Showing Evidence Freebie and New Spring Fling Clipart

If the titles of my blog posts are any indication of how well I can focus on one specific task- that doesn't look very good. I never can focus on one thing in these blog posts- hence the extremely long and random combinations in my titles :)

My kiddos were WIRED this week! They definitely have spring fever. My. goodness. It probably didn't help that it was Dr. Seuss day on Monday and we had a spirit week the rest of the days. Something about Wacky Wednesday doesn't exactly scream "concentration." :) Don't get me wrong- I love spirit week because I can wear jeans or comfy clothes. Plus the kiddos deserved some fun distractions. BUT. It was a complete battle between spirit/fun and testing/instruction all week. I finally had a "come to jesus" talk with the class on Friday. I actually think it helped. Last year, if I had a talk like that with my firsties, I wasn't always sure it got through, but with third graders this year, it was actually a mutual discussion. We'll see, that might just be my Saturday-induced optimism talking.... :)

Speaking of spring fever, I just finished my newest "Spring Fling" and "Happy Snails" clipart sets and posted them to my store! I have used a lot of pastel colors in my spring sets, but I made a new color scheme for these sets (and some other spring sets I plan on making) because I needed some extra energizing sets after this week! Check out these little splashes of spring color....

If you want to check out these sets in my store, you can click on the links below.

Happy Snails: $2.00

Spring Fling: $4.00

Onto the other part of my random blog title......If there was one word that would be tattooed across my forehead lately, it would be "EVIDENCE." If I had a dollar for every time I said that word ("Where's your evidence?" "Find evidence to support your claim" "Support your answers with evidence" "Find the evidence in the text" "Do you have evidence for that?" ETC), I could retire. Surprisingly, it doesn't bother my kiddos at all and they FEED off of showing evidence. For this reason, the most precious half piece of paper in my classroom is this little beauty:

I made up my own version of a "Showing Evidence" reference sheet because I needed it to include a few more evidence stems than the ones I was finding on TpT or pinterest. In our reading lessons, we are focusing on the kiddos using text AND visual cues, so I wanted some stems specific to each. Also, we have discussed how to talk about poetry, so I wanted one in there with "stanza." My students have been using these little reference strips in pretty much every subject! They even started pulling them out in math and changing some of the wording around to work with their conclusions based on graphs, charts and word problems. God bless them and their evidence-eager hearts! One of my kids suggested that I laminate them for each student so they can "take it to fourth grade with them." I told him that I would make a special "Showing Evidence in Fourth Grade" strip....printed in COLOR....and laminated for everyone in the class if they found evidence to answer every reading comp question on the DCAS (state test). I hope I will be needing to buy lots of color ink soon!

If you think your kiddos could use these same strips, you can snatch them up below from google docs. I just print them out and cut them down the middle. And, per my student's suggestion, you could laminate them so they last forever and ever :)

{Snatch it HERE}

Don't forget to turn your clocks ahead before bed tonight. Nothing like LOSING and hour of sleep- but  at least it is more EVIDENCE that spring is on it's way......sorry I couldn't resist :)

FREE Star Pencil Clipart and Read Across America Day Decor!

I will take advantage of any excuse to celebrate and have cake.....or have any kind of food in general. Even more- I'll take advantage of any excuse to decorate my classroom :)

My school celebrated Read Across America and Dr. Seuss's birthday on Monday with lots of birthday festivities. At our school-wide assembly, the teachers put on a fun play for the kiddos. I am not an actor.  Yes, I have been known to sing and do some dances while I teach (anything to clarify those concepts, right!?) But my performing stops at the classroom level...haha So I strategically volunteered to design and make the set for the play so my job was done-zo before 500 kids packed the gym. Costumes and performing....not my thing. 

After overcoming a few challenges such as the helium shortage in my town, a few mechanical problems with the cherry picker to hang decorations from the ceiling... (apparently you have to charge those machines...who knew? :) everything did come together and it turned out well- thanks to a lot of help from my friends! Here is as peek at the birthday decor....

My vision for this birthday celebration also included a confetti cannon that would shoot a blast of confetti in the air out the top of the birthday cake (which is made out of a covered piece of scaffolding). That also means that someone would need to be up IN the scaffolding inside the cake to shoot it off... so I actually spent the whole play sitting up at the top of the birthday with confetti cannons. 

Here's my view :)

That is our district photographer in the corner, so I am hoping he captured some of the confetti in action. If he did, I will post some more pictures another day. I'm sure you will be anxiously waiting ;)

The decorations didn't stop in the gym, of course my classroom had to be "seussed" out....

And you know my monkey had to join in on the fun....

And some cute curtains and truffula trees, too!

The kiddos had so much fun! It was a nice change of pace because we are in the thick of our state testing and this day was test-free!

I have tons to post about this week, but I am learning to be more focused with my blog posts so they don't end up taking an hour to write and an hour for you to read (because I'm sure you read EVERYTHING I ramble on and on about haha). I had another FANTASTIC Dollar Tree "find" over the weekend that I will be sharing later in the week, some freebies for helping students cite evidence and new clipart sets :)

I do have a new set of star pencils- inspired by my birthday celebration decor :) This star-studded freebie is posted in my TpT store {HERE}

Alright, party's over :) I'm off to bed. Happy Hump Day tomorrow- always feels good to get to Wednesday!

FLASH SALE!!

Hi all! I have really been slacking with my celebrations and giveaways! I have hit over 2400 followers in my TpT store and have posted a bunch of new clipart sets that I haven't done Clipart Snatch-ups with, so I am putting my entire store on sale for 20% off if you are looking to stock up on any of my new spring sets....or tuck away some older holiday clipart for the future :)

The sale is only going to be for today (Saturday) and Sunday so if there were any sets on your wish list- go get them while they are cheap! :)

I also grabbed some extra Finger Spies at the Dollar Tree that I am going to have a giveaway for later in the week because I know a lot of people were saying they couldn't find them after I mentioned them in a post. I have two sets of four Finger Spies that I will be giving away :)

Happy weekend!!

You can have my heart {clipart} for free :)

So you know that feeling that teachers get on Sunday night as they are finishing up all their materials for the coming week, newsletters, interim reports, laundry, etc. ? Well since we didn't have school today, I have that feeling tonight. Oi vey. That is also why I have taken a break from it all, turned on the Bachelor and am writing this blog post :)

So let me start with a confession: This year has been tough for me. Tough like stay at work for hours and never feel like you're getting ahead tough. Tough like I drove to Wawa to get two apple fritters the size of my head because I didn't think I could look at one more piece of paper or lesson plan covering my family room floor :)

I know everyone goes through different things, but compared to other years, other experiences, other situations in my life, it's been {really} tough. It's easy to get caught up in what seems "tough" in your life when it's right there in front of your face. I won't get into the specific details, because that's not where I'm trying to go with this post...don't worry! However, there have been three big events throughout this year that keep putting my "tough" year in perspective.

One of these events happened just this weekend and it's a little {BIG} thing called THON :)

I went to Penn State for my undergrad and grad school and participated in THON. THON is a 46-hr dance marathon to raise money for pediatric cancer research. Dancers stand for 46-hrs straight. However, it is a HUGE year round fundraiser that takes thousands of committee members, fraternities, sororities, and organizations to pull off. I was never a dancer, but was on committees and spent the last four hours on the floor with the dancers two years in a row. It was amazing!

Here are some pictures from my THON days:

The last year I was in THON we raised $7.49 million dollars!!!

This year THON raised:

Yes, that is $12.37 million dollars! I watched the last hours of THON on the little screen of my iphone because my computer internet was so slow, but it was still amazing. Throughout THON weekend, THON families (children who have cancer, have had cancer, or families who have lost children to cancer) share their stories, remember, celebrate life and dance for a cure right along with Penn State students.

So my little "keep things in perspective" reminder was actually something pretty big. I'm sure many of you are having difficult years. In fact, I know many of you are having difficult school years. I see it in the faces of my co-workers, hear about it from my teacher blog friends.  Testing is starting, you might feel like you can't reach that student who has been struggling all year with no progress. There are 15693847 curriculum demands but no one can tell you how to fit it in during the hours of the school day :)

So, as we all go back to work tomorrow to whatever "tough" situations we will have to face, we can at least do it with....free clipart :)

Snatch up some extra love for your {hopefully} four-day work week with these {FREE} little hearts!

You can have my heart (clipart) for {FREE} if you click HERE :)

Dollar Store Treasures- You have my heart...

You know those stores that you shop at so much that they start to know you by name, profession, coffee order etc? Well I have a few of those. The first being Dunkin Donuts. Although my heart will always belong to Starbucks because they were there for me during college when I was writing my thesis, Dunkin Donuts is filling that void because there isn't a regular Starbucks here in Dover, DE. Whomp- Whomp.

Every morning I get large black coffee and an egg white flatbread sandwich....every. morning. It started out just as a quick breakfast when I was running late, but now it is every. morning. It's ridiculous. They now know me by name, know I'm a teacher, know the license plate of my car (which is kind of strange and led to a conversation at the drive through window), they know I'm running late if I get to DD any later than 6:20am, and they definitely know my order. They also know that my order will change to iced coffee once it warms up outside.  This weekend I am going to try and make an "at home" version of the flatbread because this routine is getting expensive! You wonder why I crank out so many clipart sets to sell! 

The other store where they know me by name is....the Dollar Store. There is a Dollar Store right around the corner from me and it's deadly to my wallet. I'm sure many teachers can relate. However, when I see all the dollar treasures that I find, I forget about that :)

I made a trip to the Dollar Store a couple weeks ago and hit a jackpot (in my mind) and just never got around to taking pictures to share. So here they are! Prepare to get excited :)

These little sparkle clusters were in the gift wrapping section but the lime green and blue are PERFECT for my room! They are flat on the bottom so I am going to staple them to the corners of a bulletin board because I think they are ADORABLE! Nothing like a little lime green and blue sparkle in life :)

They come in packs of two for a dollar :)

My next exciting find was some bins. Hello, my name is Krista, and I have a bin problem. I really do. But let's be honest, teachers need bins! It's the only thing that will keep everything I buy at the Dollar Store organized! Although I have cut back on the amount of bins I buy (the reason being that I have most of everything I own already in a bin), I found these green bins and had to pick them up!

They are a great size because they are very wide and deep. They would make great turn-in bins because they don't scrunch the sides of papers, they are wide enough for notebooks and plenty of room to have a whole stack of them in there. Also, they are going to be great for putting out center materials because I can fit a manilla envelop in there and then any extra playing pieces of manipulatives that go along with the activity. Have I justified buying these yet? :) They are sturdy too- some Dollar Bins are pretty thin and can crack- not these babies!

I have saved the best for last....and if you have already discovered these and I am just late to the game, please don't crush my excitement :) I found the most precious little finger trackers for beginning readers....

Is that not the cutest thing you've ever seen? I just about died when I saw them (it was icing on the cake that they were green and blue which matched my classroom haha) My finger is huge compared to a kindergartener or first graders, so I could only get it on the tip of my finger. How perfect to have them finger track while they read and make the eyeballs "LOOK" at the words! Even though I know my third graders won't be using these, the first grade teacher inside me from last year couldn't pass them up, so I bought enough for a reading group of firsties....

They come in a bag like this:

There are SOOO many ways I could use these suckers! I love that they are called "finger spies" because then I could do a quick phonics game in small groups, too. To review vowels sounds or word chunks I could say, "I spy a word on this page that has a short "e" sound" and the kiddos would have to use their little finger spies to find and point to a word. They could also do this in partner pairs. I was also thinking they would be great for story retells, mini theaters, mini lessons on dialogue between characters....have I justified this purchase? haha 

I have many more things to blog about but I'll try and divide it up into posts so this isn't a marathon post like I sometimes do. I'll leave you with a few ink drawings of the clipart I'll be working on this weekend....I am finishing up a Police Squad Kids set and "hopping" right on to my easter/spring sets. I just can't get enough of this little bunny critter!

"Lovely" Classroom Pictures and a Freebie :)

Happy Valentine's Day! I. am. exhausted. 22 third graders. 3 cupcakes landing face-down on the floor. 100's of candy hearts, brownies and cookies consumed (by the kiddos, not me.....okay a few by me). My goodness, Valentine's Day was a doozy- but great!

I haven't been good about posting pictures of my classroom decorations, but I thought I would squeeze in a few pictures of my vday decorations before I switch up the decor for Dr. Seuss next week. February and March require a lot of decoration changes! Valentines to Dr. Seuss, and then St. Patrick and spring!

Here is a peek at the pink and red that's been up in my room for a couple weeks :)

Mr. Monkey dressed all classy for Valentine's Day!

I added some "love monkeys" to my reading jungle.

Curtains made by Momma Wallden :)

Just a few red and pink decorations to jazz up my "Imagine" sign :)

Tomorrow after school, I'm making the switch to Dr. Seuss decorations, so more pictures to come :).

On another note....I couldn't find the comment, but someone had commented about the labels on my weekly planning organization drawers from one of my early blog posts. The labels she commented on are shown here:

 I know blue and lime green are popular colors for classrooms, and the comment was asking me to post these labels to my TpT store for sale, but I am just going to offer them up {HERE} through google docs. I just attached the labels to the plastic draws with velcro dots, so if I decided to change my colors or label, that would be easy to remove and swap out. I was a HUGE fan of velcro this year when I was organizing haha

So if you are a blue and lime green fan, snatch up the labels from the link above! Tomorrow's Friday and then a long weekend- that means sleep, relaxing, interim reports and new clipart sets! Ahh can't wait :)

Valentine Clipart Sale! $2.00 and $1.00 sets!

Hi all! Just a last minute post. I decided to mark ALL my Valentine clipart sets down to $2.00 or $1.00 until Tuesday for any last minute shoppers or if you wanted to stock up on them for next year. It won't come up as a "Sale" on TpT because I had to edit the actual prices of the listings to get them down that much.

Included in the Valentine Sale are these sets! I am going to be honest, I was too lazy to link all those images, so click {HERE} to zip over to my shop and check them all out :) haha 

Just wanted to give you a heads up!