Freebie Friday... a day late

I know... it's late Saturday night... but better late than never right? :)  But then again I'm 2 days early for the Manic Monday LOL

I really think you will like my freebie.  I noticed that so many people were jumping on board the Organized Teacher Binder, but I had yet to find any binder covers that could be downloaded.  I decided to make my own and share it with all of you wonderful followers!

Here are the covers I made, click on the link below to download the zip file.

I used digital paper from aestheticaddiction. Be sure to check out their shop, there's some amazing paper!
The frame is from The 3AM Teacher.

Click HERE to download the zip file containing all 6 covers.

Enjoy! Be sure to leave me a comment if you liked them!

Don't forget to check out the other freebies at

    

Tell Me More Linky Party

I know I've only been blogging since January, and only seriously since June, but I wanted to join this party and share some more about myself. :)

Here we go!!

1. I am a MAJOR Geek!  I love reading comic books and watching all the comic book related movies.  I also love reading Manga (Japanese Graphic Novels) as well as watching Anime.

2. Seriously... I am just a kid trapped in a 29 year olds body.  I love watching cartoons.  My favorite channel is the Disney channel.

3. I LOVE to go to Disneyland!  I would live there if I could.  I've always dreamed of being a Disney princess there. :)

4. I love animals.  Back in May I had the joy of bottle feeding 4 kittens that were abandoned in my front yard.  It was a lot of hard work but totally worth it.  They are the sweetest kitties I have ever had.

 Here are my babies:

This picture is a bit washed out but here are there names going clockwise (closest kitty to the tennis ball) Trixie, Otter Pop (all stretched out), Mitzi, then Wolf (pure black).

5. In my spare time I like to read and also write stories. I have posted bits and pieces of a story I am currently working on in here, but am getting more serious about my writing.  I have participated in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) for the past 4 years and have "won" the past 2 years.  Winning means that I wrote a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. :)

6. I love my pressure cooker!  I used to use the slow cooker all the time until I was introduced to the pressure cooker and found out that I could cook frozen chicken in 15 minutes!  I was blown away.  Now I'm addicted to using it. :)

7.  I am addicted to shopping on QVC... gotta love easy pay right? LOL

8. I am a newbie couponer and am proud to say that I saved $10.00 on my last shopping trip.  I was very excited about that.

There's part of my exciting life! :)  Be sure to go join the party!!

Awesome Week & Unsolved Mystery Update

Wow... this week has been so AWESOME!  

First off this week started with me going to see Demi Lovato and Hot Chelle Rae in concert with my cousins.   We were in the 3rd row from the front on the floor! It was so amazing!  Here are a couple of pictures I took:

Just a note... no zoom was used... this was how close we were :)

Then on Thursday I got to go with my cousin and aunt to the Batman marathon at our local theater and see The Dark Knight Rises at midnight!!!  Let me just say... the movie ROCKED!!!

 

Now onto school stuff.  :)  I don't officially go back until August 13th when I have training to become a Tech Teacher for my school site, which I'm very excited about.  So I still have a bit of time; however I'll probably be down at my classroom earlier getting things prepared.  My amazing principal is getting me tables for my classroom, so I'm excited to get those set up and ready to go.

I have been working on the Unsolved Mysteries project for class and so far here is a list of topics I have for their choices: 

The Chupacabra                Big Foot                 Mermaids

Loch Ness Monster           Lake Michigan Monster

Giant Squid                       Abominable Snowman/Yeti

Easter Island                     Stonehenge             Atlantis

Brown Mountain Lights     Crop Circles

What do you guys think?  Any other suggestions?  As soon as I'm done with this project I'll be posting it in my TPT store :)

I will be back on Sunday with another update then going to work really hard to link up with Tara again for the Monday Made It :)

Sharing & Unsolved Mysteries

Good Friday evening!

This will be 1 of 2 posts tonight because both posts are on separate topics.

I have had the wonderful pleasure the past two days to share all of my teaching procedures, lessons, ideas, projects, etc, with two of my friends who are moving to fifth grade.

Let me just tell you this now... I. LOVE. TO. SHARE!!  LOL  I really do.  I get all excited when someone asks me to share my thoughts and ideas.

Both meetings went so well that we decided to keep it up throughout the school year and keep exchanging ideas.  What was nice was that all of us had the same train of thought... challenge the students and set high expectations.  We had some great conversations and ideas going. :)  It was nice to get feedback from different teachers who haven't taught fifth grade.

I am so excited to see what happens during the school year and what they come up with.

Anyways on school related topics....

I am working on re-doing a project I did last year with two of my friends at work.  It was an Unsolved Mysteries project. The kids absolutely LOVED it!  Even my kids who were on a lower level were completely engaged in this project.  It was nice to see the kids getting to be creative as well as working together to solve a mystery.

Here's how it worked:

The Unsolved Mysteries were creatures or places such as Atlantis, Loch Ness monster, mermaids, big foot, etc.  Students were split in to small groups. The students then did a research paper drawing a conclusion if these creatures or places really exist. Not only did they have to do a paper, but they had to include evidence... this is where the creativity came in.  They had to provide pictures and "real" evidence.

I was amazed at the creativity in the evidence.  Students created scales and hair/fur samples of creatures and artifacts from places.  They didn't even complain about the research portion.  Each day I was asked if they were going to be working on their project.

Has anyone done a project similar to this?  Once I get it all spiffed up and more detailed I will be posting it in my store, so be sure you're following me on TPT :)

PS: Welcome to all the new followers!  I was blown away that I went from 25 to 42 followers in 2 days!!! You guys are awesome!!!  I am so happy you are all here.

Monday Made It - Teacher Binder

I have been waiting to be able to jump around 4th Grade Frolics Monday Made It and am so excited I finally have something!! After you're done here click the button above and go check out the other Monday Made Its :)

Right now I just have a school made it, perhaps there will be a house made it next week :)  We shall see.

Here is my teacher binder, inspired from 4th Grade Frolics binder.  I really loved how she had her's organized in just 6 tabs.

I created the dividers using digital paper.... How did I not know about this wonderful thing called digital paper!!  I have been on the internet for, like, ever and have been working with graphics, posters, websites, etc and never heard of it til reading about the binder.

The digital paper is from

aestheticaddiction

Frame from

The 3AM Teacher

2 questions for you guys... 

#1.  I read the terms of use for the paper, so would it be okay if I posted these in my TPT store for Free to help out other teachers?  I'm still new to all of the copyright and licensing. I was thinking I could since it will be free, but wanted to double check :)

#2   How do you post your website with the title in the comments?  I have tried to google for the answer and  have searched through my profile... but to no avail.

Basically I want it to look like this: Shutters & Scribbles

Not this: http://shuttersandscribbles.blogspot.com/

On a separate note -

I am so excited I get to take my sister-in-laws maternity pictures today!!  I have such cute ideas for them.  I have been searching for ideas, because this is my first maternity shoot, but all of them looked too... well... calm for my brother and his wife.  They needed something more lively and silly.  I'll hopefully be able to post pictures tonight after I edit some :)

Funny story... my sis-in-law is due on July 26th, but her doctor has said she'll probably be early.  Well yesterday she thought she was having contractions and I flipped.  "No! She can't have him today! We haven't taken pictures!" LOL  Yeah... real nice right?  Anyways, she has a doctor's appointment today so we'll be finding out more information.

It's very exciting... so far I have 2 nieces, and will be having 1 nephew by the end of July.  I love being the aunt and getting to spoil them.

Well I hope you enjoyed the post and I'll be checking back in to see what everyone else has made today!

MindMaple Program

Happy Sunday :)

I cannot believe how fast this summer is going and here I am still working and researching new things for next school year.  For me, school starts on August 20th, so I've got about a month before I have to go back.  Is it silly that I'm actually excited to go back this year?

I have gotten so addicted to reading teaching blogs that all these new ideas have me thrilled to go back and try them out!  Anyone else excited?

So.... here's my amazing find for the day.  I was over at Kleinspiration.com and she posted about this awesome program where students can make graphic organizers/mind maps.  The program is called MindMaple.  

Since I'm trying to get my students more into using computers and technology in the classroom, I decided to download the Lite version for Free and try it out.

Oh. My. Gosh!!!

It was SO much fun! :)  It was so interactive and easy to use.  Plus, after you're done you can print it out.  This would be a great to use with so many assignments... brainstorming for writing... main idea & details of a story.... a story map... discussing character traits and supporting them... wow the list can just continue on.

Here's what I did:

You have the main topic in the middle yellow box with the other topics around it in the green boxes.  Each green box then can have a topic of it's own with subtopics.  The + by the weather topic is what you use to collapse then expand the topic and details.  I had so much fun playing with the lines and curves to create relationships between the main topic and other topics.  The orange part is used to show a boundary of a group.

Now when I went to save I found out you can save it as different file types.  I saved this as a JPG, but you could have also saved it as a Microsoft Office file including Powerpoint.

If you doubt me about how easy it is to use Erin had her daughter use it.  Click here to see the results:

I also just wanted to say thank you to my 12 new followers for joining my blog.  I was so excited when I went from 15 to 27 in just 4 days!  You guys are amazing and I hope you enjoy my blog. :)  I appreciate all the kind words and support.  Thanks guys!  I'm planning for some type of giveaway when I reach 100 followers... although it seems a bit far off it's never too early to plan, that's my motto. :)

 

A Teacher's Wisdom Linky

Deb over at Fabulously First is hosting a linky party for veteran teachers to share their wisdom with first year teachers.  I decided to take part because I had a very rough first two years of teaching.  I never questioned if I still wanted to be a teacher, but I did spend many nights crying from stress and from being overwhelmed.  Here are my tidbits of wisdom :)

This is seriously the only thing that kept me going some days.  One day it would be a big positive such as a lesson going amazingly well or getting a compliment from a parent.  Other days I'd have to search and search for something... ANYTHING to find good about that day, but I still would, even if it was that one of my kids  paid attention during a lesson or they didn't get in trouble on the playground.

Once I learned this my classroom turned around!  No longer did I accept things just because the student was an EL or was a discipline problem.  Once I showed them what I expected, they rose to the occasion.  I'm not saying to expect the same thing from each student, because they are all different and are on different levels.  I expected all of their work to be turned in nice and neatly.  I expected them to give their BEST effort on all assignments and tests or they would redo it.  You have to set that bar right off the bat so that you don't get any students trying to get away with lazy work.

Self explanatory... It will get better!!! :)

This stems from a personal experience of mine.  I had a student who could not stop talking and was constantly disrupting the class.  He continually got in trouble and kept sitting out his recesses.  I began to notice a pattern though... since he kept being disruptive his desk was moved by my podium where I teach.  While I was teaching I would constantly check on him and praise him when he was following directions. I noticed that he enjoyed the attention.  Come to find out after a conference, his parents were divorced and he was bouncing back and forth on a daily basis between the houses.  He was looking for someone to pay attention to him and he needed that positive reinforcement.  

I had another student who just would not turn in their homework.  I kept reminding them and sending notes home.  They were very distant during class as well.  At a conference I found out her mother was just diagnosed with cancer and that the past couple of weeks she had been in and out of the hospital.

So the lesson here is to be sure you treat all your students with love and learn about their background.

I hope this helps out some new teachers! :)