Silence for Sandy Hook Elementary

God Bless our country and may God continue to Bless us and all of our kiddos!

Drum roll please.....We have a Blog-a-Versary Winnah!!!

Heeeeeeeeyyyyy now we have a winnah (winner hehehe)!!!! I am so excited to announce the winner of my Blog-a-Versary give-a-way. These are some pretty fantabulous prezis and I hope you enjoy them to the fullest Mrs. Peggy P!!!!! I will send you an e-mail for more information. Thanks again to everyone that participated.

It's My Blog-a-Versary.....or should I call it my blog birthday ?!?!?!

Wowzers!!!! It has been a year since I took a chance and decided to play with the big dogs girls in bloggy land and I have to say it was one of the best decisions I made in 2011!  I have been inspired beyond my expectations and have come in contact with some SUPER DE  FANTABULOUS teachers who make me strive to do better. When you know better you do better....RIGHT!!  In this case when you SEE better, you STRIVE to be better. Ha!! I LOVE it!!!

Despite the fact that I didn't get to keep up with blogging as much as I would have liked, I have plans on doing a much better job in 2012. Soooooooo.....root, root, root for the home team Fantabulous 4th Grade!! Whoop!! Whoop!! 

Boy I am all over the place (maybe because it's after MIDNIGHT)!!! 

Focus! Focus! Focus!

Okay........I am soooooooooo excited to mark this blog birthday/blog-a-versary as my very first give-a-way and I hope you guys enjoy these FANTABULOUS little prezis!!!!

I will give away a $20 Visa Gift Card to use however you like (TPT, Teacher Notebook, Amazon, ETSY....or anything else because it's a VISA GIFT CARD whoop!!)
AND a bundle set of chapter books that I KNOW your kiddos will LOVE!!!!

   

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Easy peasy!!! The winner will be selected  Thursday, August 2, 2012


Miracles and blessings,

Turn Up the Music Linky Party....a month later!!!!!

 

Amanda at Teaching Maddeness had a Turn the Music Up linky party back in June and since I LOVE music and absolutely have to have it playing in my classroom (even though I'm a MONTH late) I couldn't resist linking up.

Here are a few of my musical favorites:

Pandora- I think Pandora is one of the most FANTABULOUS internet resources when it comes to music!! To top it off...the site is free!! You do have to be mindful that not all districts allow access to Pandora (no bueno), but for those who are fortunate (and I do mean fortunate) you have a jewel that's only a click away for your listening pleasure.

 - You can create stations for just about any artist or genre and Pandora automatically creates a  playlist that includes that artist or genre and others that are similar.
 - The system allows you to stop, pause, skip, and continue at your leisure.
 - The best feature of all is that it saves all of your stations for you!

iPad/iPod Playlists- My iPad goes with me everyday to school. I use it for EVERYTHING such as: transitioning ques (station clean-up, timing, changing classes, during writing time, etc.), small group instruction, as an extra computer for students, to model specific lessons, and most of all for our musical entertainment in the classroom. The kids absolutely LOVE listening to the abundance of genres and artist that I have on my classroom playlists.

Here are a few artist/genres on my playlist (in no particular order):

1. Lifescapes- Caribbean Steel Drums
2. Mind Therapy
3. Miley Cyrus
4. Jonas Brothers
5. Barry Louis Polisay
6. HSM Soundtrack- High School Musical  (any other soundtrack from a family/kid movie will do)
7. Micheal Jackson
8. The Beatles
9. African Drums (instrumentals)
10. Taylor Swift
11. Vanessa Hudgens
12. Switchfoot
13. Jack Johnson (Be very careful...some songs are inappropriate, so preview before hand)
14. Donald Harrison (Jazz)
15. Smooth Jazz (Pandora)
16. Nature Sounds  (Pandora)
17. Nuttin But Stringz (violin players)
18. Any instrument (piano instrumentals, violin, guitar,etc.)
19. Katy Perry
20. Justin Bieber
21. One Direction
22. Demi Lovato
23. Adele
24. Shane Harper
25. Any music from Disney or Kidz Bop will always be a hit!!

I am going to stop at 25, but the list can go on and on and on. One of my tips for finding cool music is to pay attention to what's playing in popular stores or on popular t.v. shows (when they show the name of the songs/artists during credits or commercial breaks) and go from there!!

On an educational tip I have used some of these songs in the classroom for skills such as visualization, plot structure, characterization, as well as writing prompts. It works beautifully! ESPECIALLY when you use catchy songs like Yellow Submarine by the Beatles for visualization (see video below).

~Here's how it can be a mini lesson or a quick review, but be sure to time this activity because it shouldn't be long at all.~

1. Allow your students to listen to the lyrics (and do nothing else)
2. Have them listen again and take notes (mental or jot them down)
3. Draw out what they have visualized from the lyrics
4. Share their pics (it's pretty cool what they come up with)
5. Discuss/Turn it into a writing activity/or whatever your teaching heart desires (smile).

 You will have kids sparatically humming this song all year long!! It's amazing how well they remember the skills they have been taught just from those musical connections.
Well...that's all folks!

Happy listening!

The Liebster Award WOOHOO!!

I want to give a big ole' THANK YOU to Heather @ Loose Shoelaces for giving me the Liebster Award!!
Seeing that I don't blog as much as I would like (note to self...I AM going to do BETTER) I am always thrilled when someone thinks awesome things about my blog!!

The goal of the award is to spotlight up-and-coming blogs with less than 200 followers. The rules are:

1. copy and paste the award on your blog
2. thank the giver and link back to them
3. reveal your top 5 picks and let them know by leaving a comment on their blog
4. hope that your followers will spread the love to other bloggers

These are the five blogs that I think are firing up on the blog scene (in no particular order):

Fun in Fourth Grade- I really love Cindy's passion for teaching. She is guinely concerned about her student's success and makes sure that she does what she can to make it happen. Go Cindy!!

My Life as a Fifth Grade Teacher- Lindsay is SUPER cool because she is a TEXAS teacher!! Whoop! Whoop! I think she has good ideas and I can totally relate to some of the stuff she deals with. I definitely check out her blog to see if I can get new info.

Imagine in 4th Grade- Dawn is really new to the blog world. The fact the she started a teaching blog to connect with other teachers reminds me why I started to blog. Happy Blogging Dawn!!

Shepherd's Shining Stars- I LOVE her integration of technology!! Some of the sites she has recommended  and classroom activities are pretty cool.

Wells' Tale of a 4th Grade Nothing- Super cute blog! She has been apart of the blog world for a couple of months. She has gooooood give-a-ways, so go and check her out!!

Check out these blogs bloggey peeps because you will come across some GOOD stuff !!

Currently Linky Party with Oh' Boy 4th Grade!

This couldn't have come at a better time! I speak for myself when I say that the electric pencil sharpener that I purchased in September for this school year is already a bust! I thought we could atleast get through the year, but HA!
I thought WRONG!! It's so bad that the CREEPY thing runs on its own when you you plug it up.Yep that's RIGHT on its own....NO pencil ....No nothin'! We have to plug it in and then unplug  it when we use it. HOW ABOUT THAT FOR 30 BUCK-A-ROOS!!

Oh' Boy 4th Grade is having a CURRENTLY linky party for gaining more than 1,000 followers! How awesome is that!!

Go on over and link up and enter to win a pretty cool pencil sharpener for your classroom!! I know I could definitely use one! Anything would be better than the one I have in my classroom now!!