Exciting News!

Two quick notes!

One- I'm featured today over at Principal Principles!

If you haven't checked out Stephanie's blog, I absolutely recommend it. I'm a little jealous of the teachers in her school-- how great is it that they have a principal who blogs and specifically looks for ways to feature the great teaching she sees within her walls (and outside of them, too)?

She shares a wealth of great ideas that you can take back to your classroom right away, so be sure to check out Principal Principles!

Two- this weekend I'll be participating in a blog hop with 27 other reading specialists and literacy coaches- and we'll EACH have a freebie for you, plus a chance to win prizes!

I'm so excited to pick up new reading resources-- only 3 days left! I hope you stop by!

Indiana Teacher Blogger Meet-Up

So, I technically stopped being an Indiana teacher blogger about 4 days before the meet-up… but these girls were gracious enough to let me join them anyway!



The 15 of us met up at a Mexican restaurant and stayed for hours binging on chips and salsa (or was that just me?) and chatting about our schools, blogging, and TpT. It’s always great to get together with other teachers, but being bloggers too just gave us that much more in common.



Our hosts Heather and Ciera made us personalized nametags (which made me feel *so* official) and these cute quote frames! Isn’t it cute?

             

They even planned a teacher gift exchange!

Look at all these incredible ladies I got to meet:



From left to right:

Top Row: me, Nicole at All Things Apple in 2nd, Hilary at Rockin’ Teacher Materials, Mary Beth Riley at Run Teacher Run, Hilary at Second Grade is Out of This World, Brenda at Primary Inspired

Second Row: Kristen at Teaching With a Smile (coming soon!), Jenny at Ignite Learning, Aimee at Pencils, Books, and Dirty Looks

Third Row: Ciera at Adventures of Room 29, Whitney at The Crazy Schoolteacher, Anita at I Live 2 Learn, I Love 2 Grow

Front Row: Amy at Math, Science, Social Studies, Oh My!, Heather at Teaching Through Turbulence, and Dorothy at Twenty-Something Teacher Tales



If you ever get the chance to go to a meet-up, make sure you do it. I had such a great time with these girls- totally worth 4 hours in the car!

Thanks to Ciera and Heather for planning such a fantastic meet-up! You can read more about our fun from some of the other Indiana teachers here:

Haaaave... you met Kimberlee?

I wanted to pop in and tell you about one of my favorite teacher bloggers, Kimberlee. She has been creating amazing freebies for quite some time here at her blog:

  

But she also has an AMAZING blog for adorable digital content, including blog designs:

 She's taught kindergarten and fifth grade, so there's a little something for everyone.

Examples of her FREEBIES?

Totally amazing, right? Kimberlee has over 1000 followers, but if you're not one of them, make sure you head over and join both of her pages. You will not regret it- and if you head over now, she's running a contest for a blog makeover, too! :)

Want a freebie?

Hey followers! I don't do this often, but I just wanted to point you in the direction of a new blog! Collaboration Cuties are pretty new to the blogging world, but they have plenty of great upper-grade products on TpT already. (They both teach 4th grade.)

Even better? They are willing to send you a FREE product just for following them today or tomorrow! (I just got a reading genre book that i am SUPER excited to try out!) Please go check out their sweet blog!

http://collaborationcuties.blogspot.com/2012/12/teachers-pay-teachers-weekend-giveaway.html

While I'm here, I want to tell you to go check out your local Dollar Tree. They have GREAT science kits right now- $1.00 apiece! This is the same kind of thing you can find on sites like Steve Spangler, bit in small quantities and for so cheap! These would make such fun student gifts, stocking stuffers for your kids, or even great activities for your class to do together on that crazy last day before break!


I also always pick up holiday erasers (24 for $2.00!) to throw in with my student gifts, too.

Love that my husband went with me for a Super Productive Morning (with stops to browse at Target and Dollar Tree- yeah!) Hope you are having a great weekend!