I am a Guest Blogger on the Other Side of the World!

Technology and blogging consistently amaze me and today is no exception! I have been invited to guest blog for Brooke, a fellow blogger who lives in the lovely country of Australia! How amazing is that?!! You met Brooke during my Blogger Showcase and I love her blog! I am so excited to be a guest with her today.

I have written about something that is near and dear to my heart: MUSIC! In particular, the importance and ease of using music in the classroom!!  I hope you will head on over to her blog at Teachable Moments to check it out. :) Just click the link below:
Happy Blogging! ;)

Fall Fun and a New Technology Resource

Hello, friends!! What a week!! I hope you have all had a fantastic week as mine was great but very busy. The weather has been beautiful and we have had our A/C off and the windows open most of the week. For my Floridian friends, you know this can't be done too often so we are really enjoying it! This is also the time of year that we have a Fall Fellowship at our church. We will be having a volleyball tournament and yummy food so there has been quite a bit of prep going on this week for the day on Saturday. I am very thankful that I was able to fight off the sick minions from earlier in the week. :)

For my post today, I wanted to share with you a great new online program that I have found that is absolutely free!! It can be used for school educators as well as homeschoolers. This week was the first I had heard of it and after a quick registration, my kids got to work! I am loving it!! Want to know what it is?

This is a program for K-6 that is aligned with Common Core standards. It creates practice problems for each of the standards and records their level of mastery. As a teacher or parent, you can generate reports and find which strand the child struggles with. I can also assign homework for Math, Reading and Spelling for them to accomplish by a particular due date. For instance, the student may have to complete 4 Math, 4 Reading, and 2 Spelling practices by the end of the week. You can choose which strands you want them to work on as well as type in the spelling words for them to study. I love this new site and the girls have really enjoyed it as well. I have my oldest in 6th completing the 5th grade as a review. So far, I have only found practice for the concepts on the site, not actual teaching; this is still left to the instructor. It is simply a way for the teacher to assign practice for whatever the student is learning and having assessment numbers at your fingertips! Cool, huh? 

One of my girls' favorite features is the classroom wall that we can all post to that resembles a facebook or bulletin board wall. They can also choose a cute avatar and change their mood for the day. We are still exploring the program and I am really impressed with what I have found. 

Have you heard of ScootPad? If so, how do you integrate it into your classroom?

NEW K, 1st, 2nd, and 5th Grade Resources!

Busy beaver... that would be my nickname. So, weeks ago, I promised to complete the Common Core MEGAPACKS which include checklists, assessment records, and posters for all of the standards in a particular grade! I am pleased to announce that I have completed K, 1st, 2nd, and 5th! Each individual subject pack is also available! If you like what you see, click on the pictures to head to my Teachers Notebook site. If you would rather reach my TPT site, click on the link below each picture. I hope they are something you can use! I will let you know when 3rd and 4th grade packs are complete!

Find this item on my TPT store!

Find this item on my TPT store!

Find this item at my TPT store!

Find this on my TPT store!

Summer? What Summer?

"Teachers shouldn't make more money, they get a whole summer off!" "Teaching is one of the easiest professions, you get so many breaks!" Have you ever heard comments like this? I find myself chuckling and sometimes even laughing out loud when I listen to someone try to explain how easy teachers have it. Granted I am not pulling a brain out of someone's head and putting it back in, but I do have impact on what goes into the brain! To accomplish this important yet often underappreciated task, we teachers remain on the job from the time the sun comes up until the moment we finally get our brains to stop thinking at night. Let me give you a few examples:

~ The day after a teacher packs up her classroom, she is reorganizing her room with a brand new theme in her mind. Scouring websites, teacher stores, and blogs for inspiration all while filling up bulletin boards on Pinterest.

~ Tourists go to the beach for a vacation and unwind. The teacher in the group spends her time considering how to create a unit on erosion, collecting shells and sand dollars to give to her students, and thinking on how to integrate a beach unit into all subject areas.

~ Yard sales are opporunities for teachers to hunt down more books for the classroom library.

~  Manipulatives are made from kitchen supplies, cereal boxes into organizers, and pennies are pinched in order to create a learning environment for an entire group of unknown students.

Summer is not a time to rest, it is a time to plan for the new year! The few examples I have given do not even scratch the surface of a teacher's work during their "time-off." Yet, this summer has flown by so quickly for my family that I feel like I am playing catch-up all while preparing for next year. While closing up last year's curriculum, I am looking to make some changes for next year which I am sure I will be blogging about later. For now, I will rest in the fact that my endless efforts are going towards enriching the lives of my three greatest treasures.  What is some work you are doing this summer during your "vacation?"