Tell me more, Tell me more!! {Linky Party}

Hello friends! Today I am linking up with Amy Lemons for her "Tell me more!" linky party to share a little bit more about myself. Go check it out here to join in! It's fun learning about everyone's lives and interests. :)

1. I was born and raised in Arizona. FYI: It's HOT. But I can't imagine living anywhere else!

2. I am the oldest in my family, I have one younger brother. My family is super close and amazing.

3. Every few years my parents would save up and take us on these amazing cross-country road trips. We'd drive the entire way and I saw so many incredible places along the way. It made some of the best memories of our lives!

4. That being said, one of my favorite places to be is Disneyworld. I was fortunate enough to travel there with my family for 4 years in a row during my college years. It's so magical!

5. I played college basketball for 2 years in Nebraska on a full athletic scholarship. I never thought I would get the chance to play past high school, so it was a really cool experience. I played on the team that won its 10th straight conference championship.

6. My favorite, FAVORITE book is Outlander by Diana Gabaldon. She has 6 other books in the series which are equally as incredible and is currently writing the 8th book! But I have to wait till 2013 to read it (not fair). Any other Jamie/Claire fans out there?

7. My favorite movie is It's a Wonderful Life, which also happens to star my favorite actor, Jimmy Stewart. I love old movies.

8. I am a Christian; and my relationship with God is one of the most important things in my life.

(graphic courtesy of Cara Carroll)

9. I am a HUGE sports fan, especially of hockey and baseball. I will cheer, win or lose, for my hometown Coyotes, Diamondbacks, Cardinals, Suns, and Arizona State Sun Devils. And... I will be the first person to turn on the game if it is on TV, probably before even any guy would get to it. Haha. I have gotten to witness many amazing feats in person at many of these sporting events!

(Me with one of my favorite players, Ian Kennedy (left) and Bryan Shaw.)

10. In keeping with the sports theme, I have the honor of saying that I have been CIRCLED WITH THE TELESTRATOR on TV during a D-backs game by one Mark Grace. My sign said, "I love it when Gracie reads promos!" It was referring to an inside joke the TV broadcasters had running at the time...

11. I love music. I sing on the worship team at my church. My favorite bands are Switchfoot, The Civil Wars, and Jars of Clay. Here's a fun pic with my favorite band ever! (Switchfoot)

12. I play a sport called pickleball. It has a silly name, but it is so much fun! I would best describe it as a cross between tennis, badminton, and ping pong. I've played in competitive tournaments and won gold, silver, and bronze medals!

Well, that's enough about me! Link up over at Step Into Second Grade to find out about more of your bloggy friends!

Lakeshore, Target, and Kohl's finds this summer!

Well today I took the first of many back to school shopping excursions and came home with lots of goodies! Since a lot of my bloggy buddies have been posting their new finds, I thought I'd share mine too! I haven't been back to school to assess the situation that is my classroom (aka: hot mess) so I've held off on buying too much stuff until I see exactly what I need for the year.

In the meantime, though, I took an excursion to Lakeshore, Walmart, Kohl's and Target and found some great stuff!

Here's the haul from Lakeshore in the picture below. A ton of this stuff I got in the clearance section! They are also having a huge storewide 20% off sale until after Labor Day. The reusable bag was free -- woohoo! I found 6 non-fiction books for $1.99 apiece about various subjects we learn about and I am so excited to use them. I don't know why, but every year my kids love non-fiction learning. I was able to use 2 coupons on the games I got - the green box on the left ("Pop and Win Letter Sounds Bingo") is the one I'm most looking forward to showing my kids how to play. Anyone remember the board game Trouble? Well it comes with 3 different letter dice inside the popper thing - so the kids press down to pop it and roll the die to show which beginning sound they need to identify! How fun is that? The "Sight Word Steps" activity box on the right are non-slick nylon circles to put on the floor and play sight word games with. There is a pocket on the front of each circle to slip a word card inside, and I am also planning on making my own cards for different subjects to play other games with too! I'm excited to come up with different ways to use those...

Lastly, I found the Creative Teaching Press (love them) Chocolate Hot Spots circle stickers in the clearance bin, and they are PERFECT for some center games I need to make, most particularly for a couple of units I bought from the fabulous Mrs. Lee's Kinder Kids! Not to mention they also match my super cute paisley borders I have on my word wall. And of course I got the plan book for free with purchase, but I don't use it for that. Does anyone even write out their lesson plans anymore? It's typing all the way for me. Anywho, I use that every year as my calendar planner instead of buying one! Works great!

Oh, and just in case you didn't see my amazing new nametags for this year in the background, LOOK LOOK LOOK:

Really? So dang cute. And I think I may be forced to go back and buy the matching Eric Carle border. Maybe.

Next up, my Target Dollar Section treasures. I didn't go as crazy as I usually do buying teacher stuff there -- is it just me, or did they not have as much stuff this year? I got some new caddies, bins, and Dr. Seuss bracelets for Read Across America Day. I always like to give my class a little Dr. Seuss related treat on his birthday, especially since we do a big school wide Family Literacy Night to celebrate. I also snagged some paper plates in their summer clearance section - every year I hit this section up; the paper plates were only 29 cents! And the owl corkboard isn't for my classroom, it's for my apartment... but it was too cute not to share!

And raise your hand if you love the Kohls' Cares book section every time they bring a new theme in. The one going right now, if you haven't already been, is SkippyJon Jones. My class dies laughing every time I read his books, but I have a feeling it's more because of my terrible Spanish accent I try to use during the characters' dialogue. Haha. Anywho, I already owned all of the books that were there, but I bought the mini-Skippyjon because my kiddos will flip over it. So cute.

All I bought at Wal-Mart was gluesticks, because they are on sale this week for 10 cents apiece! The Wal-Marts here in Arizona don't have as much of the 88 cent teacher resources that some people have been posting around here, so I guess I'll have to live vicariously through you all in your excitement.

Tell me in the comments section about some of the great things you've found while shopping! Love seeing everyone's purchases!

I am going into my classroom for the first time tomorrow! Time to get the huge stash of stuff out of my house and into my school where it belongs!

Blog Award

I am honored to say that I've been the recipient of the "One Lovely Blog" award from a few people, most recently from Fun Games 4 Learning! It's a fun little way to learn about some new blogs, too. Here are the rules:

1. Follow the person who gave you the award.

2. Link back to the person who gave you the award.

3. Pass the award on to 15 new bloggers.

Here are some of the cute blogs I found while scouring blogger! Some are new, some are more established, but they all have great ideas! 

{kindertrips.blogspot.com}

{krogerskindergarten.blogspot.com}

{jenskinderkids.blogspot.com}

{simpsonsuperstars.blogspot.com}

{agardenofchildren.blogspot.com}

{kristincooksclassroomblog.blogspot.com}

{crayonconfessions.blogspot.com}

{kindergartenstars1.blogspot.com}

{sharingkindergarten.com}

{missnelsonsgotthecamera.blogspot.com}

{littlemindsatwork.blogspot.com}

{plantspress.blogspot.com}

{cobbkindersprouts.blogspot.com}

{kickinitinkinder.blogspot.com}

{spedventures.blogspot.com}

Enjoy!

Currently... Farley's Link-Up for July!

Good news! It's July 1st, which means it's time for Farley's "Currently" Linky Party! It's always so fun to get a little glimpse into everyone's lives and get to know them a bit more! The last category, "reads", is for you to choose your favorite read-aloud book and your favorite professional book. The first time I read Mars Needs Moms to my class, I almost cried! I had never read it before and it is such a sweet and moving story. My professional go-to book, Teaching Writing in Kindergarten, really helped me with different writing techniques to help my kinder kiddos' skills grow during my first year of teaching 3 years ago. Anywho! Here's mine for July:

Hope you'll go link up too! Check out her post here: Farley's "Currently" Linky Party!

First TPT/Teachers Notebook product for sale!

I am extremely excited because I just put my first product up on TPT! My mom, who has been teaching 2nd grade for 35 years, and myself, who has been teaching kindergarten for 3 years, decided to put our collective brains together and start making products to share with other teachers. Our first product we are selling in the TPT shop is an ABC Order picture sort pack! It includes 8 picture sort card games, each with a different theme: school, miscellaneous, sweet treats, animals, Christmas, spring/plants, weather, and ocean! Each set comes with 2 different recording sheets for you to choose from depending on your students' skill levels and/or time allowed for centers! The great thing about having so many options in this game pack is that your kiddos can play it numerous times and it will seem like a "new" game each time!

Here is a little preview of what you get in the ABC Order Picture Sort Pack:

I hope y'all will go check it out! And even if you don't feel compelled to purchase anything, there are some free products in the store for you to download! And more free downloads in past posts in this blog, too! Here is the link to the product on TPT: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/ABC-Order-Picture-Sort-Literacy-Game-Pack. Here is the link to the product on Teacher's Notebook: http://www.teachersnotebook.com/product/caitlino/abc-order-picture-sort-literacy-game-pack. Thanks for looking!

It's the end of the year....

I really don't know how y'all are so diligent at updating your blogs all the time. I'll post an entry, then get swept up in the busy-ness of the school year and not even look at it again until next month. It's my goal to be better at that next year. Of course, next year I am going to have about double the responsibilities as I have the past three years, so I think my best laid plans may not come fully to fruition. Due to two teachers on my kinder team transferring to another school, I have now become the "veteran" teacher on my team in my FOURTH year of teaching. And we are having not one, but two brand new teachers take their place, so I'm really going to have to be on top of my own stuff so as to make sure I am fully available to help the newbies get settled in. I remember how amazing and wonderful my team was to me in my first year of teaching, so I hope I can even do half as helpful a job as they all did for me.

That being said, I took a bit longer getting checked out of my classroom at the end of the year than usual and took the time to really go through and organize everything. I figured by the time August rolled back around I'd be much happier knowing a lot of those little things were finished already. I have a feeling this summer won't be as relaxing as I'd like because I'm feeling like I have to keep thinking about all of the things I need to take care of for the beginning of the year. I even brought some of my teacher's edition reading and math books home for the summer in case I got inspired to create some new activities for the first few weeks of the year.

This year I had one of the toughest classes I have ever experienced in regards to behavior. Let's just say my little lovely class was a bit, ahem, renowned throughout the school. But the strangest thing about that is that I think I miss those kids more than I have ever missed a class in my life. The extreme "pulling my hair out" feelings I felt throughout the year must have created extreme love for them in my heart! They were such a loving bunch. Kindergarten is the most wonderful grade to teach. The kids just absolutely adore you and love school with everything they have. You can make them excited about ANYTHING! (Hint: Tack on the word "special" and they'll be all over it. Special new notebooks, special new pencils.... they'll eat it up... even if it really isn't all that exciting!)

I'll miss my kiddos from this year, but the great thing about teaching is, once they're your kids, they're ALWAYS your kids... no matter how old they get. Is it not the best thing ever when your old students come back to visit?

One thing I will try not to think about: Beginning of the year Kindergarten students. Yikes. /shudder ;)

Happy summertime!

--Caitlin

Whether the Weather...

I've been wanting to post this stuff for awhile, but I always seem to get sidetracked with... teaching! As we all know, it feels like the work never ends. Oh well, better late than never! Our reading unit just recently ended with a weather theme that I am going to pick back up when Spring rolls around... though it already feels like it is here in Arizona, we don't really have a winter... ha! I wanted my kids to keep a daily weather observation journal, so prior to starting that we began to brainstorm a weather word wall. I was so impressed with the vocabulary they came up with! We brainstormed 3-4 words a day, added them to a sentence stem, and the kids read and wrote the words.

When we began to do our weather observations, my kids used the word wall WONDERFULLY and their writing came out so good. We went outside everyday and I videotaped the kids with a microphone (a pencil topped with a styrofoam ball!) as they pretended to be "meteorologists". I created this journal for the kids to use - they had to choose one weather "word of the day" to write in the box at the top of the daily journal entry. They then have to use that word at least one time in their actual writing entry. Feel free to download by clicking the link above the pictures:

Google Docs: Weather Journal (Clipart courtesy of Scrappin Doodles/Fonts from Kevin & Amanda)

In an attempt to get my kinders to start doing more independent work, we read the story "What Will the Weather Be Like Today?" by Paul Rogers. After we read it whole group, I split the kids up into 5 separate groups, gave them their own copy of the book, and gave them one certain page to study and describe to me all the different picture clues they saw to let them know what kind of weather day it was. After they found all of their clues, each group created their own poster to describe what they would do on their certain weather day. I wasn't sure how the whole small group work would fly, considering they hadn't produced many projects on their own, but they did a great job! They all created their respective posters together and then presented it to the class. I was very happy with how they worked together. Here is one of the posters my Sunny Day group created: 

Most kids just drew detailed pictures, but a lot of them wrote sentences describing what they did. Love it!

I began creating my own weather unit with some math and literacy games that I hope to get out on TPT come Springtime. In the meantime, I used a couple of games I created. One of them was the "Striking Short -I" word sort. They loved this game! After they sorted all of the lightning bolts, they used the recording sheet to write the words in the right word family section. Here's a glimpse of what it looks like:

You can download the game for free here on Google Docs! (Clipart courtesy of Scrappin Doodles/Fonts from Kevin & Amanda): Striking Short I! Word Family Sort

Before I end this I just wanted to send a huge thank you to Deedee Wills at Mrs. Wills' Kindergarten and a host of others for having a February contest -- I was one of the lucky winners and I got 7 FABULOUS February units to use in my classroom. I was able to use a few of the literacy activities from some of the ladies' units and my kids about died over them. Thank you Deedee and your fellow bloggers for having such a generous contest!!