We LOVE Maryland Blog Hop

We love Maryland for many reasons!  You probably already know that Maryland has some pretty awesome things; crabs, beaches, history and of course our TPT sellers rock too  

I grew up in Virginia and met my hubby at college (WVU), he is from Maryland and we moved here right after we got married!  I can't believe that I have lived here now for almost 25 years and am happy to call Maryland my home!  It's true that home is where your heart is because what I love best about Maryland is all the wonderful friends I have made and memories that I had while raising my family here!  What do you love about your home state?
Thanks for stopping by our fun blog hop!  

Click below for your Freebie of my $4 Winter Word Work Unit with over 20 pages of fun word work activities for your students!!!  

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Dollar Store Clipboards & Pebble Go Freebie

I LOVE the dollar store - really The Dollar Tree!!  I know most teachers do too - so I just had to share my latest dollar store creations with you all!

We use our computers everyday in the classroom and I love students to be able to do research using the computers and listen to stories online during our Daily 5!  I often give them follow up worksheets or note taking sheets for them to use while on the computers.

It is hard for them to manage the keyboard and paper with our limited space and even more challenging for some of them with the larger clipboards.  So I headed to the dollar store in search of mini clipboards.  They didn't have any at the time but I found 6"x8" chalkboards and these cute colorful metal clips.

So I pulled out my trusty hot glue gun and glued the clips on the chalkboards to create my mini clipboards!!  The best best best thing about these clipboards is that they have a handy little handle for hanging them.  So while I had my glue gun fired up I hot glued some hooks to the edge of my computer tables and hung those suckers up!!  It makes me so happy to see them all hanging there all neat and tidy!

We are fortunate enough to have access to Pebble Go so I made some note taking sheets that work perfectly with my mini clipboards.  

Click below to grab the freebie for yourself and there is also a larger version for you in case you don't want them to have more room to write! 

Enjoy and happy dollar store shopping!!

Rewarding good listeners...

If you are like me and my little ones you know that we work so hard at the beginning of the year on becoming good listeners!  We practice and practice sitting on the carpet and I have even started teaching using Erica Bohrer's cute Whole Body Listening posters!  Thank you Erica - click picture to grab some for yourself!

They are great visuals and teaching points for getting us all ready for school!  Well, after winter break or a bunch of snow days ;) we seem to have forgotten and need some new reinforcements!  

About this time last year I was teaching a whole group lesson and after redirecting a bunch of friends several times I just had a spark of inspiration that instead of constantly redirecting some friends I should give some reinforcements to those kids who were always doing a great job.   My hope was to inspire the distracted ones to try harder in order to get the "reward."  So I walked over to my closet and stuck my head in looking for something to use as a reward and I spotted my container of stuffed animals. I grabbed all my care bears and put them all on my lap (I have 5 or 6 of them).  I continued the lesson and didn't even mention the bears - I am sure they thought I was a little crazy for a few minutes!  

As soon as I spotted someone who was one of those great whole body listeners, I leaned down and handed them a bear and simply said, "great listening" and kept on teaching.  It was awesome and the kids really responded.  

This year I made some blue star stuffed animals to go with my behavior chart.  

You don't have to drag out your sewing machine like I did because the care bears were just as effective!  Give it a try and let me know how you like using them or better yet let me know what little tricks you are using in your room to keep your sweetie pies on track!