Winners 2 & 3 for 200 Follower Mega Giveaway!

Announcing the two lucky winners for today!!

Brielle Anfinson and Pattie Wooten are today's big winners. Check out their loot:


a Rafflecopter giveaway a Rafflecopter giveaway What a most excellent way to start a Tuesday!

It Looks like I'm Not the Only One in a Giving Mood

Sorry for the double post. I'm just so excited I couldn't wait.

Wanna see something? Something big? Something ENORMOUS? There is this giveaway happening that is SO GINORMOUS that it makes my giveaway look a little wanting. And that's really saying something, because I think my giveaway is HUGE.

Go check it out... Jenna at Diving Into Learning is celebrating fall in a BIG WAY. You can even win a free item from my store!
http://divingintolearning.blogspot.com/2012/09/fall-theme-giveaway.html

I love helping people celebrate. It just makes me all warm and fuzzy inside.

Speaking of winners, come on back tomorrow morning and see who won the next two chunks of my 200 Follower Giveaway!

MEGA Giveaway,Fancy Anchor Charts and School Spirit

I am at 199 followers! ONE MORE TO GO!!!!!

To get in on the MEGA (Yes, now MEGA!) scroll to the bottom. But read this other stuff first, because it's fun.

First of all, my daughter Olivia (who goes to my school) told her 5th grade teacher, who then relayed it to me, that we don't have many "novels" in our house. 

Um, that sort of makes me look bad., you know? The teacher who doesn't have many novels? The truth is that I have a whole library for all our books. See posts from July 2010 to see it. 

I am loving Clutter-Free Classroom's idea of using duct tape to line anchor charts. It's brilliant! Look at how it does the double duty of fixing them to the wall while making them extra special fancy. 

I love it. L.O.V.E. it. On a side note, do you see the "Why do Readers Abandon Book" chart? One of the suggestions from a sweet student was "You might just be tired of reading and want to lay around for awhile." Honestly is the best policy. You notice I didn't add that one in.

This is homecoming week. Our football players and cheerleaders do this thing they call the "Spirit Bus". Travel to the elementary schools and run through the halls high-fiving and hollaring and whooping it up. The kids LOVE it. I do, too. Go Raiders!

It's especially fun with the 4th graders. When I taught first, the kiddies all sat in the hall and wondered why the hell football players were all of a sudden running through our school. 

Now for the MEGA Giveaway!! It's getting bigger and BIGGER and BIGGER!

Check out these three sweet giveaway packages. For details, go back to the last couple of posts and you can see details for these great products. There is also a NEW giveaway package at the end. Check it out and enter!! 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

a Rafflecopter giveaway

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Ok, so I'm having issues with TPT and rafflecopter at the moment. Must be all the traffic from people lying in bed with their laptops/ipads. I'll get the new giveaway up tomorrow.

The Giveaway is Growing! More Goodies to Win!

First of all, I just want to give a shout out to my fellow bloggers and teachers. You are amazing, generous people. Thank you, thank you. Just for being who you are: big-hearted lovelies who share their passion with the world.

I've gotten some goodies to add my 200 follower giveaway! Instead of adding to the drawing that is already in place, I'm going to add another drawing. You can win at both, so don't be shy for entering any and all drawings! It's hard to not enter them myself; the stuff is that good!

Let's begin the wild rumpus, shall we?

Laureen at Teach With Laughter has thrown in one item of your choice from her store. You just have to see her "Stuck Together" compound word pack! Like, totally adorable! And she's got me for sure with her Star Wars math stuff. The geek in me is turning cartwheels. Check out her blog while you're hopping around; it's so cute and full of lots of good shares! I'm a new follower, for sure!

Molly at Shining and Sparkling in First Grade has graciously thrown in 20 Spelling Printables to Use with ANY Spelling Words (http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Prod … lling-List. This pack is so cute! If I was still teaching first grade, I'd be trying extra hard for this one!! It looks like it would be a great D5 or center activity!

Kristin from "Taking a Walk on the Teaching Side" (is that so fun or what?!) is throwing in Common Core writing prompts cards set 1.   I snuck on over to check out Kristin's blog and do you know what I found? A post on iPad apps!! I love that!!!! You should definitely sneak over there, too. 

Peanut Gallery is giving away "Don't Let Punctuation Bug You (Punctuation Posters)"  You need to get to this store; it's crazy with cutie themes!! If my teaching partner Jessica sees her Hollywood theme, she'll be all over it!!  Check out her blog, too, while you are hopping. 

And to round out this giveaway pack, Teresa at Fun Games 4 Learning is throwing in her Ultimate Math Board Games collection. Now, I love anything that starts with the word "ultimate". Like, how can it get better than that? This baby is worth winning! I might have to cheat and win it myself. (Just kidding. Maybe.)
Check her out!!


a Rafflecopter giveaway

And here is the FABULOUS first Giveaway chunk. It's not too late to enter!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Sundays Fundays When School Begins

It's a beautiful Sunday morning? You know how water tastes really good when you are super thirsty, or chocolate when you are on a diet? Weekends never taste as sweet as when teachers go back to school.

Can I just take a moment to share with you how much I LOVE 4th grade? Like, I love it with such a big, giant, squishy love. I love it. Love. It. L-u-u-u-u-r-r-r-r-v-v-v-v-v-v-e it.

I love it almost as much as I love these tiny monkeys.

Let me tell you the ways I love it.

1. They work!
2. They get funnies!
3. They have a lot of schema!
4. They understand when no means NO, and sit-down-and-quietly-work means just that.
5. They do not eat erasers, put their gum under your rug or roll around during reading time.
6. They understand the power of mistakes and Jolly Ranchers.
7. They are silly and serious and fun.
8. You get to play Math Pickle, use Edmodo and other technology.
9. You get to teach about glaciers, caves and bats. And woolly mammoths.

I. Am. Never. Going. Back.

Neh-VAH.

How was your week?  Please share, teacher bloggy friends!

Now that your eyes are just beginning to gloss over and you are getting ready to click away, let me remind you about........

200 followers. 200 followers!!

Here's the line-up for the giveaway:


Any item of your choosing from my TPT store

a to-be-determined TPT item from Chrissy  at "Buzzing with Ms. B"

Fun and Colorful Word Wall Cards for Each Month & Many Themes!

 from Christina  at "Bunting, Books, and Bainbridge"

(see it here)

Two (yes, TWO!!)  fabulous coffee cozy from Staci's at "Going Nutty in First Grade" Etsy Shop (seriously, check these little guys out! I'm rooting for the pink 'stache, of course. These are gorgeous!)

Block It Out addition boards from Amanda  at The Teaching Thief. Make sure to check out all the cool freebies she has at her store!

1 item of your choice from Tara at 4th Grade Frolics

Everybody loves a party so if you'd like to throw your hat in, I'd be overjoyed to feature you in the give-away! Just email me your blog link, a link and description of the product. 

I'm opening the Rafflcopter, so let's get this party started! The give-away will end a week from this Sunday.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Reading: checking on fluency

Your thoughts are beginning to soften on room readiness and your focus is sharpening on how you will lead your students this year. No doubt reading is looming large on your horizon.

We want to know all about our new students. We check their sight words, their reading levels and their decoding abilities. We often let one thing slide by, even though it can be an incredible indicator: fluency.

There are lots of assessments out there, but most of them have flimsy fluency checks built in if they have them at all. This was the problem I ran into a few years ago. I chose to let fluency assessment sneak by unnoticed until I began my grad research. Then fluency reared up and demanded to be noticed, but I didn't have the right tools. I took my research and mixed it with practicality, and then sorted through the bits to come up with my Fluency Assessment Pack.

Fluency is important for several reasons, as well as being a killer indicator.

• Fluent reading boosts comprehension, because cognitive brain space isn't being used to decode
• Fluent reading boosts comprehension because recognition of syntax and structure, as well as awareness of language
• Slow laborious reading is an indicator of breakdown in the skills of decoding, sight word recognition, and language structure

Fluency can be tracked and improved. A quick assessment done twice with the same reading can show information you can use to differentiate instruction for your readers.

My Fluency Assessment Pack is available at both my Teacher's Notebook shop and my Teachers Pay Teachers store. You can enter to win it FREE at Teacher's Notebook, all you need to do is stop by and enter (check it out here). 

Fluency Assessment Pack at Teachers Pay Teachers

Fluency Assessment Pack at Teacher's Notebook

Teachers Pay Teachers is an excellent avenue for sharing the items we all create. I love that I have a website store that was so simple to set up, and is straightforward and easy to post items.  Interested in sharing or selling your own items on Teachers Pay Teachers? I'd love to see you there! Please use my referral code if you decide to check it out! I'd be happy  to get your started!
https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Signup/referral:bhmathews