Catching Up on Life, Freebies, and a Sale!! {Five for Friday..on Saturday}

Hello!! So glad to be linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for her 5 for Friday! We are just going to pretend that today is Friday! *wink* #betterlatethannever

I am SO excited to be back! You may have noticed that I have been a little MIA lately and that this poor blog has been severely neglected. Well, I have a really good reason and very exciting news! I graduated in December with my Masters in Reading!!

You can imagine how excited my hubby and I were for this accomplishment!

I am so so so thankful for this man!! You can imagine how crazy life was with teaching full-time and doing grad school full-time too! I couldn't have done it with my hubby's love and support! 

As crazy as life was the past year and a half while doing grad school, I hadn't realized how long my student sponge had gone dry and needed some good soaking under teaching and instruction again!  I was so thankful for this opportunity and learned SO much!! I still think it is funny though that they call it a "Masters in Reading", because really could that ever be true?! I feel like I could and probably will spend the rest of my life learning and refining my teaching practices in reading! I do have lots that I want to share with you though about some of the things that I learned along with some of the resources that I created! I'm excited to share these with you in upcoming posts now that I have some more time to get back to blogging! :)

The kids and I had fun on Friday with Groundhog predictions! We used this graph to see which had the most votes! 

I forgot to snap a picture from this year, but this was a graph from the past year and this years results were almost identical! We had 6 for Yes, and 14 for No this year! The "nos" were VERY passionate about wanting Spring! I think the fact that we had indoor recess again on Friday helped persuade many NOs!

If you want to grab this Groundhog's Day Graphing FREEBIE click HERE or on the picture above to grab it! The graph is the last page of the Preview of my "Is that His Shadow? Groundhog Day Craftivity". Just click the preview button and you can print the graph!

After we did the graph we used the craftivity to write about our predictions and about our opinions! The kids did a great job! Here are our finished groundhog's hanging in the hallway! The kids writing and craft always are priceless! Teachers were outside of my classroom on Friday chuckling over them! :) I love how you can give everyone the same pieces and tracers and each one turns out differently! They each have their own character and personality!

Click HERE or on the picture to check out the craftivity!

I can't believe that we will be celebrating the 100th day of school on Tuesday (pending that the snow forecasted for Sunday and Monday doesn't push it back)! Seriously, where has this year gone! We have lots of exciting things planned for the 100th day, including handing out these official 100 Days Smarter Certificates:

Everyday we use our math binders for calendar time and count each day of school with tens and ones, ten frames, tally marks, etc. From the beginning of the year, I always make a big deal about students being that many days smarter! It's so exciting to see how much they each have grown and the 100th day is kind of a big deal and a big number to our precious kiddos! :) I created these awards last year and had them as an exclusive freebie on Facebook, but I have now put them up as a FREEBIE in my TPT shop! Just click HERE or on the picture above to grab them for your kiddos! 

Just to affirm how far behind I am in the blogging world due to finishing up my grad school (refer back to #1), I finally posted this today on TPT and have had it made and finished since July! #keepingitrealfolks 

Click HERE or on the picture to check it out!

Even though it isn't the beginning of the year, winter is always a good time to reorganize! I created this for my classroom this summer because I wanted a cute and easy way to manage dismissal time. We all now how crazy that time can be! Plus it comes in handy for when you're handed a note about a transportation change for a child or for that last minute sick day when the substitute is in charge! This dismissal clip chart has been a lifesaver in my room! Plus I can reuse it each year!

It comes with LOTS of options and colors:

I used a mixture of the green and blue ones in my classroom and put them right on the window next to my classroom door.

Click HERE or on any of the pictures to take a look at "How We Go Home--Dismissal Clip Chart" in my store! And it's on SALE right now! :)

And last but not least I'm throwing a SUPER sale in my store this weekend!!

Click HERE or on the picture to go to my TPT store!

Everything is 20% including these products that I posted over while finishing up grad school, but didn't have a change to blog about yet! I also have a Henry and Mudge take-home bag in the works that should be finished soon!! Click on the images below to check them out!

So glad to be back and am looking forward to the days ahead!! :) What have you been up to? Leave me a comment to let me know or link up with Doodle Bugs Teaching!