Spring Fix-It Sentence Notebook

Just as most of you probably do, I begin every single day of school with a morning meeting. I take five minutes to allow students to tell me anything their hearts desire before the day gets started, and we always read my morning message. On every morning message, I always include a "brain buster." These brain busters include review of math skills we had been learning about, spelling words, CVC words, rhyming, syllables... literally every skill is covered as review on my brain buster. One of the most difficult skills we cover on our brain busters are our "fix-it sentences." I don't typically begin these on our brain buster until after Winter Break when I feel that my students have had enough practice with learning the basic fundamentals of writing a sentence; for us in my kindergarten class we chop the fundamentals of a sentence pretty much up to the following: a capital letter at the beginning of the sentence, punctuation mark at the end, and checking for correct spelling (of simple words, of course!). I had been giving a little bit of thought about how I could get each of my students to practice these fix-it sentences several days a week because when we do the sentences in our brain busters, only a handful of students get to participate each time, and of course the same students are the ones who always volunteer to participate and the rest just about refuse to get up in front of the class to write on the board. I'm sure this is not a new problem to any of you.

So along with this dilemma, I had also been noticing during our writing time that a lot of my students are having problems with small things when writing their sentences such as spacing in between words, nice penmanship, and correct formation of letters. This is very troublesome to me because their writing has been improving and the small things take away from the words that they are correctly able to spell now and their ability to even put their thoughts down on paper. I want their writing to be as wonderful as I know it is, and with practice, I know they will all fix the small things. So, by putting these two dilemmas together, out came this idea. 


My Spring Fix-It Sentence Notebook is seriously perfect and just what I wanted needed.

We will alternate between this notebook and our writing journals during writing time, so the thirty spring related fix-it sentence pages that are included in this notebook will be plenty to get us through until the end of the school year.

We did our first fix-it sentence together as a class today, and, if it could, my heart would have been smiling. 

Each fix-it sentence page of this notebook has three steps: 1. Fix it. 2. Rewrite it. 3. Draw it.
For our first time, we did step one together. I then had students complete step two on their own, and I checked their work before they could move on to step three. 

{Here is a sweet girl working on step two, rewriting the sentence the correct way, using her "space man."}

{Here is a completed fix-it sentence page in the notebook. This little lad did a fabulous job! His penmanship, although hard to see because of his needed-to-be-sharpened pencil, was perfect, and he rewrote the sentence perfectly. He also drew a picture for step three that matched what the sentence said.}

This activity took every bit of twenty minutes, but it was my favorite part of the day. I turned on Kidz Bop after I allowed everyone to begin working independently working on steps two and three and was able to walk around and work with individual students to the sweet sounds of my Kinders singing and working. It just doesn't get any better than that!

If this is something that you think would be great to prepare your Kinders for 1st Grade, I posted this product in my Teachers Pay Teachers store today and have it for 50% off until April 2nd. You can click on any of the pictures above to go see it and get more information on it in my store, or you can click here.










Attack of the Ninja Bunnies- $1 Sale!


I am so excited to announce that the ninja bunnies have visited my store and chopped the price of four of my favorite products down to ONE DOLLAR! Say whaaaaat?! Stock your cart full of all these wonderful $1 resources,  but hurry... the offer only lasts for the next two days! Here are the four products you can get discounted from my store. {You can visit my store and get further information regarding each product and to purchase by clicking on the picture of the product below.}


My Easter Bunny Rabbit Glyph is a huge hit with my students every year. The glyph is easy to folow and the pieces are made super simple for teachers to copy and students to cut and paste. We are excited about celebrating Easter this week in my classroom, and we will most definitely be making these adorable bunnies one day!


I created this unit particularly for the week that my class learns about the controlled r. We will dress up like pirates one day that week and do centers from this adorable pirate themed pack. This will be my first year having centers to go along with our "ar" day, so I'm super excited!


Going to the farm is one of my favorite things to do in Kindergarten. In May every year, our local 4H invites us to a farm and teaches us all there is to know about farming. I think I enjoy the field trip just as much as my students do. Last year I created this Farm Literacy & Math Pack to provide farm themed centers the week of our farm trip. 


Although I'm unsure if we will be able to fit in an ocean unit for an entire week this year due to snow days, I will be finding time to explore the deep depths of the ocean with my kiddos before the school year is over. Both literacy and math ocean themed center packs included in this are perfect for making my own little school of fish inspired to learn all about the ocean.

Now that you see what the ninja bunnies have attacked, go and grab them up for only 100 pennies right now!





2015 Spring Teacher Blogger Meet-up Weekend in Review

Wow, where do I even begin to review my amazing trip to the beautiful French Lick Resort in French Lick, Indiana for the annual Spring Teacher Blogger Meet-Up? So much anticipation led up to this trip, and I must honestly say, it did not disappoint. Holly Ehle from Mrs. Ehle's Kindergarten Connections and my teaching partner, Brittany Banister from Mrs. Banister's Kindergarten Kids, really put in the hard work and time to not only put together a great opportunity for all of us teacher bloggers from around the country to get together and collaborate, but for us to also receive some great teacher swag! Seriously, just so amazing. I'm excited to share it all with you, and when I am finished, you have an opportunity to win some teacher swag for yourself! So, here it goes...


I met up with my bestie, Jena Hudson from Sew Much Music, and headed to French Lick on Saturday morning for the day and night full of fun. 




A detour and a few scary minutes of driving through flooded waters later, Jena and I finally arrived in French Lick, excited and anxious to see everyone. 


This was only my second time visiting French Lick Resort, but it took my breath away just like it was my first time. The inside of the resort is seriously stunning.


While waiting for the time to enter our designated room for the meet-up, I immediately began running into some of my favorite people in the resort lobby. One of them being by Breaking Bad buddy, Deedee Wills from Mrs. Will's Kindergarten. I first met Deedee when she presented at the Indiana Kindergarten Conference presented by SDE in November, and I was excited to be able to reunite with her. 


Once the doors opened to the meet-up room, I was instantly surrounded by over 100 of the best teacher bloggers around, and a handful of them were all teachers from my district. 

{The room was once again decorated beautifully from pom centerpieces to name tags by the wonderful Schoolgirl Style.}


{Below are all the girls, minus Brittany Banister, who attended the meet-up from Scott County District 2 in Scottsburg, IN where I teach at. I am so proud and blessed to be a part of a district who encourages and supports all of us to grow professionally through blogging about our teaching.}

While at the meet-up, we were able to enjoy lunch and then we introduced ourselves to everyone. I loved being able to put faces and "real" names to blogs that I have followed for a long time. 
Introductions was then followed up by breaking up into grade levels and conducting our "Teacher Tool Gift Exchange." You can read all about it on my previous post by clicking on the picture below of the teacher tools I received during the exchange.


{Pictured above is the four groups we broke into for the exchange. I was obviously in the Kindergarten group on the top right.}

After the exchange, we were able to see what Holly and Brittany had been teasing us about for weeks. We had donations from several companies such as Lakeshore LearningScentosVera BradleyErin CondrenCreative Teaching Press who provided all of us in attendance with some amazing teacher swag. Everyone was seriously so blown away by the generosity of these companies!

{Below is all of the goodies we were presented with, aka: Teacher SWAG!}









{Above are all the goodies we were given from the above companies. We were clearly excited and thankful!}

After we were all blown away by the amazing gifts, we were released for dinner on our own. We hit up Chicago's pizza in French Lick for dinner and returned to our hotel room for a little friendly game of "Heads Up" on our phones and to change into our pjs.

At 8:30, we headed down in full pajamas and slippers to the PJ Party. A huge thanks to both Teachers Pay Teachers and GoNoodle for sponsoring the party. GoNoodle also donated lanyards for each of us teachers. We had so many fun things at the party to keep us busy such as pillow decorating, a photo booth, GoNoodle fun, a "business card" exchange, and lots and lots of food goodies!

{French Lick has the best ice cream, so we needed wanted to grab some before heading to the PJ party.}
{Photobooth station fun with my favorite ladies!}

{Pillowcase decorating station. Photo credit goes to Brittany Banister's Instagram account: MrsBanistersKindergartenKids.}

{GoNoodle station. Who says only our students can love GoNoodle?!}


{As the fun started to die down, many of us gathered together on the floor with our pillows and enjoyed catching up with others.}


My entire reason for this weekend was to be inspired all over again. I'm inspired almost daily by so many of these wonderful educators via their blogs, and I loved the opportunity to collaborate and continue the inspiration face to face. {Each letter is signed by each person at the meet-up.}

After hours of fun, everyone returned to their rooms, and if others did what my roomies and I did, we stayed up for hours continuing to talk until the wee hours of the morning. 

The next morning we all met for breakfast and said our goodbyes before heading home, rejuvenated and inspired about teaching our little ones.

Whew, now that you've got the inside scoop of all the happenings at the Spring Teacher Blogger Meet-Up 2015, now it is your chance to win your own teacher swag!

You can win all of the items below by entering our giveaway below. Also be sure to check out the fun that the other bloggers at the meet-up had!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Five for Friday- {Spring Break & a FREEBIE!}


Can you believe it? This is the third Friday this month that I am linking up with Kacey at Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday!


This week has been spring break for me, and I have been thoroughly enjoying it! I have been working a lot on my wedding checklist this week since I have had the extra time and have tackled a few crafty projects that I've been putting off. This is just one of my many projects I was able to complete. I was given two chalkboard picture frames by a friend who used it at her rustic wedding. A coat of metallic gold paint, some mod podge, gold glitter, and chalkboard spray paint later, and voila! Isn't it a beaut? I'm undecided on what I will write on both of them, but I'm super excited just the same!



This was posted on the Teachers Pay Teachers Instagram account this week, and I found it completely worth sharing, just in case you hadn't seen it yet. This quote epitomizes my reasoning for joining the teacher blogging world and why I look forward to the Spring Teacher Blogger Meet-Up every year. I love surrounding myself with the best of the best, and I can honestly say that I have several wonderful educators in my district that I am surrounded by, and I am obviously surrounded by outstanding educators in the blogging world. 




Tomorrow kicks off our Spring Teacher Blogger Meet-Up Weekend in Review blog posts. Everyone who attended this year's meet-up has been anxiously waiting to share all the details of the fun weekend with all of our blog followers, and we finally will be letting you in on everything tomorrow! Come back to my blog tomorrow to see how I spent my time at the meet-up, and see how much fun other bloggers got into as well!



Next week when I return to school, we will be celebrating Easter all week long. We will be using literacy and math centers from my Easter Literacy & Math Pack, and completing several craftivities.



One of the craftivities we will be completing is my Easter Bunny Writing Craftivity. You can grab this craftivity for yourself and your class right now by clicking on the picture below. Enjoy this FREEBIE, and have a great week. :) 


P.S. Check out my Teachers Pay Teachers store for more Easter activities and three more Easter FREEBIES!