Mentor Sentence Freebie for The Name Jar

I made this week of mentor sentence materials for The Name Jar to use in my 4th grade class last year. It's a great book to use at the beginning of the year, and this is a great freebie to give you a chance to see if mentor sentences are right for you and your kids! Click the image on the right to grab the freebie. Enjoy! 

One journey ends and a greater one begins.

So, as many of my readers know, the whole reason I started putting my teaching materials on TpT in the first place was in an effort to make a little money to help with the adoption journey my wife and I have been on.

After years of saving and waiting and worrying...I'm happy to announce that our beautiful daughter, Amelia Erin came into the world on July 6th! AND the papers have been signed and the court hearing has happened, so she is finally ours as legally as she has been ours in our hearts for months now!

It has been one of the most stressful things I've endured in my life, and I can't even begin to express how thankful I am that this part of our journey is coming to an end. 

We set out for St. Louis, MO on July 4th in preparation for the birthmother's induction on the 6th. We were really lucky to be matched with a great set of birth parents that made this decision out of love, and did more than they had to to make her birthday special for us. We were even allowed to be in the delivery room for her birth! After she was cleaned up the hospital provided us with a post partum room and we were able to spend the two nights she stayed in the hospital with her in our room. 

After that we had to wait patiently for our court hearing. We were kind of led astray in our understanding of how long the whole process took, and were really disappointed to learn that our court date wasn't happening until July 15th. So, we sat around in our hotel room for DAYS waiting on our hearing (which took 15 minutes and happened 2 hours late!!!) But eventually the hearing happened and everything worked out!

EXCEPT for the fact that there is this crazy law in place that requires an Interstate Agreement to occur between my home state of PA and MO before our baby is allowed to leave the state of her birth to go home. That paperwork can't be sent off until after the hearing. They have told me that it is going to be at least NEXT Wednesday or Thursday before we get the okay to leave the state with our baby. I've already been here for 13 days, and I have at least another 6 to go. Sigh!

To make matters crazier, my wife really needed to return to PA to go back to work, get our dogs out of boarding (to save us the money, especially now that we have over a week more of hotel bills! Aargh), and was actually called to interview for a better job. So she left about an hour after the hearing to return to PA, leaving me and the baby here in St. Louis until we get the go ahead to leave. As soon as I do, we'll be catching the next flight home! 

In the meantime I'm going a little bit stir crazy here in the hotel room. This should be the perfect time for me to catch up on blogging, put the finishing touches on the 8 different products I have in the works, and start planning for the new school year...except I am so tired! With the normal waking up to feed and change Amelia plus the 3 times I'm waking up each night just to make sure she's still breathing...I'm getting about an hour or two of sleep at a time between 1am and 8am. It'll be nice to get on a sharing system with my wife when I get home!

I'm also definitely stressing out a bit about raising a newborn alone in a hotel room in a strange city with no transportation! Aagh! Luckily I've had the support of my blogging buddies who have given me a little parenting advice and support, AND were kind enough to even send me a surprise dinner today! The hotel has breakfast luckily, but dinners have been interesting. Haha. Luckily, little Amelia has been a great baby so far and hasn't been causing too much trouble. I do wish babies came with built in gauges. A temperature gauge, an energy gauge, a diaper gauge, and a sleep gauge would all be really handy right about now...

Either way, despite the challenges of the journey getting here...I've never been happier in all my life. Every day I've had with Amelia so far has been the biggest blessing in my life, and I can't wait for all the rest to come. 

A little self promotion!

So...I'm not a fan of these kinds of posts usually...but this post is going to be totally self-promotional. But as a good friend recently reminded me, "There's nothing wrong with letting people know what you have to offer. How else will they know about it?" So I'm going to take a moment to show off some of the new products I've made...but it's for a good reason...

As many of you know, my wife and I have been in the process of adopting our first child. It has turned out to be EXPENSIVE! We've accumulated about $18,000 in debt, drained our savings, and still have more expenses coming...

Now it is kind of hard to believe that we are just 14 days away from the birth of our baby girl! We are beyond excited.

The only reason we've been able to even consider the possibility of adoption is because of the support of purchasers from my TpT store. Every single cent I've made in my store has gone towards our adoption expenses. I have always believed in sharing the hard work I do when I make these products for my own class. I hope you'll find something you like in my store and consider spending a little to help yourself and to help us in the process!

I'm not going to overwhelm you with a detailed explanation of each of the products or a bunch of pictures, but I do want to show off my latest creations! I've included a link to the products below at the bottom of this post...so if one seems interesting to you, I hope you'll go check it out in detail! And thanks for helping me get through this final push of adoption expenses!

Building Catapults Inquiry

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Building-Catapults-Learn-about-Levers-through-Inquiry-1814721

Kaboom! Multiply a Fraction by a Whole Number

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Kaboom-Multiply-a-Fraction-by-a-Whole-Number-1795329 

Ninja vs. Samurai Math Battles - Addition and Subtraction of Mixed Numbers with Regrouping

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Ninja-vs-Samurai-Math-Battles-Add-and-Sub-of-Mixed-Numbers-with-Regrouping-1784859 

Variable Equations Word Problems Task Cards

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Variable-Equations-Word-Problem-Task-Cards-1781202 

Dream Home/Tiny Home Project Based Learning Project

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Dream-Home-and-Tiny-Home-Project-Based-Learning-Project-1768197 

Mentor Sentences Pack 1 - Five Weeks (Pack 2 and 3 coming soon!)

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Mentor-Sentences-Five-Weeks-1716188 

Word Work Games Bundle

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Word-Work-Games-Bundles-1713223 

Multiplication Fact Fluency Bump

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Multiplication-Fact-Fluency-Bump-1713198 

Monster Math Battles Freebie!

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Monster-Math-Battles-Freebie-1707062 

Protractor Practice Task Cards

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Protractor-Practice-Task-Cards-Measuring-Angles-1694521 

Planet Research Brochure Activity

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Planet-Research-Brochure-Informational-Writing-and-Astronomy-1661737 

Most of the people who purchase things from me probably aren't even aware of the blessing they're bestowing on my wife and I, and I'd never be able to thank them all...but if you're reading this then at least I can thank you! So, thanks so much for your support! 

Nursery Reveal!

So...I promised I'd return with an update about our nursery for those that are interested.

This is one side of the room. I made the name bunting on the crib myself. The tree is vinyl, and the walls are gray (a bit lighter than they appear in this picture.) We are going for a modern forest theme. 

The animal art above the crib is from Etsy. We're keeping her name secret for now! I also need to add the crib bumpers and a mobile to the crib, but we haven't gotten them yet.

The changing table here next to the crib has a chalkboard above it that I made myself. Her name is written at the top, and I will be updating the chalkboard each month with stats about her. I got the idea from my BBB over at Where the Wild Things Learn. 

These are the built in shelves that were already in the room. We figured they'd be great for diaper and other supply storage for now. 

This is the other side of the room. Obviously we still need a diaper pail, a clothes hamper, etc. But most of the decorating is done! 

I'm really proud of this frame that I made from scratch! The art inside can be changed out with the mini-clothespins. I made the artwork inside myself as well! 

I have been doing stained glass as a hobby now for a couple months, and I made these two stained glass suncatchers for the nursery. I drew the designs myself too!

I made these little felt animals for the room myself, and my wife and I made the terrarium together. 

It's hard to believe that there are only 2 months to go until we get to meet our daughter. There's a TON left to do, but at least she has a pretty room to sleep in! 

:)

Big News!

So...I've been gone for a little while. BUT I've got the best reason ever!

We are soooo excited. Just about 2 more months to wait before we can hold our little girl! We have to stay in MO for a couple weeks after her birth for the interstate paperwork to go through. Living in a hotel for a couple weeks isn't ideal, but it will be worth it!

I'll be sure to post an update soon to show off the nursery that has been taking up all of my time! And I'll also be sure to make an actual blog post soon too!

Monster Math Freebie!

Ever wanted to try out my super cool Monster Math Battle tournaments...but weren't quite sure about it? Well, I made this little freebie just for you. This is a collection of three of my math battles so you can give it a try. 

Not sure what I'm talking about?! Well, you should definitely check these out. I've made several different tournaments where classic movie monster are dueling it out in a math battle! The kids love it, and don't even realize they are getting much needed practice. I also have a couple of different varieties of shorter Ninja vs. Samurai battles!

The tournaments are very reasonably priced, but whether you're ready to purchase a whole tournament or not, I hope you at least enjoy the freebie! 

NAPDS Days 2-3

Day 2 began with a light breakfast followed by an awards ceremony. After the awards, Alex Dixon and her mother took the stage. They shared Alex's story, which is a great example of how having grit can be more important to a child's growth than any other factor. 

The short version of Alex's story is that she suffered a stroke during an emergency brain surgery, which left her with none of her previous academic knowledge. She couldn't remember how to say her name, or even the alphabet. She worked hard to get herself to the point where she is now, an advanced math student who has overcome most of her physical disabilities. She's still working hard to become a better reader, and to regain full use of her right hand, but among other accomplishments, she has passed her high school exit exams. Overall, their presentation served as a great reminder of the power of perseverance.

In the afternoon of day 2 and all of day 3 I was able to go to several sessions, including two on closely related topics that I have dabbled in and have a lot of interest in pursuing further; service learning and Firefox Projects. The ideas of student choice in how they learn, bringing in the community to learn from, and serving the community in some way are all really appealing to me as a teacher.

I'd love to think more on how I can implement some of these concepts into some of the project based learning stuff we already do in my classroom. Have any of you ever done a Foxfire project?