May 2016

Good news friends! In case you haven't heard, Teachers Pay Teachers is having a Teacher Appreciation Sale! This is a sitewide sale that runs from Tuesday May 3rd, through Wednesday May 4th. You can save up to 28% by selecting on-sale resources and then applying the special 10% promo code to your entire purchase.

I don't know about you, but I LOVE LOVE LOVE when TPT has sales like this, because then I can start transferring things over from my wishlist to my cart!

Learn about the top wishlisted items from One Giggle At A Time TPT store.

I am linking up with some other Teacherpreneurs to share with you our "Top Wishlisted Items" from our TPT stores. Here are a few of mine!

Joke Of The Day has always been a favorite in my classroom, and I am so happy I can share it with so many other students around the world through TPT. I have recently updated the entire set so that you can either print each joke out on small cards and hook them together on a ring, or you can project each daily joke up onto the whiteboard or Smartboard to share with your students. This is definitely one activity that my students will not allow me to skip...EVER!

You can find Joke Of The Day HERE.

You can read more about how we use Joke Of The Day in our classroom HERE!

Personal space is not always easy to come by in first grade...in most grades actually. That is what led me to write this social story, and it gets reread a lot as the school year progresses! I LOVE using social stories to help my students understand the expectations of our classroom and school community. It makes the information so much more personal and entertaining, and best of all, it seems to make the information stick!

You can find Respecting Personal Space Is Really Important (A Social Story About Respecting Personal Space) HERE.

You can read more about how I use social stories in my classroom HERE!

This Guided Reading Survival Kit has been my saving grace this year! I finally have everything I need to run my guided reading groups and reading conferences ALL IN ONE PLACE! My parents love knowing what exactly their child has accomplished as a reader, and what their child needs to work on.

You can find Guided Reading Survival Kit (Levels A-N) HERE.

You can read more about how I use the Guided Reading Survival Kit in my classroom HERE!

We have had the most fun in my classroom with this product this year! My students LOVE LOVE LOVE "becoming" superheroes as we search for places in our reading and writing that require rescuing from punctuation and capitalization!

You can find Sentence Superheroes HERE.

Read more about how I use Sentence Superheroes in my classroom HERE!

Stop over at Teaching In The Tongass to see lots more stores sharing their top wishlisted items!

What teachers of the future really need to know.

Hi Friends! Thanks for stopping by, and Happy Teacher's Appreciation Week! There has been so much in the news lately that paints a negative picture of schools and the teaching profession lately, that I felt compelled to speak out. I felt compelled to speak out because I would hate to see young people with a passion for teaching begin to second guess their life plan because of the picture being painted in the news.
Let me first say...

TEACHING IS HARD!

TEACHING IS EXHAUSTING!

TEACHING IS OVERWHELMING!

But guess what??!! So are most jobs in the real world! Every friend I have that has a job can say all those same things about their jobs/careers on any given day! It is called ADULTING people. So if those are the reasons that are making you second guess your reasons for becoming a teacher... good luck finding a profession that isn't at some point hard, exhausting, and overwhelming!

The world is a difficult place right now. But as strange as it may seem, that is one of the reasons being a teacher is such a fabulous thing! Because in this difficult world, you can be the "one thing" that makes sense for some of your students. You can be the stability in their city of chaos. You can be the sunshine in their storm. You can be their familiar face in a world of strangers.

But here is the other thing. You won't just be impacting the students in your classroom. You will have the power to impact students you don't even realize have connected with you. It may be a student in the classroom next door to you, or a student down the hall. It may be a child who sees you daily in the cafeteria or sees you at door duty at the end of the day. Your reach is infinite. Your impact is boundless.

AS A TEACHER YOU HAVE THE POWER TO CHANGE LIVES.

If you even have the slightest feeling that you want to be a teacher...go for it...

because it is so worth it!

In celebration of Teacher Appreciation Week, I am linking up with some blogging friends to bring you a chance to win a $25 TPT GIFTCARD!

Enter the Rafflecopter below for your chance to win, and visit the other blogs listed to see what words of wisdom they are sharing this Teacher's Appreciation Week!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

An InLinkz Link-up