How to Create a Facebook Page for Your Teaching Blog

I wanted to start a Facebook page to go along with my blog and store, and this is what came up.



Aaaaah! Too many options.
 
Luckily, I could eliminate everything on the bottom... but any of the top 3 *could* make sense for a teacher blogger/ seller. So what do you do?

Since I thought someone else might go through this same confusion, I thought I'd post about how I started a Facebook page for my blog and TpT store.

Like any self-respecting blogger with a question, I googled it. And thankfully, I found a blog post that broke things down for me. Anne has a fantastic chart explaining what types of information you can add for each type of page. (I would love to post her chart here, but that doesn't seem fair, so please click over to her blog to see it!)

One of the main differences about a local business page is that it mostly lets you give information for a physical address (hours, location address, etc.)- and of course, I don't have a physical store. It doesn't really make sense for me, then.

Now I'm down to two options. I looked carefully at what fell under "Basic Info"- what someone could see initially on the home page, without clicking for more information. A Brand or Product page will let me give an "About" description on the home page- which is important to me.

But on the other side, the Company page would give me the option of adding my email in the contact information, which I would really like to have.

All things considered... I think Brand or Product is the better fit. I'll just have to add my email in somewhere else!

I chose website as the category, and then put the name of my blog.



From there, they walk you through choosing a profile picture, writing a description, and linking websites to your page. (I chose my blog, TpT store, and Pinterest.)

Once you have this, they walk you through the parts of the page, which I found really helpful. It shows how to use the page with little pop-ups. (So if you aren't too Facebook-savvy, they will help you!)



Another thing I really like is that I chose to create this page while logged in to my personal Facebook account. Now, the two are linked- but they show me at the top of the page that I'm "being" Luckeyfrog's Lilypad right now, and I can click to change to my personal account. I like that I won't have to log in and out to post on my personal profile or my blog profile.



So, now you'll have an Admin panel. This is only because you're the "admin" of this page. This way, the notifications, messages, and likes are all in one place.




It looks pretty simple from here!

A few quick tweaks, and now I can refer you straight to facebook.com/LuckeyfrogsLilypad!

Annnd there's one thing off the to- do list for Spring Break! Looking forward to interacting with some of you more :)

P.S.- I also added a "Follow By Email" button to the side when I updated my blog design, so if you'd like to get an email every time I write a new post, be sure to sign up over there!

P.P.S.- 500 Follower Giveaway coming up soon... (let me know if you want to help! :)

First Time Five for Friday

I’m linking up for the first time with Doodle Bugs Teaching’s Five for Friday!

What a week!

1. TESTING- ugh!

To start out, imagine this- the front of my room a few weeks ago- with everything taken down or covered but the alphabet and the quotes. For testing, my room had to be completely bare. But after a few days, we finished the first round. (Whew!)

2. Old West Day! (I can’t wait to post about this.)

My kids chose this as a reward and we had a blast.

3. Grown Up Bucket Filling

After seeing some wedding photos recently, I was reminded of how much I love ours and how much we loved our photographer. I emailed her randomly just to thank her again, and she said it made her month. LOVE getting a chance to randomly cheer someone up! (And seriously, Mindy is an amazing wedding photographer if you’re anywhere near Indiana!)

4. Good news!

My husband will graduate soon and has been job hunting, which is never a fun process. This week he found out about an exciting opening! It feels great to see him so excited and optimistic.

5. SPRING BREAK!

I have just started up on MyFitnessPal (find me- I’m luckeyfrog!) and I’ve done really well this week… but I splurged tonight and got a peanut butter milkshake and burger from one of my favorite places in town (that’s their peanut butter one on the right). I may not be going away anywhere, but this was a pretty great way to kick off spring break!

(And the other half- okay, third- is in the freezer to finish up tomorrow!)

I won’t be at school this week, but I have a few posts ready and I’m hoping to put together a giveaway for when I reach 500 followers! Let me know {luckeyfrogslilypad @ gmail.com} if you’re interested in helping out!

What was the best part of your week? :)

Snow!

What a crazy week!

2 days of ISTEP+ (our state test), a 2 hour delay today, Old West Day tomorrow, a school parade/ convocation on Friday, and then SPRING BREAK!

Yes, I know our spring break is super early- but we are in a college town (see above)with many university parents, so we line up with the college spring break (which means my husband and I have the same spring break- for one last year until he graduates :)

Before you get too jealous, don’t worry… I’m not going anywhere exciting!

The good news is that my students are done with the first round of testing, and I think overall they did fine. I won’t go so far as great- I mean, it’s natural to be proctoring and want to tear your hair out over a couple of kids’ shoulders or jump up and down behind others, right? But hey- we’re done until the week after spring break.

Are any of you on MyFitnessPal? They’ve got a great app (and website) for tracking the food you eat and the exercise you do, and I’ve just started giving it a try. Add me- I’m luckeyfrog :) and I’d love to have some more “friends” on there!

Tomorrow… Old West Day!

How I Keep Reading Response Journals Simple!

One of the major changes to my reading curriculum this year has been adding reading response journals.

We waited a few weeks to get our reading response notebooks set up because I was still deciding what I wanted. I ended up just keeping them super-simple-  using 2 sections, split by one tab.

When students open their composition book, they have a genre guide glued in the front. I got this resource from Laura Candler, but needed to adjust so that it would fit in the composition books. I changed the font, too (because I’m a font snob :) but you can pick up a copy of her Genre Chart for free here.

On the other side, we created a reading log. Instead of gluing it in, each student grabbed a ruler and followed directions to copy mine. It worked out pretty well, and now my students know how to create a new page whenever they need it.

You can see that my kids add the genre code, date started, title/ author, date finished, and the rating (1 to 5 stars). I love the rating piece- it allows me to see at a glance what books a student has loved or hated to give book recommendations! (It makes me feel like the Book Whisperer and I love it.)

My students have 15 pages before the Post-It tab that I helped each of them place. They stick in and not one has come off yet. This tab is where the reading responses start for my kids. I require that they write the title on the left and date on the right. Some are still forgetting the date, but overall, most do well with it.

I tell my kids that their response needs to focus on THEIR thinking. Some of my kids will write lengthy summaries, but I tell them if I wanted to know what happened in the book, I’d go read it. This is THEIR reader’s notebook, and I want to read mostly THEIR thoughts! I know a lot of people like to use this for practicing how to write a summary, and that’s fine, but I felt like my kids needed to focus on giving me more than just a retell of the story. It forces them to think deeper!

Most weeks, my students check the Weekly Must Do’s board to see what they need to complete during the (Daily 5-ish*) Reading Rounds of that week.

Usually, students are required to do one free response (where they choose the book and the topic of their response) and one structured response (where the class answers a specific question, usually about a book I’ve read aloud or we have all read together).

At the beginning of the year, I did frequent modeling (including having to sound out some words!). A couple of months into the year, I had students help me make a list of possible topics to write about, and we’ve posted it in the classroom for guidance.

When students have finished their responses from the week, they turn them in to my purple basket. I try to grade a few a night, but lately I’ve just taken the basket home on the weekends.

I respond back and forth to the students, and give them a grade, usually based on completion, following the format, and if they included at least 3 of their own thoughts while reading. This semester, I’ve started writing the grade in the notebook for feedback along with my written responses to them.

When I respond, I try to treat it as a conversation about books, with maybe a reminder here or there. I want them to feel like we’re just chatting as readers.

With almost every student, I’ve seen amazing growth in their abilities to write about their reading. Here is a response from the beginning of the year.

Here is a response from that same student recently.

 

And from one of my ESL students? His first response:

(I like Some Dogs Are Very Good because is a bad dog.) I can tell you- at the time, I was jumping up and down at this response because it showed such comprehension of the book. But NOW?

(Yes [I will tell my mom about the Cat and the Hat], because my mom will be so, so mad of us. I think that she will say that I’m not going somewhere before I catch that cat.)

Amazing, right? And as my class goes into the open-ended response part of our state tests (this week), I feel like our reading notebooks are probably the best thing we’ve done to prepare for the tests, too- in part because they’ve gotten practice writing and giving evidence from the text, but in part because it’s just made them stronger readers!

Do you have a reading notebook? I’m definitely going to be tweaking mine next year, so I’d love to hear what you do differently!

P.S.- I gave my blog a makeover last night- just playing around with it- and I. Love. It. Let me know if anything’s broken, and check out my new blogroll! :) If you’ve posted recently, you just might be on it!

*The Daily 5 idea and concept belong to “The Sisters” Joan Boushey and Gail Moser.

It's March! :) Yaaaay!

It's my birthday month! I'm also hovering neeear 500 followers, it's been about a year since I really started up my blog, and Spring Break is within sight! If you'd be interested in helping me out with a giveaway in a couple of weeks, please let me know (comment or email!).

Anyway...

 I think half of my Currently's have the same "listening." But the reruns are better than the recent episodes!

Dinner last night was delicious. (You can check out the recipe by clicking on SkinnyTaste's photo below.)

 

I'm addicted to using my own fonts. Does this happen to everyone? P.S.- If you haven't picked them up, they're FREE! :)

I feel like such a grown-up. My husband asked if there was something specific I wanted or wanted to do for my birthday, and I couldn't think of anything. (Well, anything reasonable.) Any suggestions?

There's nothing like getting wedding photos back from a friend's wedding and feeling like a cow to make you want to SERIOUSLY start getting in shape. It also helps when a high school friend you haven't seen since invites you to her "fitness accountability" group on Facebook. Uh, thanks for the subtle hint... So yeah. Any apps/ websites for easy tracking that you would suggest?

I am enjoying this jammies morning! :) This past week of test prep has helped me remember how much joy I *usually* get out of my job, and I am hating these test prep jitters. I'm nervous about testing, but my kids worked hard this last week and I think they're ready. And I'm ready... to be done with it! :)

I'm also excited about the first weekend of NEXT month... I got some amazing news this week, but I'm not sure if I'm free to share it with you yet. Let's just say I'll be able to cross something off of my Teacher Bucket List, and visit NEW YORK CITY for the first time in the process. So excited!!!

Make sure you link up with Farley at Oh Boy Fourth Grade! :)