My First Stitch Fix!

Hi everyone!
This post is not teaching related at all but still fun!
I am so excited to talk about my first stitch fix!
After seeing Maria from Kinder Craze get so many cute outfits I decided to try it as well.
I have been counting down the days until my Stitch Fix was going to arrive and it finally did today!

While reading the personal note from my stylist I could really tell that she took time to figure out what would work for me personally. I had mentioned the fact that I am going on a cruise this summer and I put a link to my fashion Pinterest board. She mentioned in the note that she got a lot of ideas from my Pinterest board and a lot of the stuff that she picked I LOVED and am excited to .
I love how they give you little cards that show how you can style each piece.

The first thing that I saw when I opened the box was this necklace from the brand Zad:

The necklace is cute, but it didn't "wow" me. It was $48 and for that price I can get 3 or 4 cuter necklaces somewhere else.

The next thing was this white blouse, I wear blouses like this all the time and love them, so I was really excited to see this blouse in my Fix. The blouse is from the brand 41Hawthorn.

The blouse was $74, the most expensive thing in my Fix.  Although it was a little bit expensive, I loved this blouse on and it is a great piece that can go with so many different outfits.

I also got these fun embroidered shorts. At first I didn't like them at all, but after trying them on I really liked them! They are so different and cute, they are not like anything I would pick out on my own. However I was disappointed that they were labeled the wrong size, the tag said small but the inside tag said medium and they were clearly too big. I am hoping that I will be able to exchange the shorts for a smaller size.

The shorts are $64 and from the brand THML.

The next thing that I got was my favorite. I have been loving maxi skirts this summer and this one is so cute! I was so excited to see this skirt and can't wait to wear it!

The skirt is from the brand Promesa, it was $58.

The last thing is a dress that I also love! I love coral colors in the summer and I love ikat print so I fell in love with this dress as soon as I saw it. It is great because it can be dressed up or dressed down, I am already thinking of cute outfit ideas with a denim jacket and also fancier options with heels and a statement necklace.

The dress is also from the brand 41Hawthorn, it was $64.

Overall, I was very happy with my Fix. I will definitely be getting another one in the future.

Although the necklace wasn't my favorite, I am going to keep all of it. When you keep all five items you get a 25% discount. This means that I will get $72 off of the total, so I pretty much get the necklace for free plus a discount.

If you want to get a stitch fix of your own you can use my referral link:
         http://stitchfix.com/sign_up?referrer_id=3427653       

Sub Binder

Something that can be very stressful, that doesn't have to be, is leaving plans for substitute teachers. I wanted to find a way to make taking a day off easier. I decided that a binder that you only have to set up one time for the whole year would be the easiest.

You can use this binder every time you are going to be absent or you can have it on your shelf in case of an emergency absence and your plans will be ready to go.

I finished a binder that can work for any teacher and is so simple to use. 

The binder has forms that you have to fill out according to your students, classroom and school and they will stay in the binder for the entire year. The forms will have everything the sub needs to know to run your classroom for the day.

By leaving the plans simple (ex: Math sheet at 10am) you can just replace the activities each time and keep the same plans for the entire year.

Look at the pictures below to see how the binder would work in action.

(All information is made up to show how the binder works.)

I have also included enough ELA and math activities for kindergarten to last for at least one day in your binder. You can keep a whole class set of these in your binder and once they are used, replace with a different activity for next time. 

To view this product on Teachers Pay Teachers, click here or click the cover below.

Five For Friday!

This week I've decided to link up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday!

We finally opened our pool this week. It is not completely ready yet, but this is a huge step towards summer! Since I was very young I have spend a lot of the summer out by the pool and it is so awesome to have on the hot days! I can't wait until it is all ready to use!!

My Mom started a teaching blog this week! She is an awesome kindergarten teacher and is the person that I learned all that I know about teaching from! She is so excited to start blogging and sharing some fun ideas.. Please check her out! Find her at Fun In K With Mrs. Shea..

Just today I decided to upload a Father's Day Freebie (nothing like waiting until the last minute!). I did one for Mother's Day that was very similar. It has a cute activity and book. You can download it by clicking here.

Here is an example of one of the activities included in the freebie.

One new thing that I found this week is these, Dark Chocolate Pomegranates. I have been loving them so much. I've always seen them at the stores and have wanted to try them but for some reason never have. I have already repurchased more!

As it gets closer, I am getting more and more excited for the TpT conference in Vegas! Is anyone else going? I have never been to Vegas before and can't wait to go and learn from some awesome TpT sellers!

I'm Back!

I just realized I haven't blogged in over a year. I guess that makes me the worst blogger ever!

I was crazy busy with school this year, I am currently in school for teaching and this was a really LONG year with a REALLY LONG winter. Thankfully, I am done for the summer and am now spending my time in kindergarten again! That means, I will have lots of great stuff to blog about...

I am so ready for the summer, I have a ton of fun plans and am just ready for the warm weather! We have had some nice summery days in NY so far but, not as many as usual.

Although I have neglected my blog for the whole year (I can't believe it has been that long), I have been frequently updating my TpT store! I now have a full year of weekly centers and so many other products...

After doing a bear research unit in kindergarten a few weeks back and going to see the Disney movie bears, I decided to make an animal research unit. It was so cool to see how excited and motivated the kids were when learning about animals. They were really interested in all of the cool facts, I was shocked when they remembered so much information about the bears! They are still talking about the facts and information the they learned. 

I also found an awesome website while researching kid friendly information about animals. The San Diego Zoo has a great kids website. They have videos with information on the animals, pictures, activities and even live cams of some of the animals. The live cams were the coolest thing, the kids loved them and are still asking to see what the pandas are doing all the time!

Here is the link to the San Diego Zoo Kids website.

I researched eight zoo animals and did a research unit on them, that is in my TpT store. This is the product that I had the most fun making, I did a ton of research and it was so interesting! Everyone is probably so sick of me telling them these little facts about elephants and all of the other animals all the time!

I have a ton of activities that are perfect for kindergarten or first grade. Learning about bears was perfect for us because we were going to see the Disney movie Bears, but this would be absolutely perfect for anyone who is going on a class trip to the zoo or for any other time!

Another thing that I realized while doing the bear unit in class was that you can put up any PDF on the Smart Board to easily fill out a sample as a class. I have a fill in fact page, which was perfect for K, and we just put up the PDF full screen on the Smart Board and filled them in as a class. Then the kids were able to copy the answers down on their own pages. I never even thought of doing this and realized how easy this made things!

Here is a sample fill in fact page:

(Sorry for the terrible quality iPhone picture)

Thanks for reading!

I will be back again this week, no more year long breaks for me!

Currently: May

Hi everyone!
Time is flying by, I can't believe it is May already!
It feels like just yesterday I was doing the April Currently.
I am linking up with Oh Boy 4th Grade for her May Currently.

Listening: It is SO nice to not have to hear anything after a long day of school! I love the peaceful quiet at night.

Loving: I am sure that we can all agree on this one. I can't wait for the summer! Even though I go until the end of June, it will be here before we know it.

Thinking: I have so much to do every night lately. It is already very late and I still have so much to do to prepare for tomorrow.

Wanting: I have been dying to go to the beach lately. It has been HOT here during the day lately (At least for me, maybe not too hot). Plus, our schools don't have air conditioning. All I can think about in the ridiculously hot rather warm classroom is going to the beach,  I love going to the beach in the summer and can't wait to go this year.

Needing: Okay, I guess I don't need new summer clothes, but I LOVE summer clothes. I love dresses and skirts and bright colors. I will definitely be doing some summer clothes for teaching posts soon.

Summer Bucket List: I really want to create a lot of TpT things this summer. I am so excited to finally have free time again and be able to get a lot of things done.


Just a reminder the Teachers Pay Teachers Site Wide sale for teacher appreciation ends tomorrow. If anyone is interested in purchasing anything from my shop for 28% off tomorrow is the last day! Click here to go to my store.

Enjoy the rest of your week!

TpT Site Wide Sale!

Hi everyone,
I am sure that you have heard about the site wide sale on Teachers Pay Teachers for teacher appreciation.
The sale will be Tuesday, May 7th and Wednesday, May 8th.
I am offering a twenty percent discount on all of my products, and TpT is offering 10% off your entire purchase for those two days. That means that you can get everything in my store for 28%.

Click the picture below to go to my store.

Use the promo code TAD13 at checkout to get 10% off your entire order at checkout.

My Teachers Notebook sale is still going on as well, check the previous post for details.

Have a great day!

Sight Word Legos

Hi Everyone!
I wanted to share about something that I have been LOVING for the classroom lately!
This is not my original idea, I got the idea from Miss Martin's Classroom.

I actually used this while I was tutoring, but I definitely plan to use it in the classroom as well.
It is so simple, put sight words on Legos to get kids motivated. (You can really put sight words on anything.)

I created a little game where I hold up one Lego at a time and he has to tell me the word. If he gets it right, it goes into his "tower". If he doesn't get it, it goes into my "tower". We created towers of seven since we were in the library, whoever had the most towers at the end wins.

I love this because you can change them anything to fit a certain child's needs and they are easy to change once you need harder words.

I bought this box of Mega Blocks at Walmart for around $10.

I used small Post-Its for the words because I thought that I could just cut out the sticky part and stick them on and they would be easy to change out. I spent about an hour cutting them out and writing the words on all of them, when I came back a few hours later the Post-Its were already starting to peel off. I knew that with kids using them, the words would be falling off and it would be a pain. I ended up putting scotch tape over them after so that they would stay and they have been great! It will be a little bit harder to change out now, but for now they are great.

Have a great week!