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

Marker {LOVE}

You can never have too many markers right? I came across these amazing smelly highlighters for only 49 cents each at Michaels this past weekend. Markdown from a dollar! 

                                     

I also have a huge love for Sharpie Markers. They are great for poster making and writing things pretty! At Target they have NEON Sharpies for a buck and a half each. I got them all :) 

            

That's it with the marker purchases! I'm off to bed early tonight. I'm waking up at the crack of dawn (5am) tomorrow to head out of town to a teacher training thingy! 

Bits of Betsy {Did you know my mom is a teacher too?}

I have an exciting announcement! Drum roll please.....

What's Bits of Betsy you are probably asking? Well let me tell you! My mom {Betsy}, who is a 2nd grade teacher is going to be guest blogging here every once in a while. She has been teaching for 36 years. She's taught 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 5th grade. She has tons of wonderful ideas that she would love to share with you! So...without any further ado here's Bits of Betsy:

Hey Chickies, 

This is my first time as a guest blogista on All That Glitters in First Grade.

I teach a 2nd/3d grade loop and love it. Kelly is my daughter and I love to "steal" her ideas and I have some that she has taken from me. This is one my favorite activities involving place value, smallest, and largest numbers.

Place Value Pizzazz

Here are 0-9 Cards to print for the activity, or you may use your own number cards. I do this activity small group. First deal two cards to each student. Tell the students to lay their cards down face up. Ask students who can make the largest number or smallest number? You can also deal out three cards and see who can lay down the largest three digit number.

{Here's a little sneak peak at what the cards look like. When you click the link (0-9 Cards) there is also an ink saver version (black/white)!}

Variation-Lay out three cards face up to each student. Ask...Who has the largest digit in the ones place, or tens place, or hundreds place? 

With more advanced students have them make four of five digit numbers! 

Thanks for reading!

~Betsy

Fonty Freebie and Throwback Thursday!

Happy 4th of July! 

To celebrate the 4th, I've uploaded a fonty freebie to my TpT store called KL Summertime...

KL Summertime Freebie Font

{Click above to check it out!}

I'm also linking up with Cara for my very first...

For my first throwback Thursday, I'm going to bring back one of my first creations using my Bamboo Tablet. You can use these frames to make labels or name tags for your classroom. The possibilities are endless! :) 

*********************************************************************************

Originally Posted July 10, 2012

I have just created some pencil frames that I wanted to put out there for people to snag....

{Click Here!}

Feel free to use them for personal or commercial use! If you end up making something with them for your TpT or Teacher Notebook store, let me know so I can check it out! 

Now it's your turn! Go link up with Cara and share your blog post throwback! 

Currently!

This summer is flyin' and I can't believe that it's already July and it's my birthday month! I'm linking up with Farley for this month's...

Listening: Watching reruns of Full House never ever gets old! Uncle Jessie and Joey are trying to sell a face shield invention to keep hair spray out of your face. Meanwhile D.J. is upset at Stephanie's snooping!

Loving: I adore Essie nail polish. More importantly I love the names that they come up with. Here's my newest favorite shade:

In the Cab-ana

Thinking: Colombia....more specifically Bogota, Colombia. I will be traveling there next month on a mission trip to help at an orphanage. This will be my third visit!

Wanting: It's been a while since I've created anything for TpT and I haven't been posting regularly on my blog. I think I'm in a creative slump. I'm looking to pop out of it soon!

Needing: To start summer school lesson plans. Yikes, summer school starts bright and early Monday morning! I need to start planning some fun activities. If you have any suggestions...please send them my way!

Tips, Tricks, or Hints: Be yourself....yep!

So swing on by Farley's Blog to link up! 

Michigan Blogger Meet-Up

I had such an amazing time on Saturday meeting up with some fellow Michigan Bloggers at P.F Changs. We had such a fun time chatting and I loved being able to put a face to the wonderful blogs that I follow.  A huge thank you to Maria for being the photographer! 

Patty and Christina were the ones that put together the meet-up. They even brought us some goodies!!!

This is my mom and I. My mom is a 2nd grade teacher and has been teaching for 36 years. She doesn't have a blog yet...but she's thinking about guest posting on mine.   :)

Group pic! I can't wait to meet up with these ladies again! 

When you get a chance please swing by their blogs...

Christina's Blog

Patty's Blog

Amy's Blog

Holly's Blog

Maria's Blog

Laura's Blog

Marsha's Blog

Julie's Blog

Cara's TpT Store

Ellen's Blog

Kara's Blog

Sums of 15 and other happenings

This week in math we have been working on finding sums of 60, 12, and 15. This upcoming week we are doing sums of 16, 18, and 20. I came up with this game to help my kiddos practice finding sums of different numbers. I played it as a whole class game with jumbo inflatable dice. I quickly wrote out the blank problems on the board. Since they learned how to play the game last week with the numbers 12 and 15, this week they should be able to play it with a partner for the sums of 16, 18, and 20. Well...at least that's what I'm hoping!

Click the picture and it will take you to my TpT store to download it for FREE! 

Here's a peak at what the game board looks like...I've even made a blank one for easy use with any number!

Disclaimer: If the directions don't make sense when you download PLEASE let me know! I struggled with "just right" wording. It makes sense to me but then again it might be as clear as murky water to someone else! 

Here's a little peak at what we did this past week in my class...

On Fridays I have my kiddos fill out this paper for the star of the week {Thank you Susan Moran!). Our focus this month is compassion. All week I had been reading them books that deal with compassion. As a school we are showing compassion by collecting coins for a kid who has muscular dystrophy and is confined to a wheelchair. His parents need money to renovate their house for their son. I loved that one of my students decided to use the word compassion while describing a classmate. How precious is that?

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

P.S. I'm 11 followers away from 200! I can't believe it. I see a super exciting giveaway in the near future. Anyone out there willing to donate one of their amazing products? If you are email me or comment. I would really appreciate it! 

Wah! {tears} + a Fonty Freebie

Spring break is coming to an end. So sad. It went by so fast and now it's back to waking up at 5:45 am. Tomorrow is a p.d day, so no kiddos until Tuesday. I've had an amazing spring break. My mom and I went to Chicago for a few days and then swung by the outlet malls on the way home.

Here's a few from our room. We were on the 26th floor. My ears popped every time we went up or down in the elevator.

This is my yummy brownie sundae from Ghirardelli. 

Meet Lego Woody and I! He was on display outside the Lego Store in Water Tower Place. 

My coolest purchase on this whole trip was my brand new ipad mini. I {LOVE} it! I downloaded the ifont app and created some fun fonts.

Check it....

Click the graphic to go to my tpt store to check them out. 

Here's the KL What?! for you to try out for free. Just click the pic below to download from dropbox. 

This is my first attempt using dropbox to share a file. I think I did it right, but if it doesn't work let me know and I'll fix it. 

I hope all of you had an amazing spring break too!

Summer is just around the corner. Right?