Primary Punchbowl Fall Blog Hop!

Hello and Welcome to our Primary Punchbowl Fall Blog Hop!! We are so excited to share our fall favorites and freebies with you!

I am so unbelievably excited that we are launching our new collaborative blog!! The Punch Bunch is a group of some of the best teachers I have ever had the privilege of meeting and I am so blessed to call them my friends!! Let's get started!!!

One of my most favorite Fall classroom activities is the fall sensory bin! I already love pumpkin spice everything, so of course I had to incorporate it into my classroom!

 And it's SOOOOOOO easy to make! 

Take a large bag of rice. 

Put some in a gallon ziploc bag. 

Add some food coloring. 

Add some spice. 

Add some water. 

Shake it up. 

Let it dry. 

BOOM. 

I use red, yellow, orange, and green (except this year I didn't have red on account I've made Red Velvet Cake. A lot.). 

Inside the sensory bin, I put vocabulary, spelling, sorts, sentences, etc. Lots and lots of ideas and possibilities out there.

Who says Kindergarten gets to have all the fun with sensory bins? Big kids can dig through rice to find "fossil" bones, multiplication facts, facts and opinions, Tarsia pieces, main idea and details, questions to answer - mix it up and have some FUN! No one is ever too old to play and learn!

To help you get started with the sensory bin, I am offering my Brimming With Blends newly updated activity for FREE!!! 

This activity is packed with onset and rimes to help practice with r-blends and l-blends. 

I like to cut the pictures completely out, hide in the rice, and then the students can search through for the rimes that make words with the onset cornucopias.

Complete with recording page for accountability (3 versions). 

Find this little freebie {{HERE}}.

Lots of stuff on sale this week! In fact, I'm throwing a 20% my whole store sale!

Check out my featured items which are HALF OFF this week: 

Text Features

Small Group Lesson Planner

Small Group Lesson Planner

Completely Editable!

October Math Centers!

Balancing Facts Math Centers

 

And my Complete Interactive Notebook Bundle!

Interactive Notebooks

And finally, just for visiting our blog hop, you can enter the rafflecopter below for your chance to win a $20 TpT gift card!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

AND visit The Primary Punchbowl for a chance to win some goodies also!! 

I am so happy that you have decided to visit our blog hop! Please visit the links below to see what other goodies and giveaways the Punch Bunch has in store for you!

An InLinkzLink-up

Louisiana Teacher Blogger Meetup 2015!!

 Oh my goodness you guys!! I am so over the moon about telling you all about our first Louisiana Blogger Meetup!! 

I've been known to ramble on, so I'm going to attempt to make this short and sweet and to the point!

I didn't get to take a lot of pictures, I was entirely too busy talking and listening to the fabulous bloggers we had with us! 

BUT some of the other fantastic teachers there did take some pics! So please make sure you get to hop over and check out their posts. 

In addition to reading about our meetup, you'll have a chance to enter to win some sweet swag! 

Well, here we go! Thanks to the absolutely fantastic Jasmine from Buzzing with Mrs. McClain some Louisiana bloggers finally got to meet in person! We have been following each other on Social Media and reading blogs for months and sometimes years and it was great to put faces with names. 

Everyone had cute sunglasses and name cards at their seats after we signed in. The agenda was perfect and kept things moving. 

I gave a short presentation on ways to get started with blogging. I talked about all the great linkys as simple ways to get your name and ideas out there. 

You can check out the presentation by clicking {HERE}. Sorry! I didn't change any of the fonts for Google Drive. 

Grabbed this pic from Kristi at the soon-to-be Pelicans and Pipsqueaks blog. Stay tuned for her blog launch!! 

Here we are at the end of the grand event!

Mia from Putting Words in your Mouth (the 2nd top seller from Louisiana on TpT) gave a great presentation on Teachers Pay Teachers. She's getting a blog facelift as well! Make sure to check it out!

After each presentation we had some great discussions and questions about blogging and TpT. Tons of ideas and answers were passed around. For example, I learned that you should not only use your blog button, but also your pic for a more personal feel. Already changed out my pics on all my social media. What a great tip, Mia!

Lunch was delicious and we had some yummy cupcakes and adorable cookies. I really hope someone posts a pic because I didn't take any!! :(

After lunch we broke into small grade level groups to discuss things we do in our classroom, particularly behavior! Lots of different opinions and ideas. I love collaborating with other teachers! This has been the most fulfilling (and fun) part of this whole experience!!

My biggest takeaway from this fabulous event was just that: support from your fellow teachers, near and far. I have formed so many valuable friendships through my blogging/TpT experience and I strongly believe these bonds have helped me to become a better teacher. It is amazing how meeting up with people who feel just as strongly as you about what you do can give you the confidence and strength to continue doing what you do and bringing it to the next level.

 It seems that since the launching of Common Core, educators have been divided over issues, dragged through the mud, fighting tooth and nail, harshly criticized, and yet here we are, still going strong creating and strengthening our classroom practices through the valuable support of people just like us. It validates my position as an educator. Even though I am not attending TpT Conference 2015 (NEXT YEAR!!!!) I am reminded of the Conference tagline: Come together, Go Further. Our mini meetup did just that. 

Too soon the event was over and we had to say goodbye, but not before group pictures!

GREAT GROUP!!

Here are all the Baton Rouge Area Bloggers!! Hoping to stay in touch and try to get together every once in a while for lunch or dinner. 

And who doesn't love swag?

We had Go Noodle, water bottle, tumblers, dice, cards, digital gifts (CD from Erin Cobb!!!), on and on!!! And the teacher gift exchange? Fabulous! I received some chalk markers from Philicia over at Motivation in the Middle. 

And then at Office Depot it was kismet - I found some of this awesome tape! Don't know what I'll do with it yet, but something amazing! 

And we had amazing sponsors!!!

Lots of great Louisiana businesses and fellow teachers. 

Well that's it! I seriously cannot wait until the next one! 

Please enter the rafflecopter here: 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

And click the links below to check out everyone else's posts about our meetup. Can't wait to see the others! 

An InLinkz Link-up

Thanks!

Happy Teacher Appreciation Week! Freebies for you! #becauseweloveteachers

It's May and that means it's Teacher Appreciation!

I am so happy to be linking up with some AMAZING teacher bloggers for a extraordinary We Love Teachers Blog Hop!

Let's get things started! I have a fabulous freebie for you today :)

I would like to share with you one of my favorites units to teach at the end of the year.

In this unit we talk all about different types of insects and learn about their life cycles and habitats and how they help our environment. 

After reading many insect books, we go on a nature walk to find and document different insects around our school. They carry their Insect Journals with them and draw pictures and write descriptions. 

We share our discoveries and talk about how the insects all share the same body parts. Then we get to design our own NEW insect using My Bug Book. 

Click on any of the pics above to grab this Bug Book Freebie for yourself :)

And if you want the whole unit, click below. 

Now hop on over to visit with Tiffany at Shoelaces & Sweetfaces to see her amazing site and terrific ideas!

And don't forget that Teachers Pay Teachers is having a site wide Sale May 5 and 6 this week. Save up to 28%!! Do some spring cleaning on your wish list and make sure to check out all the wonderful products out there. 

Happy Teaching!!