Winner and BTS Sale!

Here's the winner of my Amazing Affirmations Pack...

Congratulations:

Kim

I'll be emailing you the pack shortly!

AND....

The back to school sale on TpT begins tomorrow. Just use Promo Code: BTS13 at the checkout to receive your discount. I know that I can't wait to buy some things off my wish list. Be sure to check out these products that are back to school related...

Desk Mats {Back to School Edition}

These are fun little sheets kinda like place mats for students to fill out for morning work during the first week of school. If you click on the link you can download the preview for a free desk mat!

Back to School Math Stations {7 Activities}

There are 7 math activities that are perfect for beginning of the year math stations. If you click on the link you can download the preview for a free counting by 10s activity!

School Supplies Clip Art

Here's some clip art that might be handy at the beginning of the school year. There are 41 images in this pack!

Chubby Pencils Clip Art

This set contains 9 pencils!

Amazing Affirmations

I am so excited to start using this pack with my first graders! This pack will help your students affirm one another and will help create a wonderful classroom community!

All of these amazing products will be on sale starting tomorrow along with the rest of the items in my store. 

Happy Shopping!

P.S. Thank you Beth from Zip-a-dee-do-dah for the sale button! 

Affirmations Galore Giveaway

I believe that one super important thing to do on a daily basis is to affirm your students. This can be done by simply verbally affirming a student or writing them a little note. I try very hard to give specific affirmations to students... not just "Good job Billy!" Instead, I may say, "Billy, you just wrote an amazing sentence and I loved how you remembered to capitalize the first letter of your sentence." Verbal affirmations are easy to give, but I find that when I jot down a quick affirmation and give it to a student that it makes their day! Here's a little freebie that I put together a while ago that you can snag here...

Positive Notes From the Teacher

There are four on a sheet, so you just need to cut them apart. They are also available in black/white too!

Also, I just finished and uploaded my latest creation to Tpt tonight...

This 107 page pack contains different activities to get your students affirming each other. 

Here's what's included in the pack...

Sample Pictures...

Just click here to purchase....

Amazing Affirmations {K-2)

I would love to giveaway one of my Amazing Affirmations pack. Just leave me a shout out with your email address. I'll pick a winner Friday evening!

Bits of Betsy #4 (caddies)

Hi Chickies,

 

I am not the most organized person in the world but I want my kids to learn organization skills so this is one of the ways to help them learn the skill and to help keep my room a bit tidier.  I did this last year and I rarely lost scissors and almost always had a surplus of pencils.

Each morning they have a caddy with sharpened pencils and the supplies that they will need for the day.

 

          picture of caddy….

 

Oh, Betsy, how do you do this…easy (usually), before they can get ready to go home they must have a caddy that is exactly like this morning’s caddy but the pencils may need to be sharpened.  How can they remember what the caddy looked like, you ask?  Easy, in the caddy I have a picture of the caddy glued to the back is a list of what should be in the caddy.  

 

You know what, this worked.  The tables were very responsible and the more obsessed students would actually check out the caddy several times a day to see if something was missing.

Happy Sunday,

Betsy

Oodles of pictures

First off...

My ah-mazing garage sale find for only 3 bucks! My teammates and I were fortunate enough to come across two retired teachers garage sales. 

Next...

These super fun mechanical pencils. The lead is super thick and the pencils are triangular for easy gripping. I love the colors and I pretty much love any mechanical pencil (they write so nice)! I found them at Target... around $2.50 I believe. 

And...

Common Core Strips in kids friendly language from Carson Dellosa. They fit nicely in the dollar pocket charts from Target. On the back of the strip is the Standard written out in the technical jargon. 

And...

These adhesive labeling pockets from Michaels. There are 30 plastic pockets and 35 white cards to slide in for labels. I'm going to stick these on my book boxes in my classroom library and organize. They were $7.99...but I had my 40% off coupon so it was a deal! 

Bonus Pic...

My new shoes :) I couldn't resist 

Swing by tomorrow for Bits of Betsy Post #4. 

Bits of Betsy #3 (Bumpy Spelling)

Hey chickies,

After going to a closeout sale at JoAnn’s I was reminded of a “bumpy spelling” idea that I use for spelling and other subjects.  Everybody hates to write their spelling words but not on “bumpy paper”.  At JoAnn’s I bought a piece of plastic canvas. Students place a piece of paper on top and write their spelling words in crayon.  You can also place the plastic canvas under a coloring page too!

Here's an up close pic! The plastic canvas comes in lots of colors.

What are some fun ways that you have your students practice their spelling words?

--Betsy

Summer School Fun & I Went Shopping...

Week 2 of summer school officially began today. My little group needed some extra practice with their basic facts today so we played a game. All you need is a deck of cards with all of the face cards removed. Then put all of the cards face down on the table like you are going to play memory. The object of the game is to turn over 2 cards that match (6 hearts & 6 spades). Once you have a match just write down the addition number sentence (6+6=12). Keep playing until all the cards are matched up! To make it more exciting I let my kiddos come up to the big white board and write their addition number sentence. This got them up moving around, having fun and practicing their double facts! 

Once summer school was over I decided to head on over to Starbucks with a friend for some chit chatting. I LOVE iced nonfat caramel macchiatos. Afterwards we decided to do some shopping. One of our stops was Walmart. My friend had looked high and low for cute hanging files and we found some neon ones at Walmart (no pic sorry)! I got super excited when I discovered these things...

 

Reuseable Dry Erase Pockets for only $1.97 and bonus...they come with 5 copies of the sheets on the cover (blank clock, alphabet, blank addition/multiplication and blank handwriting lines. These are great for centers and eliminate the need to make tons of copies! I only bought 4 and I think I need to buy a few more. 

Next find...these adorable boxes of crayons. Target has similar ones but not all in the same shade. Not quite sure what I will use them for exactly...but I couldn't resist! They were only 78 cents a box. Any ideas? :) 

Have a great evening! 

Bits of Betsy {2}

My lovely mom is here to post for me today. I spent all day at a training and I am e.x.h.a.u.s.t.e.d! I had to get up super early early this morning and I have to do it tomorrow and Thursday too. It's been amazing professional development, but my body has gotten use to sleeping in. So here's...

Hey Chickies,

I'm Kelly's mom and I'm back with another idea to share with you called...

                                                     SOUND-OFF SPELLING

For this activity I use the Essential Spelling List as a sponge activity all year.  

Students get into four teams and one member from each team goes to the front of the room.  I draw a word card and say it.  The students at the front quickly yell out the number of letters in the word.  They only get one chance.  The first one that correctly states the number of letters has the opportunity to spell the word.  If they get it correct their team gets one point.  If they miss the word the next four students go up to the front of the room and you draw a different word.

Variations – use your weekly spelling list. 

P.S. Here's my first post in case you missed it! Bits of Betsy {1}

Betsy