Liebster Award, San Antonio and a Made it Monday!

Hey there! What a crazy week it has been already...and it's only Monday! This blog post is going to be jam packed with lots of fun information, so I hope you're ready! Let's get it rollin'....

To start things off let's talk about my mini vacation to San Antonio! My fiance, his roommates and I made the 13 hour drive to San Antonio to watch our beloved Huskers play in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. Yes, they lost, but the trip was a blast and the weather was gorgeous! We mingled with people on the river walk, visited the Alamo and had a great time. Here are a few photos from our excursions...

My fiance and I at the Husker get together the day we arrived in San Antonio.

WOOO! Go Big Red! Huskers warming up before the game. The outcome wasn't what we would have hoped for, but it was an...umm...intense game to watch. 

One of the many gorgeous mosaics you can find along the river walk. It's even RED! GBR! 

The Alamo in all its glory. This has to be one of the neatest places to visit. The line was always wrapped around the building, so we didn't make it in, but still a beautiful piece of history. 

All in all, it was one of the best road trips I have been on in a long time. San Antonio will definitely be a place I want to visit again, but maybe this time I will take a plane instead of driving :).

After returning from San Antonio I immediately checked up on my blog. While reading through my comments I found one from Language Arts Bliss that said she had nominated my blog for the Liebster Award! I cannot tell you how humbled I feel to have been nominated, so thank you!

In short, the Liebster Award is a great way to grow your audience, find some great blogs to follow, and become more familiar with 5 great teachers out there.

There is a process that goes with this...so hang with me, folks! Here we go!

Step 1 Answer the 11 Questions your nominating blogger provides:

1. What is the best teaching tip you have ever received?

The best teaching tip I have received so far in my career was actually given to me last year by my building Administrator. I am known for over-thinking things and spinning my wheels, so when I heard him say this to me I had an epiphany.  He simply said :"Keep it simple". Sometimes I let my imagination get the best of me and my ideas of extravagant classroom decor and lessons stress me out more than they help me.  Since, I was given this tip I have felt much more relaxed and have become a better teacher because of this simple reminder. 

2. What is the story behind your blog name?

Well, let's be honest, who doesn't love a new box of crayons!?  I originally started this blog as a place for my reflections during my Student Teaching. In fact, you can find my first post here and read more about my Student Teaching experiences! Since I have continued with blogging the name of my blog has grown to represent much more. For me, it is a constant reminder to bring fresh ideas to the world of teaching and making learning fun (or colorful)!

3. If you were not a teacher, which other profession would you choose?

I honestly don't think I would want to be in any other profession. If I had to be, I would wind up being a crazy dog lady. I love dogs and spending my days with them would probably be the only thing that could provide me with as much happiness as my current profession. :) 

4. What is your favorite dessert?

OOO! This is a tough one, but I'm going to have to go with pie! I LOVE pie! Mainly fruit pies and, of course, French Silk pie. MMM! I get hungry just thinking about it! 

5. Big plans for the summer?

Well, my summer is a little shorter compared to you "normal" calendar folks. I only have about 5-6 weeks off and at least 3 of those I plan to be teaching in a Summer Reading program. The other three will be spent creating items for TPT and my classroom. 

6. Describe what you do when you have 30 minutes of free time:

Well, I mean, I know what I SHOULD do with 30 minutes of free time, but those things don't always happen.  I typically end up talking, a lot, with my co-workers and friends. If I'm not talking I can be found creating products or grading papers...oh, and blogging. :) 

7. What is your favorite childhood movie?

That's easy! My favorite childhood movies is "All Dogs go to Heaven"! Maybe I was meant to be a crazy dog lady!:) 

8. What item can you not make it through the day without?

My phone! Not because I call people or text constantly, but because it helps my life run smoothly.  I have quiet a few kids that leave for interventions at random times throughout the day and I have timers set for each one of them. It is a HUGE life-saver! 

9. Share your favorite quote:

I have many quotes that I love, but one of my all time favorite quotes is from Hiam Ginott and it goes like this:  

“I’ve come to a frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element in the classroom. It’s my personal approach that creates the climate. It’s my daily mood that makes the weather. As a teacher, I possess a tremendous power to make a child’s life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration. I can humiliate or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated or de-escalated and a child humanized or dehumanized.”

10. Beach or mountains? Which do you prefer?

Well...this is a tough one, but I think I am going to have to go with mountains. The beach is great, but eventually I would get sick of sand being everywhere. :) 

11. Describe the view outside of your classroom window:

The view outside my classroom window is filled with bright playground equipment and smiling faces!  

Almost there.. Step 2- Here are 11 random facts about me:

1. My favorite color is blue...

2. My car is my favorite color

3. My dog is named after the dog in Despicable Me (Kyle)

4. I've always wanted a tattoo but can't decided what I want and if I should do it.

5. I am a Gemini and you can tell :). 

6. I love to dance! I started dance when I was 3 years old and continued all the way through college. 

7. I look nothing like my sister :) 

8. I have a younger sister

9. I make a lot of facial expressions when I talk or even listen to conversations. 

10. I have 3 favorite animals: Dogs, Cows and Zebras

11. My birthday is on the 11th. 

Phew...Step 3- Present the Liebster Award to 5 new bloggers with less than 200 followers:

Here are 5 blogs that I think are great! Go check them out for yourself! 

Here are your 11 questions:

1.  Who was your favorite teacher?  How have they influenced your teaching today?
2.   What is the best part of your teaching day?
3.  What is your funniest school memory?
4.  What are your hobbies, or how do you unwind after working all week?
5.  How do you spend your summers?
6.  What is your favorite dessert?
7.  What new instructional practice have you found success with?
8.  Do you love and use technology in your classroom, or are you sometimes intimidated or frustrated by it?9.  What is your favorite children's book?
10.  What is the most exotic place that you have traveled to
11.  Do you have pets?  If so, what kind?

Last, but not least...a new product is up in my store! So I give you one of my latest products for my Made it Monday! 

TA-DA! I give you my Scan it!: QR- Rainbow Reward cards! 

I love this product and use it daily in my classroom.  I have wanted to give my clip chart a little bit of a punch to keep my kiddos driven to keep clipping up and that is where this product was born.  It contains 24 different rainbow rewards that cost you NOTHING...well, except buying and downloading the product.  In my classroom I clip random QR codes to the top three colors of my clip chart. When students reach that color they get to scan the QR code with our iPad or my phone (they love using my phone). The rewards range from moving your seat next to a friend and eating lunch in the classroom to reading a story to the principal or helping another teacher in their classroom for 20 minutes.  There are quite a few teachers in my school that use these QR codes in a multitude of ways to keep their students engaged. Here are some ideas: Putting them up around the room and having kiddos scan rewards when they earn them, placing the cards inside a treasure box and much more! The possibilities are endless, so what are you waiting for!? Click the image to hop over to my store and check it out for yourself! 

Phew...that's all I've got folks! Thanks for hanging with me and I hope that you have a fantastic week! 

Thanks for stoppin' by! 

Workin' on it Wednesday!

Hey, there! I'm so happy you are here!  Today I am going to be sharing a Workin' on it Wednesday!  Now, I haven't had a chance to make it to Hobby Lobby or the craft store to begin my "crafting project list" (I hope to get to it this summer when my fiance can help..hah), but I do have some TOTALLY AWESOME things to share with you!

Let's get started!

As some of you may know, I recently started creating for Teachers Pay Teachers and I am completely addicted!  My idea notebook as found its way to my bedside table just in case I wake up in the middle of the night with any earth-shattering ideas.   Here is one of my FAVORITE ideas, so far, is my "That's a Fact Jack!"-Differentiated Fact Family Math Centers...and you best believe it has the Robertson Clan involved!

Click on the image for a direct link to this product. 

I have created these math centers into 4 differentiated groups: Below, On, On/Above and Above.  Here is how it works:

The kiddos take the number sentence cards and sort them below the correct houses/roofs. They know they are close to having a complete fact family when they have all of the Robertson men under the house/roof with Miss Kay! 

Look at them go! The chimneys have numbers so my kiddos could figure out where to record each fact family on their recording sheet. 

I'

I've got some serious smarties in my classroom. This center took my kiddos about 20ish minutes to complete and some of my "extra careful" kiddos took a little longer. All of them LOVED the center and keep asking me if they can do it again! It honestly, is one of my favorite centers to put out because my students really have to think and double check their work before they begin recording. I also heard a lot of "Oh! It's just the backwards fact!", which maybe a simple thought, but it means that they have had that "Light-bulb" moment!

Do you want to know the best news? This unit is on SALE!! You betcha! This Math unit will be on SALE for this week ONLY!!! You have until Friday folks to join in on the Fact Family madness! 

Now, if that doesn't tickle your fancy, no worries! I have another unit coming your way and it is just in time for St. Patrick's Day! 

Click on the image for a direct link to this product.

Here is my "Luck of the Irish" pack.  Some of you may have seen the Freebie version of this pack that contains an Addition Color by number page.  This pack contains both math and literacy worksheets!  From addition and subtraction to ABC order and creative writing pages for your work on writing area, this pack will definitely make you want to do a jig of joy! 

There ya have it!  My lovely creations for Workin' on it Wednesday! I hope you found something that caught your eye or that will help spice up things in your classroom a little! I hope you enjoyed your little stop here and I can't wait to see you again...don't be afraid to click that button and follow this blog! 

Thanks for stoppin' by!

My first...Five for Friday!

Hey there! Happy Friday! You made it through another week and I am here to share a few things I have been working on during my week off. Sit back, relax and enjoy my weekly endeavors.  Here we go!

My boy and I started off our week attending a Huskers Basketball game! We love our Huskers. On Wednesday night the Huskers beat the Hoosiers and are now in the running to play in San Antonio...do I hear a possible vacation ? I'll be keeping my fingers crossed. GBR! Please excuse the look on the boys face... he couldn't take his eyes off the game which resulted in him looking like he has a lazy eye and I promise he does not have a lazy eye...he just stinks at taking photos. :) 

As some of you may know, I have been on break this whole week which means I have spent my days curled up with this fur ball creating items to put into my TPT store! I must say Kyle definitely has an eye for design (hah!). Most of the time I am creating with one hand and playing fetch or tug-of-war with the other. He has really put my multi-tasking skills to the test this week, but I would say I still have made some decent progress on products for my store. 

I just opened my TPT store last month and I am so excited to have fulfilled a goal of mine.  I love creating things to use in my classroom and then sharing them with all of you! Since it is still VERY new I have found myself filling up pages of blank notebooks with ideas instead of sleeping. This whole "lack of sleep" thing may be what some people call insomnia, but I can't sleep with these ideas running around in my head! Besides, who needs sleep when you can be creating?!  I mean, I can't be the only one addicted to creating, right?! Please tell me I'm not totally losing it! HA! Feel free to hop on over to my store and check out a few of my late night creations...trust me, there will be many more to come!

I did a little shopping this week to prep for my next week of teaching our Extended Learning Opportunities for Kindergarten and First grade!  I have been searching for these animal plates since last summer and I finally found them at Target (god bless you, Target!).  So, since it took me forever to find them I stocked up so I can use them in my math centers.  They are perfect to use as addition or subtraction mats and since next week is totally animal themed they are ABSOLUTELY PERFECT!  My kiddos are going to get WILD about math next week! I think the sloth is my favorite. :)

Here is what I am working on today!  A brilliant idea came to me last night just as I went to lay my head down on my pillow (let's face it, that's when all of your greatest ideas come to you).  I introduce you to my "Luck of the Irish" Math and Literacy Pack. Again, it is still in the works, but lucky for you (see what I did there) I am sharing with you a FREEBIE of one of these pages! All you need to do is hope on over to my TPT store and download  your very own copy! While you're there be sure to follow my store to keep up with all of my late night product posts. 

I hope you have a FANTASTIC weekend!  Relax, cruise TPT and enjoy life.  Before you go, be sure to click that "follow this blog" because I'd love to see you back here! 

Thanks for stoppin' by!

Parent Teacher Conferences and Break!

Hola, folks!  I'm glad you stopped by today, because I have some fun things to share with you.  I just finished up with our second round of Parent-Teacher Conferences. {Remember: I run on a 'year-round' schedule so if you are finding this to be early...it just may be for you "normal calendar" folks}.  As I was preparing for conferences I ran into the common questions of "what do you share at conferences?" and "how do you share it with parents?".  

Now, I have done my share of searching for tools on Teachers Pay Teachers and I have tried asking those "well seasoned" teachers, but haven't found something that accomplished what I was looking to do in my conferences.  I wanted something that held my students accountable, but also showed parents that their child was aware of what they needed to work on.  So, I started asking some of my teacher friends I work with to see if they had the same dilemma I was struggling with. Needless to say, they were having the same question, but we determined that it was one of those things we would just "get" over time.  Well, that answer made me feel a little bit better for about five minutes and then I decided to take matters into my own hands. One of my friends, "Lynn" (name has been changed), has mentioned she just wanted a letter that her students could fill in the areas they felt successful in and the areas they felt they needed to work on to be successful.  This was a BRILLIANT idea, so I text her and asked if she would be okay with me creating a letter for her to use and potentially share with the rest of you! She was thrilled and was relieved to know that 1) she wasn't going to have to hand write a letter to photo copy and 2) that her students parents would be able to see/hear from their child about their feelings of themselves as a learner. 

I got straight to work and developed a letter for myself "Lynn" and "Amanda" ( another teacher friend whose name has been changed).  Each of us tried it in our classrooms and found that it was a great addition to conferences. We had parents tell us how much they enjoyed seeing their child take ownership of their learning and our students even enjoyed being able to share the areas they felt successful in and what they felt they needed to work on! 

Here is a picture of the Conference letter I made. Hop on over to my TPT to download it and keep it for your future conferences! Please be sure to let me know what you thought of it so I can improve or alter anything that didn't work out! I greatly appreciate your feedback! 

Phew, now that conferences are over I have a week break and then I'm teaching our "Extended Learning Opportunities" next week! I have been making a list of projects/goals for my summer break and here is what I have so far:

1) I need to paint more buckets to store my Guided Math Stations (this will also be something I work on over the summer). {see my buckets here}

2) Attempt to make crate seating for my Guided Reading table! Have you seen these things! They are absolutely adorable and also can be used as extra storage...who doesn't love storage? If not, pop on over to my Pinterest page a take a look at my "First grade Ideas" board. 

3) Find a Guided Math Stations to create for my potential Guided Math Groups. 

4) Hang out with my adorable schnauzer, Kyle. 

Just look at that face! He is very fuzzy right now, but it sure is keeping him warm during these crazy Nebraska freeze-outs! 

Alrighy folks, I think I'm going to keep working on some of my TPT products that I hope to share with you soon! In the meantime, hop on over to my TPT store or check me out on Pinterest. Don't forget to hit that follow button so you don't miss any freebies or products! 

Thanks for stoppin' by! 

Hello, TPT!

DRUMROLL, PLEASE!

 I have got some SUPER exciting news! I am venturing into the creative world of TPT!  I am in the process of re-vamping some of the freebies I have already shared with y'all, ya know...making them fancy and such, so be on the look out!  I will be removing the current freebies on Google and replacing them with the fancier versions throughout the weekend.

  I am also in the process of working on my very first differentiated math unit!! YAY!! There are a lot of exciting things in the works, so be sure to follow my blog and MY TPT STORE so you don't miss out! 

For now I will leave  you with the much prettier version of my very first freebie...ever (the original post can be found here)!  

Here it is folks.....the dolled up version of my very first freebie!!!

Click the picture to head over to my TPT store and download this beauty!

Thanks for stoppin' by! 

Hey...it's been awhile!

Okay...so I have come to the conclusion that I may not be the best at posting consistently, but I promise I am working on it!  The flu has hit our school hard in the past month and despite my best efforts I caught it. So, today while I sit surrounded my tissues and tea, I have decided to create a little and show you all (and my blog) a little lovin'.

First off, WHERE HAS THIS YEAR GONE?! Maybe it's just me, but holy moly it feels like this year has just flown by!  I have found that every year there is something that stands out and makes it unforgettable. Some of these memories can be good and others can be ...well...not so good.  This year I would have to say that my engagement to my boy will definitely be a memory that will stand out forever, but I also have found an AH-MAZE-ING website that I use daily in my classroom (which I am going to share right now).

 I am a strong believer in brain breaks. They are life savers during my afternoon stretch (especially after indoor recesses..woof). I use to, and still do at times, use YouTube and look up fun just- dance videos for my firsties to wiggle and dance to while releasing some built up energy. That was all fine and dandy until my kiddos told me they were tired of the same old songs, so I started asking around.  I talked to our reading specialist (who I swear is fairy god mother) and she told me about a new website that Children's Hospital had launched called GoNoodle. The website was created to get students moving in the classroom to increase blood flow while still hitting academic material.  I immediately went back to my classroom and signed up for a FREE account. Let me tell you....these brain breaks are awesome and the kids LOVE them!  You sign up, vote for your class monster-mascot and work your way through the brain breaks! They have brain breaks that are both educational and not educational.
Here is just a short list: kids zumba, bodySpell (where you can add your spelling words and spell them with your body), mega math marathon (great warm up for math)...and much much more! When you complete a brain break the time you spent completing it helps your monster-mascot grow healthy and strong!  My firsties love it and I love it because it makes learning active for them!  I STRONGLY encourage you to sign up for an account...I would do it for you, but let's face it, I can't.

I also want to thank you for sticking with me in my long absence from blogging.  While I sat here today watching Downton Abbey episodes and coughing up my lungs, I realized Valentine's Day is quickly approaching. Valentine's Day always seems to sneak up on us and I always feel rushed, soooo to help ya out...

 .... I MADE SOME FOR YOU GUYS! Please post back so I can see how you used them in your classroom! 

Enjoy! 

Thanks for stoppin' by! 

Fall Break and an Update!!

Well hey there!  Last time I was here I created by very first Freebie EVER! I hope you guys got the chance to download and use it in your rooms! If you missed that post you can either scroll down or just simply click here to grab your freebie.  Since my last post  A LOT has happened and has caused a serious whirlwind in the past few weeks. To start things off...

         I AM ENGAGED!!! 

I was completely surprised and I must say that my boy did a great job of planning the entire thing with family and friends! He even kept it a secret for 6 WEEKS!!!!! I am very lucky to get to spend the rest of my life with such a wonderful man! Let the wedding planning begin! 

Fall is here which means I have been living off of pumpkin spice lattes! With fall comes my FALL BREAK! Yup, I get a whole 2 weeks off to enjoy this wonderful Nebraska fall weather... and enter grades...and complete running records...and clean my house...okay so it's been a little crazy but I am two days into my break and I am lovin' it! 

I also have recently started playing with the idea of a different hairstyle. One of my friends told me that curling wands are amazing. Now, being someone who is terrified of regular curling irons, I was not looking forward to wearing a "Michael Jackson" heat protective glove and wrapping my hair around a hot stick. However, after an hour of carefully attempting to not burn my hands or face, I had this result. As you can tell by my face I am a little shocked I came out without any scars or burns, but it is definitely something I will continue to work on. 

Also, I don't know if you have heard about The Mint Julep Boutique, but I am completely obsessed! My first order just arrived today (it's like Christmas in a box!)! Be sure to check out their AH-MAZ-ING clothes and deals. Things go fast so be sure to order when  you can! 

Well folks, I am off to create a wedding guest list and enjoy my fall break....and maybe spend part of my paycheck at The Mint Julep Boutique! 

Thanks for stoppin' by!