A Long Time Away

Well, it has been months since I have visited my blog. Life is crazy, time is short, and I just was feeling like I was writing for naught. However, today I got a notice that there are some people following this, so I guess I should start writing.

TESTING....ah, the glorious things we teachers do for our government. Don't get me wrong. I think testing definitely has a place in the classroom, and I think standardized tesing should be done, but seriously...10 DAYS???? I mean isn't that pushing the envelope? For 3rd 4th and 5th graders to have to test for almost a half a day for 9 days is insane. ANd then we have to do makeups, so almost all teaching goes out the window during that time. I can see one day for math and one for reading and even one for writing...but I think going beyond 4 days is just a waste of energy...

Just my thoughts....how do you feel about all the testing we are now doing?

Cindi

so sad to be such a small fish

Well, I am feeling a little sad today. It seems that by linking up with the Monday Mde it crew I had quite a few folks stop by my blog and read it. But NO COMMENTS! I feel like the kid on the playground with no friends. I am determined to get some followers and become a part of this educator blog community. I guess I am just not used to being ignored (wink wink). But seriously, I just would love to have input on things so if you are reading this please please comment.

Okay...so now here are some questions I have for all you bloggin' experts who are going to stop by and write to me...

1. How do you get different fonts on your blog? I cannot STAND these traditional fonts....

2. How did you get followers in the blogging world?

3. How do you get people to help you celebrate and contribute to your giveaways for reaching certain numbers?

I know this space is a lOT on the boring side. I am getting in touch with Melonheadz to get a better blog design so hopefully by the end of the summer and before school starts I will have a more inviting page.

Okay, so there is my whine of the week...Hey maybe there's a great link up.....the Whine of The Week...the Wednesday Whine....one whine allowed and then move on...HAHA

Have a wonderful day
Cindi

MONDAY MADE IT

So, I don't know if I can link up to Monday Made it or not, but I am going to try.


#1....

.I made this a while ago, but will be making more for each of my tables. These are pencils wrapped with scrapbook paper and  silk flowers hot glued on top. I got this off pinterest. (Sorry, still learning how to do all the links, so not going to attempt this one.)  I am going to do a room theme this year. I have a resource room, but I really want to have a little more flair this year. I am going to be doing a fairy/ fairy house theme along with sunflowers. I have a lot of ideas in my head, so I will share each week. Anyway, here are my lovely pencils. I need to get some fake grass or moss or something, right now, just have torn paper in there.

#2




 I spent the afternoon working on a paper bag book for TPT. I really need some help doing graphics, but I am getting there. I am going to post the beginnings of it. I wanted to create a way for my littles to have more practice with word families and sight words, that they could use at home. I have been sending home games and flash cards in plastic baggies in their book bags, but I wanted something that kept things together more. The use of paper bag books that would hold a variety of activities in a small book sounded appealing. I am excited to try it out next week with my summer school babies.

SOOOOOO..TAH DAH...Here are some pics....let's see if I can center them correctly.




          So here is the cover of the book. I have made all of the templates and cards and am in the process of putting it all together. Hope to have it on my TPT store by end of the week. Would love any input.

           

So here is the first page. I have actually changed it already so that the first square has a picture of a baseball bat, so the children have something to begin to rhyme with.

I added 8 flashcards. Only 5 of them are /at/ words to fit into the squares.

So the great thing about paper bag books is that you can put the cards into the "pockets." This keeps all of the pieces together.

Next page is building the words. The at word is attached to the book page and then the children place the letters in to build some words. I made sure that the letters were all the way to the right so that there is no space when building the word.

So I am going to add more to this. I want to add a word search that is laminated and then glued in and also a printing page that is laminated. The children can then use a grease pencil or dry erase marker to use the words over and over. I am also going to add some spaces for them to be able to draw some pictures of at words and probably a couple of sentence frames to be able to add pictures/words, such as I see a ________.  I like _______.

And then I will add a memory game or maybe even a little fold out game board they can use at home. 

I am excited about this and want to see how they work out. If they do, then I will do other sets as well.

So, leave me a comment please and tell me what you think. And check out my TPT store. I am going to try and make a button for that right now.

Much love for a great week,

Cindi

Sunday Blog Hopping

So I spent a lot of today blog hopping and reading folks' Sunday ramblings. I just adore reading about all these teachers who have such amazing ideas. I am determined to become more tech savvy this summer. It is SOOOO amazing that there are teachers getting ready to return to school. I just completed the second week of my summer vacation, though I do teach summer school starting July 15. But summer school is easy peasy and kind of fun. Only half days. 

I so wish that I knew how to pin my pinterest pics here but I struggle with making it look even reasonably nice.

I am determined that by next weekend I will have learned some tricks so I can try and get some pictures up and maybe find a few followers in the process. I also want to try and link up to at least one Linky party. I am hoping to start with the Monday Make it one.

Have a super week. I'm off to a union committee meeting tomorrow, putting together a new teacher "tool kit". Yeah!

Cindi

Needing a Facelift

Happy 4th of July my friends.

I realize that there are few if any people reading this blog at this time. But I am trying to figure out the blogging world and cannot wait to link up with some brilliant teachers. I am hoping to have a facelift on this blog this summer. Hiring a teacher team to design a whole blog with great graphics and buttons, etc. For now, I just want to list my to do list for the summer.

I got out of school a week ago, almost two, so I have had a week to play, while my sister was in town from New York and then a few days to do doctor appointments, etc. So it is time to now get to work. I am hoping to go into my classroom tomorrow and finish the inventory on my LLI books so I can prepare my room for summer school. That starts July 15.

I am planning on posting some pictures as soon as I can figure out how to do it the way I want to.

Ta Ta for now,
CIndi

catching up

Let me try this again..I have spent the evening dealing with how to upload pics from my phone, how to figure out what I did with the download button on the bottom of my dock, and how to try and put this all together. I really need to start doing this at least three times a week. So, here are the pics from Thanksgiving:

So the left is the turkey cheeseball and the right is the melon turkey with grape and cheese "feathers". Aren't these the cutest ever?











SO I have also been working on a new word search pack for TPT. I have sold a few of last year's word search sets with a winter theme so I thought I would try one on elves. I have actually had more sales in the last week then in the entire 12 months prior. (Course, I have had VERY FEW sales to begin with.) Anyway, I hate bloggers who only share the stuff they are selling, so let me make this quick:












So here is a page as an example. ALl of the pre primer, primer,
and grade 1 Dolch words are included. Anyway...here it is.
Check it out...

Add caption

                          SO that's my post for today. I am so lost writing this that I am stopping now...Cindi

busy busy busy

Hello friends....well, as usual it has been too long since I wrote here. I try and then get sidetracked and then oops, weeks or months go by. I have been spending a lot of time on pinterest looking at teaching ideas as well as holiday things. I have been quite creative these past few weeks. I made some wonderful Thanksgiving appetizers from pinterest. I will try and post a pic but I/m not so good at that....



Oh Im getting frustrated, Let me go discover how to post these pics from my phone and I'll be back.
Cindi