Summer's End and What Did We Miss Linky

Have you heard the good news? TpT is having a second chance sale on the 20th! This is great because when the last sale hit I wasn't really ready to be thinking about back to school yet! But now the month has dwindled away and it's time for me to get ready for school again! I start inservice tomorrow, and the kids return the following week.

I have been CRAZY busy doing paperwork and making preparations for our adoption. It's amazing how many forms there are, and other steps that have to be taken just to get to the point where we're eligible to be matched! I've also been trying to wrap up the construction on our house...which means that I have not had the usual time to go up to the school and get ahead of the game by setting up my room before school starts. I have a feeling this first week will be full of long nights!

So check out my bought, wishlisted, and must have for the sale!

Diane from Fifth in the Middle has put together this great set of ELA centers to help out during Reader's Workshop throughout the year. The activities included cover skills like alphabetizing practice, determining synonyms and antonyms, parts of speech, and vocabulary. Each of the individual products included are perfect to help you plan out one of your centers for at least a week, and with 6 products currently included, that's a lot of help! The best part? Buy it now on the cheap and when Diane adds another product to it and raises the price...you'll be able to re-download it for free and get the new pack!

Coming up with meaningful morning work can be such a struggle. But it doesn't have to be! Why struggle when someone else has done all the work for you?! This pack from Pinkadots Elementary covers a ton of those English Language Arts grammar and usage type skills that sometimes kids just need to practice a bunch to get a firm grip on them. You know, stuff like "Its and It's" and comma usage. I really like how the Friday page is an assessment for the week! I think it's crazy not to grab this up while the sale is going on...a year's worth of leveled ELA morning work at what comes out to under 70 cents a week? Yes, please! My time saved is worth way more than that!

In addition to the rest of my store, I decided to go ahead and put all of my bundles on sale 20% as well! I'm really starting to feel the crunch from all the adoption fees... so maybe I can help you, and you can help me! This would be a great time to grab up my Back to School Bundle! It has six of my most popular back to school products included. During the sale it will be just $9! That's the cheapest these products will ever be! That's kind of like buy 2 get 4 free!

This would also be a great time to grab up two of my most popular Monster Math Battle Tournaments bundled together! The multiplication and division tournaments can be mixed together to have one big tournament! During the sale you could grab the bundle for $5.76! That's almost buy one get one free!

My whole store will be on sale for 20% off, and don't forget to put in your promo code to get your extra savings! I've got a lot of other great products that you could grab for cheap! People seem to love my novel units and my math games, and this is a great time to save on those. So, please check out my store!

Five for Friday - Sore muscles, a big sale, and a giveaway!

After a LONG week of basement and bathroom remodeling, I'm exhausted! But I'm still taking a moment before I collapse from exhaustion to chime in for Five for Friday by Doodle Bugs Teaching!

1.

It's hard to believe that it's already Back to School time! I'm excited to be seeing some of my old 3rd grade kiddos as my new 4th graders! It should really help with all of that beginning of the year rules and expectation setting stuff. Only half the kids need to be caught up to speed! I am lucky that I still have a couple weeks until the kids come back. I have a LOT to do! I've got to finish this remodel AND get ready for the new year! 

The basement is almost totally drywalled! I now have more tools than Home Depot. And the bathroom is...unusable so far! I'm hoping to wrap up most of the work by this weekend!

2.

The best part about Back to School time is that this is the perfect time to fill your online shopping cart and save a bundle of money! That's right, the TpT Back to School Sale is happening next Monday, August 4th and Tuesday the 5th. 

Everything in my store will be marked 20% off! Then, use the code BTS14 to get an ADDITIONAL 10% off! 

3.

Need some ideas of what to buy? Here are the two most wishlisted items in my store:

My Wonder Novel Study Unit is 174 pages long! If you haven't read this book yet then you're doing yourself a serious disservice! Be sure to check out my unit for the companion novel/sequel The Julian Chapter too!

One of my favorite products is my second most wishlisted! The Book of Awesome Tasks is a half-page book that you can make for your kids. Test their creativity and make them do a little work without them realizing it! My kids love the book, especially during rainy indoor recess days! 

And I hope you'll peruse the rest of my store too. I have a lot of dollar items that'll be a steal during the sale, over 20 freebies up for download all the time, and a ton of other great things, all in the 3-5 buck range...super cheap during the sale! All of the money I make in my store goes to a really great cause! I'll be sharing more about that later!

4.

Of course, I'm not going to miss my chance to grab up some things. One thing I'm especially looking forward to is the 4th Grade Math Bundle from Jessica Scott's TpT store. You might know Jessica from her blog, I {heart} Recess!

I'll be teaching 4th grade math for the first time this year (I taught 3rd last year) and I need all the help I can get! This set currently includes 5 products, but if you buy it now at the cheaper price you can re-download it later when the 6th product is added!

Check out some other products you might like to buy!

An InLinkz Link-up

5.

Now that you've seen some cool stuff to buy, here's a chance to get a gift card to help you get those things!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Final Two for Tuesday is a great one!

It's the last Two for Tuesday of the summer! Here's your chance to grab two of my products for 50% off for the rest of today!

First up is my Biography Writing Project. Grab that up for a measly $2.50! Check it out here: 

Next up is one of my all time favorite products! This is the Division version of my Monster Math Battles! Grab the whole tournament today for just $2.50! That's a steal!

So skip your latte for a day, and you'll have two great products for the rest of your career!

Five for Fourth of July!

Happy Fourth of July! 

I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday!

1.

This is what our 4th Fest looks like...

How do you all celebrate the 4th? I know a lot of people get really into going to a huge fireworks display, or have a picnic or BBQ...but Killer B and I have always been a bit more laid back. We usually buy a few rockets and roman candles to set off for our dogs to watch, and that's about it! Woohoo!

Seriously though, we're almost always visiting family in Atlanta around this time of year, so it's hard to do too much.

It's kind of a bummer that this holiday is in the summer. It'd be a lot of fun to celebrate it with the kids at school. There are so many cool things you could do with them too! 

2.

Don't forget to stop by and enter this giveaway! Today's the last day to enter! There are lots of great prizes to be won!

3.

I'm sharing my favorite font of all time today! It's one I made a while back for the express purpose of using only a little ink. I make a lot of my bigger TpT files using this font. It's called Nick's Typewriter because it's my handwriting in typewriter style letters. Grab it up for free! 

4.

Not at all related to the Fourth of July, but I'm getting excited about the Institute on Academic Differentiation I'll be attending in a couple of weeks at the University of Virginia! The leader of the institute is Carol Ann Tomlinson. The workshops are all about things like flexible grouping, mindset, close reading, teaching up for complexity, etc. The institute is offered at two levels, and I'm excited to be going to the more advanced version because I hopefully won't have to worry about any of the workshops being too introductory. 

Monticello is right next door! I'm looking forward to
marking this site off of my must-see list!

Spending a week away from my lovely wife, while doing teachery things in the summer is sure to be a challenge...but luckily I'll have some good company! My principal and another teacher from my team are going with me! They're both cool, so I'm sure dinners and after workshop activities will be fun too. This is one of the few times that being a male teacher in elementary pays off by the way...can you say "hotel room to myself?" I can! I can finally snore all I want without Killer B punching me in my sleep!

Hopefully if the jealousy I have of all my BBBs who are going to the TpT Conference in Vegas hasn't worn off by then, this'll help.

5.

Just for fun I thought I'd put some of the patriotic products in my TpT store on sale for Independence Day! Actually they're on sale all weekend. I also put all of my Kaboom math games on sale too, because you know... kaboom... like fireworks!

So grab some stuff at 20% off and let's help stimulate the American economy together! ;)

Here's a few of my favorites that are on sale:

The full list of all 10 on sale items can be seen here:

My BBB Emily over at I Love My Classroom is also having a sale!

Enjoy your weekend!

Vacation time, 150th post, and three $1 deals!

The Sapelo Island lighhouse!

So, we've made it down for our annual trip to GA - just a 13 hour drive - and I have finally recovered from the driving part! Aside from visiting family, we'll also be spending a few days in Savannah and a few days on Sapelo Island. I'm excited to go to Sapelo, because it's one of those places off the coast of GA where there are no street lights, no businesses really, it's not a tourist destination, and you have to take a ferry to get to it!

So in honor of my vacation, the end of the month, and this being my 150th post I've decided to put three of my products up as dollar deals for the rest of the month! Summer is a great time to create, so hopefully these will help with that! The sale ends at the stroke of midnight on July 1st, so grab them while you can! Just $1 each! Get all three and save $5!

       

 I'll be chiming in again soon with another Back from the Archive post! See you then!

Five for Pi Day!

I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for another Five for Friday! It's been an exciting week! But it's not over yet, there's a lot still going on, so check it all out!

I'm joining in with some of my BBBs and throwing a special Pi Day Sale! That's 20% off all of the math products in my store. That makes some of them cost a mere 80 cents! This is a great time to grab up some projects or games!

My big celebration ends tonight at midnight EST!

Head on over to this post to enter for your chance to win one of the four prize packs! 

So I was looking around instagram the other day (do you follow me? My username is reitz2001) and I saw a great idea from a fellow PA Blogger, Autumn (user firstgradetchrlady on instagram) from the blog First Grade Teacher Lady. She had taken the free Red Apple Teacher calendar from Scholastic and turned it into a cool banner. Well, I happened to have the same calender from a recent book order taking up space on my counter. I knew I'd never hang up or use the calendar as an actual calendar...so I turned it into a banner like Autumn's and hung it up in my classroom library! I think it turned out great!

Cool, right?!

This week I introduced a new feature on my blog! Each week I'll be posting a new time-saving, efficiency-bringing lifehack! I'll be keeping them all in one handy spot, which is accessible from my new tab bar at the top of the page! Stop by each week to pick up a new tip!

Another cool feature that I'm bringing back from the dead for a brand new life is Tunes Tuesday! Now each month will have a new theme! The first link-up will be next Tuesday, March 18th! The topic is science! I hope you'll link up a post showing how you use music to teach Science!

In other news, we've got a lot going on at school right now!

In writing we're working on poetry. We study many of the different types of poetry, and of course we have to cover Haiku! I've already read Dogku and If Not For the Cat. So this past week we read Haiku Hike (written by kids!) and Guyku (which should really just be called Kidku!) 

Our Mentor Sentence this past week came from Thundercake, and we just finished reading a kid favorite, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane. 


Our newest read-aloud is a book that is new to me, but is really entertaining. It's being called a mix of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and A Night at the Museum. So far the kids are really into it and it is a perfect read-aloud to discuss foreshadowing!

In math we're doing a bunch of review before our big state tests. I don't believe in doing a lot of "test prep," so for me reviewing for the test is business as usual...math workshop with a bunch of math games, task cards, a good project to work on, etc. is enough prep for me!

One of the things kids really need to work with a lot are word problems. 

These task cards have the kids solving multiplication and division problems. But there's a twist! Each word problem has too much information! The kids really have to read the problem carefully to determine which operation is needed and which numbers they need to use!  I put them here in my store! (Remember the Pi Day Sale!)  Placing the cards all around the room and letting kids wander and solve them is a perfect way to do a "worksheet that's not a worksheet!"

Whew! That was a lot! I'm looking forward to the weekend!