The Primary Pack: Back to School BLOG HOP!

Hey everyone!!! I am so glad you are here for our amazing giveaway with The Primary Pack group! 

You are going to follow the letters and collect them in order to enter the saying on The Primary Pack blog to win a prize! 

I am here to give you a 3..2...1..

I have 3 tips for back to school

2 giveaways 

and 1 freebie :) 

ABOUT... Building a classroom library! 

Know the ages of your group AND their ability level.

Students do not want to be in 2nd grade and just constantly see books they can't read. It's scary and it also decreases their confidence. 

Make sure that the books you put out reach ALL levels of students, but allow students growth. 

Genres, genres, genres.

One of the best tips I was ever given was to make sure you have non-fiction as well as multiple areas of fiction in my library. A lot of boys may or may not be interested in fiction novels. We want to ensure as teachers there is availability of interest for EVERY CHILD. They also need to learn all of these genres, so having them right on hand makes your job easier as well.

Read the books you have!!! Even if you don't like them, start them at least. Cliff note them, anything! It's time consuming, but to be able to help a reluctant reader find a book that turns them around is one of the most amazing feelings. 

Think of Miss Malarky Leaves No Reader Behind!!!!

SO IMPORTANT.

One final tip: If you are an upper elementary reading teacher PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE read The Book Whisperer by Donalyn Miller - It is life changing! 

OUR BIG GIVEAWAY!!!

I have added in a $10 giftcard to Target!!! Enter the giveaway here: 

Click the picture above to find a freebie :) 

You are going to follow the letters to Kristen over at Loving Teaching Inspiring! 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Back to School Giveaway with Mrs. Labrasciano

School supplies are selling out in stores across America.  This can only mean one thing - it's time to go back to school.  <insert wailing teachers here> We want to make the summer to fall transition as easy as possible for you so we have 10 bundles of everything included below to give away.

Fern's coloring pack would be great for introducing school staff, meet the teacher night and bell work.  It's important to keep the kids engaged and learning while you attend to parents and incoming students.

The Inspired Owl's Corner is offering an Owl themed or Brightly themed decor set.  I personally use these sets in my class.  They are amazing!!!

Easy Teaching Tool's  is going to make your parent communication a breeze with her back to school pamphlet.  It's a great way to let the parents know what to expect and to ease their worries.

Learning Is Something To Treasure is going out of her way to make your whole year a breeze.  She's giving away mega pack of phonics sorts!!!

A First For Everything has all of your close reading needs for the fall right here in this pack.  Start the students off on the right foot.

Positively Teaching knows how to develop a classroom culture of respect and learning.  She wants to help you do the same thing with her classroom management bundle.

Amy is giving away a Jan Brett pack with lessons and activities for 10 of Jan's books.  Everyone loves to display cute student work.  It's a great way to make admin. happy and the kids ecstatic.

Cassie has everything you will need for sight word centers.  This is a must have for every primary classroom.

We wish you lots of luck in the raffle.  Be sure to check out each person's link to see if they have any other fun give aways going on.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Trashy Crafter Giveaway

Oh my goodness y'all - I was so ecstatic when Trashy Crafter reached out to me to do an instagram giveaway for a pair of her earrings! I am a HUGE earring person and I couldn't wait to pick some out and then be able to give one away to y'all!!!! I am such a stripe person - especially while pregnant ;) It totally thins me out (If it doesn't, just lie to me, okay?) So when I found these beauties from the Jungle Book on her site - SOLD!

 

Let's give you a little background on Trashy Crafter:

Trashy Crafter creates handmade recycled book jewelry from damaged and

outdated children’s books, novels, sheet music and maps.  It all started 5 years ago  when my Mom Helen and I were at a local thrift store, we noticed them throwing away 100’s of damaged and outdated books, it was heart breaking, so we gathered as many as we could, took them home and tried to think of how to recycle them so they could be enjoyed rather than go sit in a landfill.  It took some time to think of it, but I remembered in my 3rd grade class my teacher Mrs. Bryant taught us how to roll paper beads from magazines.  For some reason that really stuck in my head, even though it was 20 something years later, I decided to give it a try, and that was how 

Trashy Crafter was born.

Mom and I started rolling the paper beads together at night at our kitchen table, and today it has evolved into a wonderful small business we take so much pride in.  We take damaged books and turn them into beautiful one of a kind handmade, recycled book jewelry people can treasure forever, you always have a book you loved as a child that your Mom, Teacher, Grandma, Sister or Librarian read to you, or perhaps one you read in high school or college.  Trashy Crafter can take the damaged books and make them into bracelets, necklaces, earrings and lanyards that you can wear each day and have a precious memory right with you, we say “Don’t Just Read It, Wear It”. And to us, it’s the best of both worlds, helping the environment by recycling something beautiful that was just going to be thrown in the trash, and giving people the gift of wearing their most treasured memories from books they love, we’d say it’s a win win!  

The Trashy Crafter team is made of me (Kim) my Mom Helen, my boyfriend of 8 years Dave and a few friends that help me from time to time.  We love Trashy Crafter, and to be honest it has become something bigger than us, the number of stories we get from folks who wear our jewelry is so touching. We’ve had people contact us to make custom jewelry for librarians or teachers who are retiring, Mom’s who are pregnant and expecting their first child, anniversary gifts for wives, birthday gifts for daughters or Moms, and have had so many people tell us that this is the perfect gift for someone that has everything, it’s so meaningful and unique!

Within out Etsy shop at any given time we have about 50 or more books turned into jewelry, you can simply search for a title of a book you would like in our shop search bar, if we don’t have it, no need to fear, just send us a message, we do 100’s of custom orders a year.  Custom orders are fantastic if you have a certain book you would like turned into jewelry, we can use the book you own or can order a heavily used copy on Amazon.com and use that to make it.  

For the past few years we had done such a wonderful job of using all of the book pages and turning them into beads, but I always felt so horrible for throwing away the hard covers of books (often times they have such beautiful illustrations on them), so finally it hit me, why not turn them into stud earrings!  The recycled book cover stud earrings are our newest item, and let me tell you they are wonderful!  They are very light weight, colorful, fun, one of a kind (made from the actual book covers of books) and it’s a great conversation starter.  I have been wearing mine for the past 3 months testing them out, and have gotten so many compliments, I wear them every day!  

We also recently started a damaged children book donation program, as well as a broken jewelry program.  If you are a Teacher, Mom or Librarian that has damaged childrens book that have been highly loved by your kids, but are no longer able to be read because they are ripped, missing page or scribbled in you can ship them to us and will recycle them into paper bead jewelry.  We have a list of books we are in need of, and if any of those are titles you have, you can ship them to us, and when you can get us 15 used book we give you a free trashy crafter bracelet set!  We also collect broken beaded necklaces and bracelets from folks around the world to reuse in our jewelry.  If you are at all interested you can send us an email at 

trashycrafter@gmail.com

Our website is www.TrashyCrafter.com 

Our etsy shop is www.Etsy.com/shop/trashycrafter

Isn't that such a beautiful story, y'all! As a book lover, I am super excited that someone has came along and gives books a new life!!!! I can't wait to make something out of my new ones favorite book in a few years when he gets older! I am in LOVE with all that they can create. I want EVERYTHING. Seems like such a better deal to me than crazy expensive jewelry!

So, now here's the fun part!!!! I get to give YOU a pair!!!! YES!!! All you have to do is enter the giveaway and Rafflecopter will pick a winner!!!

Here is the beautiful pair I get to give you:

SO MUCH FUN!!!!

Can't wait for you to enter - It runs August 7th-August 10 and you can enter ALL of those days!!! 

Good luck!!! 

Peek into My Classroom Decor

It's that time!!! You're seeing all these posts of everyone's beautiful new classrooms and all of their decorations - I have to say I'm getting super jealous. I am so ready to get into my room and get it the most perfect way, that I can! It's so much work, but I have so much fun decorating! 

My theme and style has definitely evolved in the last few years. I went from LOUD, COLORFUL, and BUSY to dulling down with primary colors and throwing in black, to this year tribal print, pastels, blacks/browns, and home decor. 

Meaning - my house looks like a cabin, we have a camo chair, deer everywhere, bronze color, hunting style, etc. and I wanted to bring this into my classroom but make it more girlie - since my house is basically all my husbands style ;) I love it too though so I can't complain.

I wanted to share with you some things I created for my room since I am not in there yet, which I will post about that whenever I get it finished (at nine months pregnant ha!) AND offer a freebie of my subway art posters that I'm using. I LOVE the idea of inspirational posters and having the students write about what they mean to them. Hope King did a wonderful post about how she implemented it with she taught primary and I am working that into my daily lesson as well with all of the inspirational posters. You can find her post here. 

So this year I am JUST teaching writing and we have three rotations - that's why my containers say Class 1,2,3. Also I have such an assortment of pencils, I needed a BIG space to hold them. 

Okay so I know some things are crooked, don't judge me haha. It was like midnight last night when I was taping those labels in there. There's one blank cause I'm still not sure what I want in there. :) If you have any ideas, share please! If you would like these labels just let me know and I'll add them to my store! 

Hand signals. SO important. Keep my kids from getting up constantly and interrupting and this way I can just look at them and nod yes or no. The sharpening pencil fiasco is going to get to a minimum this year. I just can't deal. ;) 

These are a sneak into what my focus wall labels look like. I LOVE LOVE LOVE having a focus wall! I already have my grammar signs printed too from Gretchen Bernabei's books to post up for my kiddos. 

This is my voice chart. It looks crooked, I think it's the way the hot glue stuck on the burlap. I will have to fix it, or not. I'm really not that picky:) 

These are my cursive letters from my burlap pack in my store. Click on the picture to take you to the link if you are needing some plain letters! 

Here are my rules! I loooove them. I'm so excited to hang these up for my kids this year. Short, sweet, and to the point! 

Last but not least, my inspirational posters!

I made it big so you can read them! I LOOOOVE. My walls in my new classroom are a purple color so I am trying to make sure my colors tone down the purple! I may add a couple more, just depends. 

I plan to have them journal about one a week and what the meaning of the quote is to them in their Friday journal. Make them think ;) 

You can download these here: 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BymTu_DhekCFY1Y1WXhtQ3VVY3c/view?usp=sharing

If you download please let me know in the comments! I love to hear of those who are using and liking my things!!

I hope you have a great school year!!! Can't wait to see pictures!