Blog – Page 12

Five For Friday and a TpT Gift Certificate Giveaway!

August 1, 2014 by Sarah Plum(itallo) 5 Comments

Whew — that is a LOOOOOONG title. And I’m going to take a wild guess and say that your favorite part is that teensy-weensy little word “giveaway.” Yes, that’s right, there’s a TpT gift certificate to be had, just in time for the HUGE Back-to-School sale.

But first, it’s Friday, and I’m linking up with Kacey from Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday!

I have been working like a mad woman this week to finally fulfill all the requests from last school year and get more products up in my TpT store. Let me tell you, PowerPoint has never gotten such a workout! I’m still working on a few, including the debut of my year-long bundle of place value centers {Place Value Through the Year}. Be sure and follow my TpT store because there’s going to be a fan-exclusive freebie released through the “note to followers.”

My sweet, sweet cousin left on Tuesday. {Insert super sad face here.} I had such a wonderful time catching up with her, and I am so so SO happy she finally got to spend some quality time with my boys — including a mini-photo shoot by the river. Family time truly is important, and I feel blessed to have the opportunity to soak it up during the summer months.

Speaking of family… my INCREDIBLE {seriously, y’all, they are the best} in-laws have invited us to come to the beach with them and some of our other NY family. The best part about this — other than seeing them after 8 months! — is that the beach is Ocean City, MD! You might remember me talking about it before, but if you don’t, my heart belongs to Ocean City in ways that are hard to express! I look forward to spending my last few days off {we get back and then I immediately have inservice days} in such a beautiful place with those that I love.

I have decided to get rid of my clip-chart! Stop. the. world. I’ve never been a huge fan {for me, personally; I know they work for others and that’s totally okay} of using them in my classroom, but I have had to as a part of grade-level collaboration. This year I’m trying something different, and I cannot wait to share with you what it is. I’m so excited I almost want to spill the beans now… almost. 😉

I am SO excited to be giving away a $10 TpT gift certificate for you to use during the big sale, as well as the first installment of {Place Value Through the Year}, the Back-to-School edition. Enter using the options below, and be sure to share with your friends — that way they can enter, and you can earn more entries for spreading the word! I so look forward to giving one lucky winner some extra spending money to buy those awesome items on their TpT wishlist! Hurry and enter, it’s a quick one — the giveaway ends when the clock strikes 12 on Sunday night!

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What Lies in the Middle

July 31, 2014 by Sarah Plum(itallo) 3 Comments

I’ve talked before on my blog about my family — my two beautiful boys.

My role as a mother is the most important role I have. It always comes first — day or night, sleep or no sleep. I know that many of you can relate.

But I’m also a teacher. That role is important, too {oh-so important}. It seems to be such a close second to my role as a mother that sometimes it’s difficult to tell the difference between the two — but it’s there.

This is the year where they both meet. They meet in the middle of that Venn diagram.

Last year, when William turned 4, I remember thinking to myself — “this is it. The countdown to Kindergarten.” Since then, the apprehension and anxiety has slowly built.

How do I let him go? How do I learn to balance Mom and teacher in this new way? How do I live in that tiny space in the middle of that Venn diagram?

In some ways, I already live in that space.

William has some challenges. We are still working to discover what to call those challenges {a diagnosis}, but they’re there. Difficulty relating to others, frequent physical outbursts, difficulty communicating emotions or needs, difficulty transitioning, difficulty focusing on tasks outside of narrow interest areas, difficulty with sensory experiences — including writing and drawing.

Those challenges are where I live in that space now — half feeling the sting of those difficulties as a mother, half trying to lessen them as a teacher.

But soon I’ll share that job with someone else.

And that… that’s going to be hard.

If you’re a parent and you’ve already sent your firstborn off to school, you understand that challenge. If you’re a parent and you’re about to send your firstborn to school or will in the coming years, you may be feeling some anxiety about it, like me.

As a Mom, I don’t have all of the answers. I don’t have a magic piece of advice to help you ease the transition into the space where you share your child so greatly with another human being and relinquish some of that control.

But as a teacher, as a teacher who has been the other half of that equation for 20+ mothers {and fathers, and grandmothers and grandfathers} each year… I can give myself, the mother — now Teacher Mom — a piece of advice.

Trust.

Trust that he/she will love and care for your child when you are not there. Trust that he/she will want the best for them; that they will hurt when he/she hurts, that they will laugh when he/she laughs, that they will feel a deep desire to see your child succeed no matter what.

Trust that whatever difficulties or exceptionalities your child may have he/she will work tirelessly for them. Even, and especially when they are separating themselves from others, or having an outburst; even, and especially when they don’t have words for how they’re feeling; even, and especially when they’re still two tasks behind; even, and especially when they haven’t started.

Trust that they will be there for your child.

It is a leap of faith.

But it’s one worth taking. For you, for your child, for the man or woman that will teach them.

This is the space I am choosing to live in as Rich, William, and I embark on this new experience together. I trust. I trust you, the teacher that will teach him this year. I trust you, the teacher that will teach him next year. And the year after. And the year after.

I trust you.

{I would love for you to share your experiences — as teachers, as mothers and fathers, or both — with trust.}

Monday Made It, Teacher Tourism, and a Giveaway!

July 28, 2014 by Sarah Plum(itallo) 10 Comments

I’m linking up for the second week in a row (woohoo!) with Tara for Monday Made It! The past few days I’ve spent rather unplugged while my amazing and sweet cousin from California visits with me and my babies. It’s been SO nice to have this time with her and my boys, especially now that summer school is done. DONE. DONE! (Can you tell how excited I am?)

So — while I haven’t spent a whole lot of time on school-related things these past few days (and last week while I was tying up loose ends with summer school), I did manage to give my classroom alphabet a facelift and FINALLY bundle it as requested. It’s been a HUGE undertaking, but I’m really happy with the results.

I also made two things for my upcoming kiddos that I think are really important: a personal word dictionary and word wall. Why both? You might be asking that — and I have an answer! I use both with my kiddos because they need both. The word wall is for those high frequency words that we learn in whole and small group, words that they frequently need to spell correctly. We use our word dictionaries for those words that we do not use as frequently, but students still wish to spell correctly (and I’m so glad they want to!).

I’m planning on shrinking down several sets of my alphabet posters. {This is SUPER easy to do just from the print menu.} I plan on using them for a variety of tasks.

Some of my students will use the smaller (four to a sheet) cards for letter-recognition practice. They can play a “war” rapid-fire style game to help their letter-recognition become automatic.
Some of my students will use the smaller cards not for letter-recognition, but for word sprees! Their partner will show them a card and they will list all the words that they know the begin with that letter while their partner tallies the number of words they know. They’ll take turns and see who can list the most!
I’ll be printing the cards half-size to use as word wall headers on my cabinet, and yet another set of half-size posters to use at my small group table.
The blackline versions will be used as morning work the first week — students will decorate their own poster and it will be used in a “letter of the week” display where we’ll do whole-class word sprees, a vocabulary focus, etc.

In second grade we begin the year honing our print handwriting, and by the beginning of the 4th quarter we start the transition to cursive. I change our alphabet at the front of the room from print to print and cursive during the 3rd quarter so students are exposed to cursive before we begin to use it. I love having both displayed, as it really helps the students naturally incorporate more cursive into their daily writing.

This year I’ll be also using the cursive blacklines to help students practice their cursive — they’ll trace the laminated copies with whiteboard markers at our handwriting center.

I’ve posted all nine versions of the alphabet {primary print, cursive, and both in rainbow brights, rainbow chalkboard, or blackline} as well as three bundles — primary print, cursive, and print/cursive — on TpT. As always, they are discounted 50% for the first 24 hours, a total STEAL as each file includes a personal dictionary AND word wall for your students!

I’m also giving up copies on Facebook and Instagram, so head on over to enter to win your choice of bundle!

I’ll leave you with a few of my favorite photos from the past few days. We traveled the short distance north to Washington, D.C. to spend the day there and take my cousin to all the places we went as kids. It was a BLAST and truly makes me feel blessed to have D.C. as my backyard.

Happy Monday! And good luck to those of you that are already back-to-school!