boards, and comment here with the Pinterest link. You can find my original pin HERE or create your own.

I'll use Random.org to choose 2 lucky winners tomorrow morning while my kiddos are at PE (9:40am central time). I'll post the winners in a new blog post so everyone has a chance to see!

On my wishlist

It's here! TPT's annual Back to School sale is this Sunday and Monday. I've been loading my wishlist all summer with fabulous products to buy once they all went on sale! In fact, it's gotten so big that I really can't shouldn't buy them all. But we all know I probably will anyway. What do teachers love more than shopping for our classrooms?

I'm linking up with some lovely ladies to share my top two wishlisted items and one item on my wishlist. Join us by linking up with some of your favorite TPT products! Without further ado, here are my top two...Click the pictures to check them out!

Turquoise Dots Teacher Toolbox Kit - this was actually my first product! It's been updated recently to add a page of small labels for those of you using the 39-drawer organizer instead of the 22-drawer. Although I have this product in over a dozen colors, this one is by far my best seller!

Teacher Binder in Chevron - (Although this was a close tie with the same product in the Turquoise Dots theme.) Lots of editable pages!

 

There are SO many things on my wishlist right now in my cart already that it's hard to choose just one, so I'm picking two. I'm really excited about implementing interactive notebooks in reading this year, since I loved them in math last year. I've been eyeing interactive notebooks by Nicole Shelby Lovin Lit, and I can't decide which one I like best, so I'm getting them both!

 Nicole Shelby's 5th Grade Reading Interactive Notebook

Lovin Lit's Interactive Reading Notebooks

 

So head over to TPT on Sunday or Monday to clear out your cart at up to 28% off! Don't forget to use promo code BTS13 to get the TPT discount on top of the seller discounts!



TpT's Back to School sale!

That's right, folks...it's that time again! TpT is having its annual Back to School sale Sunday and Monday, August 18-19, and everything is 10% off! On top of that, many sellers, including me, are offering additional discounts of their own, so you can save a ton on all those fabulous products you've been adding to your wish list all summer.

Everything in my store will be 10% off on top of the 10% that TpT is offering!

Click the link above to visit my store. Don't forget to use promo code BTS13 when you check out to get an additional 10% off from TpT!

Happy shopping, everyone! I know I'm headed over to clear out my wish list!

Tried It Tuesday - Saving YouTube videos

I'm linking up with Fourth Grade Flipper today for Tried It Tuesday with a tip for YouTube in the classroom!

I am so excited to share the YouTube solution I discovered in the Interactive Reading Notebooks from I'm Lovin' Lit's TPT Store! At my school, students can't access YouTube, but teachers can, so I've been able to show videos. The problem is always the ads that show up on the sides and sometimes pop right up on the videos! Sometimes they are SO inappropriate!

SaveTube.com is a site that allows you to save videos from YouTube directly to your computer, so you can play them when you don't have YouTube access! It's a little complicated, but I figured it out pretty easily.

FIRST, you have to make sure you have the latest version of Java installed, or it won't work. Download it here if you need it.

Next, copy the web address for the YouTube video you want.

Then, go to SaveTube.com. There are a lot of annoying ads, but just ignore them. All you need to do is paste your YouTube link into the box and click VID for a video file. (If you only want to save the sound, you can click MP3 to do that.)

On the next screen, choose which type of file you want. I chose MP4, and it worked fine. Then click save, choose where you want to save the file, and you're done!

In order to get them to school, I'm going to attach them to my lesson plans on planbook.com.

No more going home and praying that I won't get fired over the ad my kids saw after our Water Cycle video on YouTube!