Show Us What You Bought! And the Elf arrives...

I was loving the huge sale TPT had over Black Friday weekend, so I'm participating in the "Show Us What You Bought" linky from Blog Hoppin'! I'm super excited to use the few units I bought.

Trust me when I say there were a lot more that I wanted to buy, but I had to FORCE myself to leave it on my wishlist! Ha! Here's what did make it through the check-out line:

1. Morning Math by Donna Glynn
2. 10 Frame Flash Cards by Donna Glynn (love that these are already made for me now!)
3. The Backpack Boogie: Centers and Games for Back to School by Growing Kinders
4. Autumn Math and Literacy Centers by Deanna Jump and Julie Lee (love)

Can't wait to put all of these new centers together! And how perfect is Donna's Morning Math? Her worksheets will be great for bellwork or a quick warm-up. Thanks ladies!

I also wanted to thank everyone who purchased my Shapes Galore for the Common Core! unit and my new Deck the Halls {12 Christmas Math and Literacy Centers} unit during the sale. I so appreciate your support and I have been blown away by your kind, kind comments about each of those products. I don't feel worthy! :)

Today The Elf on the Shelf made its first appearance of the year. After much debating and voting, we decided that his name would be "Elfie the Elf". Original, I know. I was kinda rooting for Carlos... or School Shelf. School Shelf the Elf, now doesn't that have a nice ring to it? Oh well, I wasn't in charge of naming him...

Blog Hoppin' Freebie Friday {a few days late!}

Okay, okay, yes. I am late to the party for Freebie Friday. But the good news is, you get something free even though it is no longer Friday! Everyone likes free, right?

The first freebie I am offering is something new I created last year to go with a new Kindergarten Common Core Standard -- word endings! Students are to be able to tell what a word means based on its ending. To help my kiddos visually, I created word ending picture cards and a reference poster to help them with meaning. These are great for K-2 visual anchor charts!

Click here to get the word endings poster below!

Click here to get the set of 6 word ending cards show below!

The second freebie you can grab is a center game for reading, writing, and matching color words! You can find it in my TPT store, along with a monsters uppercase/lowercase letter matching game, for free! Here is the color word center in action with some of my kiddos last year:

Click here to go to my TPT store and get my other two freebies: Onward to my store!

Sneak a Peek at my Purchases! Linky Party

I've linked up with Blog Hoppin' to show you the awesome stuff I bought during TPT's Back to School sale!

I definitely took advantage of the great sale, but I always end up regretting NOT buying a bunch of things too! Oh well, I guess I can't go too crazy with purchases. :)

In my district we have brand new benchmarks for kindergarten. Normally we always just have a pre-test and a post-test, but now they are changing it so that they have 3 separate benchmarks to be given 3 separate times of the year. They recently informed us what was going to be on the 1st quarter math benchmarks and we flipped out! Due to the new common core standards, everything is getting shoved up and we are having to teach concepts earlier than ever but have been given no new curriculum to accomplish it. But lo and behold, some of my favorite bloggers came to our rescue and I bought 3 math-related units to help boost our kiddos' skills and get them to even higher levels of thinking. I'm so excited to get the ball rolling!

The first thing I bought was Deedee Wills' Complete Set of Daily Math Journals. I've had my eye on these for awhile (cause I seriously love everything she does) and last year we really implemented interactive math journals into our schedule so this was the perfect addition! I love that her Aug/Sep prompts are simple enough to help my kinders get into the basic routine (barring kiddos skipping ahead to random pages every 5 seconds)!

I also grabbed Deanna Jump's Math Magic: Common Core Games and Activities Pack. I don't know how I missed this before, but I didn't know it existed until I went scouring through her store to see what new fandangled thing I wanted to buy! Glad I found it, I think it will work perfectly!

Finally, I bought Growing Kinders' Fun With Numbers (Part 2) Pack. Those dastardly teen numbers are always so tricky for kinders to grasp and I think this will be an amazing resource. The circle maps included will go perfectly in our interactive notebooks!

Want to see what other treasures people found this weekend? Go link up here at Blog Hoppin' to join in!

"Currently" linky party!

Oh Boy 4th Grade is having a linky party about all of the things that are "currently" going on in your life!

Go join in the fun at Oh Boy 4th Grade!

"I'm thankful!"...for this linky party!

The lovely ladies over at the fabulous blog What the Teacher Wants are hosting a Thankful linky party! Such a perfect idea for connecting with others with Thanksgiving only 3 days away (um...what?!).

1. What are you thankful for in your classroom?
I am super thankful for my amazing, wonderful kinder team. We have so much fun and work so well together that it makes this job much easier! I don't know what I'd have done without them my first few years of teaching; they are wonderful. As far as actually IN the classroom, I am so thankful for my projector and my document camera. I don't know HOW I ever taught kindergarten without a document camera with all the modeling that is required. It's my lifesaver. My projector allows me to use technology with my kiddos to my little heart's content! I am also so thankful for my students. They can drive me crazy at times, but I love 'em to bits.

2. What person are you most thankful for?
I'm going to cheat and change person to <b>people</b>, because I am so blessed to have the most amazing family in the world. My mom, dad, brother and I love spending time together and we laugh about all our little inside jokes we have about everything. God has definitely blessed me with my great family and I'm so thankful that we are so close with one another.


3. What 3 blogs are you most thankful for?
I am definitely thankful for Deanna Jump's blog. Hers was the first teaching blog I ever came across and I was so amazed by her incredible activities and lessons she did with her students. It opened me up to a whole new world of ideas and things to do with my kinder kiddos and I thank her greatly for sharing with us!

I'm also thankful for Cara's blog at The First Grade Parade. Her creations are really second to none. I'm so grateful that she has shared so many wonderful things with us for free and I REALLY wish she taught kindergarten because I totally love all of her ideas but can't use them all in kindergarten! ;) She inspires me to make fabulous supplemental materials for my class and I love seeing what new activity/craftivity she comes up with next. Love, love her ideas.

I'm also thankful for Fran over at Kindergarten Crayons. How she finds time to teach AND make fabulous resources is beyond me! I'm so thankful that she is so generous with her wonderful creations and allows us to download them all. And the thing is... every single thing she creates is FANTASTIC!

I love so many other great blogs, so this is just a little highlight of the best of the best. Thanks to everyone out there in teaching blogland for sharing, talking, and laughing!

4. What guilty pleasure are you most thankful for?
I must say, I am a girl who is a sucker for sports. HUGE Diamondbacks and Coyotes fan. My family has Cardinals season tickets. I live for March Madness. I watch NHL on the Fly and MLB Tonight for fun. If I am at home and one of my beloved teams is playing on TV, I'll be the first one turning it to that channel. Sports are such an amazing thing to be a part of; and I love both watching and attending the games. I love it and am so thankful for it! And another one that is even more of a guilty pleasure, but I'm not sure I'm thankful for it... BRAVO reality TV shows. Seriously every single one. Real Housewives? Sucked in. Flipped Out? Gotta watch. Top Chef... don't even get me started, love love it.

5. What are you most thankful for? 
I'm most thankful for my God who blesses me beyond measure and loves me. I'm thankful for my family, friends, my job, co-workers, and every single student that has ever walked through my classroom door.


Go join the linky party over at What the Teacher Wants! Super fun! Happy Thanksgiving. :)

Teacher Week 2011: Meet the Teacher Monday

So the fabulous gals over at Blog Hoppin' started Teacher Week 2011 and here is my post for Meet the Teacher Monday! So excited to be a part of it! So here goes... more about me:

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Tell us a little something about you...

I'm Caitlin, and I am currently blogging while watching my beloved Arizona Diamondbacks play. I am a sports fanatic, I LOVE baseball and hockey and go to all the Cardinals games with my family! I love spending time with my amazing friends and family. I enjoy playing pickleball - a little known sport that's a cross between tennis, badmintion, and ping pong. It's FUN! I also love trying to cook/bake new recipes and I sing in my church worship band.

How long have you been teaching?

This is my third year teaching; all in kindergarten. I never thought kindergarten would be my first choice for teaching, but it's what was available at the time, and I ended up LOVING it! I work with an amazing, amazing team of kinder teachers and we just have a blast together at work. I love seeing how much my kinder babies grow in a year's time! Though I will admit, I can't wait till this first month is over so they'll finally be more settled into the school routine. ;) 

You might not know...

I got a scholarship to play college basketball in Nebraska, I've been on The Eric Byrnes Show in Arizona, and Mark Grace CIRCLED ME WITH THE TELESTRATOR DURING A D-BACKS BROADCAST AND IT WAS AMAZING.
 

What are you looking most forward to this school year?

I'm looking forward to trying new things with my kinders this year and possibly revamping some old activities to make them more exciting. Part of the thing I love most about the teaching blogosphere is all the fabulous ideas I get from you all. I've tried some of them in my class and they have all been a hit! I'm also looking forward to just growing in my teaching abilities to continue to better myself. :)
 

What do you need to improve?

I seriously need to get organized. I normally give myself a few weeks before school starts to get in my classroom, get everything out, and organize it to my liking. However, they finished cleaning our classrooms VERY late into July and I didn't get the opportunity to do all the organizing I wanted to. I have a tendency to keep my desk/table cluttered and I really need to stop! I also really want to put more of a focus on teaching math and doing more math centers in the afternoons.

What teaching supplies can you *not* live without?

I love sharpies, flair pens, and post-it notes. I also love getting as many books as possible to have more of a variety to read to my kids. And I love using my document camera and projector - I wonder now how I ever taught without those things! And my kiddos personally love using their individual white boards.

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Glad to be a part of the Teacher Week linky party! Can't wait to get connected with more of you!

Pinterest Linky Party!

Michelle over at Michelle's Math in the Middle is having a Pinterest linky party! Like many of you, I LOVE Pinterest! I have gotten so many fun decorating, baking, DIY, and classroom ideas that I am dying to try! It is so fun to search through all the fabulous ideas on there. Here's a link to mine if you want to check it out; and of course if you would like an invite, I'd be glad to send you one! Just leave your e-mail in the comments section. I got my invite from Lindsey over at her wonderful blog The Teacher Wife -- check her site out, too!

My Pinterest page (click the picture below):

pinterest.com/c8lino

Join in the linky party....

So the fabulous blog Clutter Free Classroom is hosting a blog-stalking linky party, which I love, because now I can find even more amazing blogs to follow and snag awesome ideas from! You can check out the whole list at the link above. I haven't had my blog for very long, but hope to really get it going once school starts again this August and hopefully share as much with y'all as everyone else has done for me!

Happy Summer, everyone!!