Congratulations to the winners!

Thank you for entering my Rafflecopter!

Here's the big winner for the $10 TpT gift card:

And the winner of the planner in teal and grey!

Congratulations to these lovely ladies and thank you for helping me celebrate a mini-milestone this week!

I'm off to visit my very best college girlies this weekend and we're celebrating a Master's Degree, housewarming, and a new baby!  Not to mention one of my best friends from home had her little man yesterday and I can't wait to see him!  What a busy, glorious weekend! 

1 More Day for My Giveaway!

Free stuff! Yippee!

I'm celebrating my 100 followers on TpT - it's a mini milestone for me!  Thank you for being a part of that... I try my best to make products that work for students in their classroom and that are easy to implement!

Also, I'm going on maternity leave this fall because our little one will be born mid-July.  As I'm typing this, baby has a massive case of the hiccups--so cute!  I explain more about that here.

Join me in celebrating and enter the giveaway below!

Have a great Thursday!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Maternity Leave - what to do.. what to do...and a giveaway!

So my husband and I are expecting our first in July.  YAY!  I can easily say that I've had a great pregnancy with little-to-no symptoms, so I feel really blessed about that.  

It was a long road to get to here, and we ended up doing IVF which worked on the first time.  again, extremely blessed.  

People don't really talk about how difficult it is for them to get pregnant and it's just "assumed" that you can snap your fingers and a pregnancy will occur.  Well, we were snapping for 2 1/2 years and it just wasn't working.  It was really hard at first to hear from people, "Well, you've been married for some time now, isn't it time to have a baby?" but eventually you get numb.  And it's not people's fault for asking, but I've learned that I am never going to ask about something so intimate because you just don't know what people are going through behind closed doors.  And it's painful.  To all you mom's out there or mom's-to-be, I know how difficult it is and what a long journey it is for some couples.  You are not alone.  Trust me!  I'd also be happy to answer any questions about what we did if you are in the middle of this process as well.

Anyways, I digress. 

I have 29 (count 'em) days of school left with some major milestones to get through: heat, field trips, heat, field day, heat, teaching, heat, planning...

I've started this crate with file folders for the weeks at the beginning of next school year for my long-term sub.  Each folder has the essentials of my routine for homework and morning work, as well as regular classroom assignments.  

Each week, my kids get:
- Calendar Math from the lovely Stephanie at Teachinginroom6
- Spiral Math HW, again from Stephanie.  I have all 4 quarters and they are great!
- a reading comprehension weekly assignment, usually from readworks.org or from Kristine Nannini's ELA assessment binder.
- Greek and Latin root word assignment with a quiz on Thursday - I use this book.
- A reading log for independent reading, which is my own product here.
- A Daily Language Review which is an Evan Moore product.
- A grammar packet which focuses on a specific grammar skill for the week.  We use an ancient grammar book in class which is very explicit and concrete, and I send home a packet on Tuesday which is due on Friday for independent practice. We correct on Fridays together.  I use this book here to supplement the CCSS curriculum. 
On Thursdays, we do a Scholastic News as part of their informational text instruction and they love reading the articles.  

I made all the copies for the first 8 weeks or so of school because I plan on being out until the middle of October.  I really hope that whoever my long-term sub is, I want them to follow this routine so my kids are used to it when I return.  I'm trying to be as organized as possible and I even started a "long-term sub" binder that outlines this and classroom routines.

I figure if I give the sub my materials for the first part of the year, which is 5.NBT.1-7 on place value, they can make ends meet.  I shouldn't have to plan each and every lesson, right?  In my classroom I also use Data Tracking Binders, but I feel like that's too much to have a sub do.  I suppose I'll start that when I return.

As far as getting my classroom ready for next year, I'll snag those class lists and make my name tags, locker signs, welcome boards, etc in advance so that is done.  It's hard focusing on the back-to-school-mentality when it's May!

I guess I have this control problem.  Really, all teachers do.  It's our classrooms and we run it a certain way, and when someone new comes in and takes over, it's hard for us to let go.  At least, for me it is.  I want to be prepared for my leave so I don't have to worry about what's going on and I can focus on being at home.  

Does anyone have any suggestions about what else I should do to prepare my room for my leave?  Any and every piece of advice is welcome!

And for the giveaway:

I made it to 100 followers on TpT!  This is a milestone for me and I've been watching the numbers in the 90's creep up until TODAY! YAY!  I'm going to give away 1 $10 gift certificate to Teacher's Pay Teachers AND one of my 2014-2015 plan books!

Enter below!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Sale and a BIG THANK YOU!

In case you haven't heard, 

Stock up and save! My store is on sale for an additional 20% off!  Now's the chance to check off some of those wish-lists!

Happy shopping, and HAPPY TEACHER'S APPRECIATION WEEK!  We work so hard each and every day to take care of our little ones... thank you for the work you do!