I am soooo loving all of these giveaways right now...

One of my most favorite blogs to read lately is Kristin's from A Teeny Tiny Teacher. Her friend's daughter just got a job at a charter school that is ... are you ready for this... IN A MALL! Seriously. Read her posts on it. Hilarious. Also, she is a Big Brother fan and I loooove me some BB! Anyways, she is having her first giveaway. (($20 to Barnes and Noble)) Head over and enter! 

Another fav, Doodle Bugs Teaching is having a sticker giveaway! I am sticker crazy and love just about every single thing she makes. I just need my job back to I can start buying her stuff. In the meantime, I will just enter her contest, cross my fingers and hope I win! 

Winner! Winner! Winner!

First of all, a big THANK YOU to everyone who entered my first giveaway! It was a lot of fun and I can't wait to do another one. This contest has gone on long enough and I won't keep you waiting any longer friends. The winner is ..... 

::: drumroll :::

Congrats Ashley, at Just Reed! Email me at brittmale@gmail.com with your grade level and the name of the incentive pack you want. She is actually having a giveaway of her own, so I am heading over there now to enter myself tell her she won some Cootie Catchers! ;) 

Last Day to Enter my Giveaway!

Today is the last day to enter for the 3 Cootie Catcher resource books and an incentive pack from Creative Teaching Press. Click the "giveaway" sign to link to the original post! Good luck!

So much free stuff in Blogland!

Don't forget to enter my giveaway. It's my first ever and I will be honest, I think I set it to last too long. The suspense is killing me. I just wanted to give bloggers some time to come and find me and enter. I love these Cootie Catchers and can't wait to give them away! 

Click here to go directly to my giveaway post!

Denise, at Yearn to Learn is having a giveaway of her own. Now, I have to be honest. I have been stalking checking in on Denise for years... even before blogging days. A long time ago, I joined a yahoo group for 2nd grade teachers, and then we moved to Ning. Well let me tell you, that "club" is the best ever! We all shared so much and Denise was one of those teachers. She probably doesn't remember me because I was very "small time" but she had/has this incredible website that really helped me get through those first few years of teaching. One of the things I always loved were her Task Cards. And guess what?! She is giving them away to 3 lucky winners! Here's to hoping I'm the winner! 

Click here to go directly to her giveaway post!

And last, but definitely not least, Jodie at Fun in First is having a giveaway. She is celebrating 1000 followers (I cannot even imagine) and is giving one item from each of the following sellers to a lucky winner. Pick me! Pick me!

Click to enter!

Erica, at Erica Bohrer's First Grade, is having a Back to School Bonanza contest! Check out all the stuff she is giving to a lucky follower!

Click to Enter!

My Very First Giveaway

Okay. Okay. I am so excited about my giveaway!! I have been working on this one for awhile and now I can officially announce that it is being sponsored by....

Yay! I love EVERYTHING that they make and I am sure you do too. They are being super generous and offering their new and VERY POPULAR Cootie Catcher Resource Books and Classroom Incentives to one of my lucky followers! They recommend these books for grades 2-5, but after looking them over, I am sure some of our super bright kinders and firsties could use the 2nd grade Cootie Catchers too! The Classroom Incentives come in a pack of 30, in color, and pre-creased. The resource books cover language arts, math, and science in grades 2, 3, 4, and 5!! They are great for reviewing, your kiddos will LOVE them, and they are reproducible! Even if you aren't the winner, look into purchasing these books... with 20 games per book, it works out to $0.25 per game - what a deal?! 

So here it is.... 

So that's 3 Cootie Catcher Resource Books and one pack of Cootie Catcher Incentives! Can I enter my own contest?!

There are 5 ways to enter... 

1. Follow me.

2. Add my button to your blog.

3. Blog about my giveaway.

4. "Like" CTP on Facebook. 

5. Follow Tommie's Tools.

Leave one comment for each thing you do and I will pick one lucky winner on Friday, July 29th. 

A little reminiscing and an idea...

It seems like blogging has really exploded and I am really excited about that. My blogging experience started 2 years ago exactly when I began stalking Chris at Just a Girl. o.m.g. you guys. She is hilarious and very creative, not to mention, she's a teacher! Anyways, I kind of just made my blog at first to keep track of ideas I was finding from her and through her. Check her page out though - she is like super blogger! 

Then this past year, I found Deanna Jumps website which led me to her blog and then from there I found Cara Carroll's blog and now here I am! I have mentioned before that as of now, I do not have a job or a classroom for the coming school year and because of that money is obviously tight and this whole summer's mission has been to find FREE FUN. Well, bloggy friends I have that right here and am so thankful to have found you all! I don't know what we all did before finding each other. I wish someone would organize some massive meet-up for us! 

I am in the process of getting an awesome giveaway together. I am hoping to have a company that we all know and love sponsor it, so just sit tight. In the mean time, here's an idea to keep track of all of those giveways that are happening! I just have a table on Word and fill in the cells as I enter. I also make sure to hyperlink the names of who is having the giveway, so I can just click and check if I am the lucky winner. Here's a screenshot of what it looks like. 

Love you blog friends! You all are so amazing and inspiring!

Comprehension Strategies Bookmark and Mini Posters

I posted before that I feel like I have nothing to offer because my district is very strict with what we teach and how we teach it. It needs to be VERY closely related to our Language Arts adoption, SRA's Imagine It! (the new Open Court). Well a few of your responded saying that you actually are fellow Imagine It'ers! I was soo excited and I immediately started digging through some stuff. These are some bookmarks I made that have the comprehension strategies on them. I am sure they can apply to other teachers out there too. Also, I am attaching some mini posters I put on my whiteboard. 

Mini Posters!

Bookmarks!

Giveaways!

Kelli at Castles and Crayons already has 300 followers! Amazing because she has only been blogging for like 3 weeks!! I need to take some tips from this girl. I love her blog design and especially her button, not to mention I seem to have met my pink obsession twin! Head over to her blog and enter her giveaway. She has 3 super cute TpT products she is giving away to 3 lucky winners!

The always hilarious Mel D at Mrs. Dillard's First Grade (aka Seusstastic!) is having a 300 followers giveaway as well. She is giving away a very adorable Bucket Filler bucket to use in your class. Or if you aren't a bucket filler, she's got something else ready for you.

Denise at Sunny Days in Second Grade is hosting an amaaazing giveaway because she has reached 400 followers. She got 27 people to offer up one item of choice from their TpT store. Yes, please!

Desk Name Tag Template

One of the things that drives me crazy is buying desk name tags. They will come in packs of 30, well I have 33 so then I have to buy a-whole-nother pack. Or they will come in 20, so I buy 2 and that means that  I can only get 7 new students or make 7 mistakes when writing them out. It's all so exhausting and I am sure you know what I am talking about. So, to make my life easier... and hopefully yours too I found one I liked, did some tweaking, and put it into a PDF. Now, all I do is print exactly how many I need and aside from colored ink costs, it's free! I write the students' names in, back it onto some colored paper, laminate, and Taaa Daaaa... stressfree desk name tags! It will only cost you $3.00 once!

click on the name tag to buy your very own copy (2 to a page)!

I have included D'Nelian and cursive as well!

Blog Mixer Linky Party

Denise at Yearn to Learn is having a Blog Mixer Linky Party. As ridiculous as this sounds, sometimes I think linky parties are more fun than real life parties. So let the fun begin...

1. A blogger who is a “New Kid on the Block”

2. A blogger in my same grade:

3. A blogger in a different grade:

4. It’s all about the button. Find a cute blog button and post it:

Giveaways in Blogland!

Teaching Happily Ever After is having a HUUUUGE giveaway. $150 in Touchpoint Math materials. I looove Touchpoint Math so I had to get in on this one.

Mrs. Kacey from Doodle Bugs Teaching is having a super cute giveaway. She is giving one lucky winner a Personalized Portfolio! Aren't these the cutest?!

My Favorite Mac Tip EVER!

I commented this on my "How to Download Fonts on a Mac" post but just in case you missed it...

My favorite trick is screen shots. If you hold down "command+shift+4" it will give you a little crosshare that you can stretch around whatever you want to take a picture of on your screen. It then saves it to your desktop. It is so much faster than the PC "print screen". Try it! 

How to Download Fonts on a Mac

I have had some questions about how to download fonts on a Mac. Ohhhh how I remember the days of switching to a Mac. It can be very scary but I am a firm believer that once you go Mac, you will NEVER go back. Sometimes I am forced to, like at work but it's nice that I know how to use both. Anyways, I made this quick little font downloading tutorial that may interest some of you. 

Donna at Peace Love and Learning is giving a way a super cute Classroom Birthday Packet. Hurry over and get yours. I mean, how cute is this?! Love it.

My Favorite Fonts

Jenn from Finally in First is having a linky party for favorite fonts. I am one of those teachers that cringes at Times New Roman or (gasp) hand written worksheets. My coworkers know, if you give me something like that, it is instantly going to be retyped and turned "cutesy". Anyways... back to the linky party. Here's my favs! 

If you can't find any of these fonts, I am more than happy to share. Just leave me your email in a comment! I have been known to be a "font-pusher" at school. :)

Happy "Tea"cher Appreciation

With lots and lots of time on your hands comes lots and lots of organizing. I've been going through my files and cleaning them up and came across this "Tea"cher Appreciation gift we made and gave out this year. It was very inexpensive and the teachers really seemed to appreciate it. All you do is print and tape a bag of tea in the middle. I'm sure you can change it around and bit and make it a Back to School surprise for teachers, or let's be honest... it's never to late to celebrate teachers! Enjoy!

Classroom Behavior Stuff

Linking up with The Lesson Plan Diva for this one...



I'm sure most of you can relate, but I just have to say that I get sooooo excited when someone sees something on my blog and wants to use it or gives me a thumbs up for it. We all work so hard and I feel like Blogland gives us all a chance to make each other feel the love. Am I right? Okay so the number one thing I get requests for is my Ooops Behavior Log. I'm just going to go ahead and post everything I use for behavior purposes in my classroom and hopefully you can get some inspiration. If you are missing on font, or want some of the wording changed, just feel free to leave me a comment with your email. It's summer and sadly, I am still laid off so I have A LOT of time... 

Here is the behavior chart I laminate and hang. Just print them on to different colored paper.

This is the infamous Ooops Log! 

Here is the weekly behavior notice I send home to parents. It took me a long time to figure out a way that I wouldn't have to write in the date... Headers and Footers! Each student gets one page. For example, Student A's name would be on page one, twice. Student B's name would be on page two, twice. (Each kid is getting their own page... is this making sense? Geeez it's been a long day) So I have 25 students and they each get their own page. I change the header to week 1's dates and then the footer to week 2's dates and then print. It works for me bc I don't have to do ANY writing this way. All I do is color in the kids suns. Also, I send these home on Thursday and the kiddos bring them back Friday, when their homework is due. I had a lot of these get lost over the weekend. Which actually leads me to my next reason why I love this layout... if someone loses it, I just quickly print them a new page and color it in then and there. No copy machine trip.

A teaching friend found this contract online and I just did a little bit of moving around on it. (I wish I knew where it came from) For students that need a little more "attention" I use a daily behavior notice that I fill out several times throughout the day. I have only had to do this for about 4 students and it works well.

Here is the daily in a template you can edit. (no pictures)

And for all those amazing students that need a little note home...

Again, let me know if you want some changes or for me to email it to you so you can make your own changes!