Back to School Product Premiere-Linky

Hi Everyone! 

I am so excited to be participating in the BTS Blog Hop! Thanks to Christina for organizing the whole thing, you are wonderful! There are some wonderful educators who are linking up for the Blog Hop and they are sharing some of their favorite products that they have created. The best part is that many of the items are going to be on sale shortly during the Teachers Pay Teacher BTS Sale! 

I am still pretty new to the whole TpT thing, but am loving it! I actually just finished one of my favorite products! I made a set of 133 word wall cards that are geared towards the 4th-8th grade Language Arts Classroom! There are so many wonderful resources out there for the lower grades and some fabulous word wall sets, but I wanted one that I could use in my own 6th grade ELA classroom. 

On each card I gave the definition and also tried to give an example when possible too. My favorite part of them is all of the bright colors! I cannot wait to see them in my own classroom. :)

You can find my word wall cards listed here in my TpT shop.

Be sure and also check out my Problem Solving Task Cards and my Interactive Language Arts Journal too.

Don't forget that you can get up to 28% off during the TpT sale that starts on Saturday! 

It might be finished...

My classroom that is. Yep, the kids come the 27th and I still have not even been able to get in my room to start setting it up. I did go by my classroom again this afternoon after we finished our collaborative planning, and boy was I impressed. Not only did they have the new air return system completely installed, but they also had new carpet in my room too! That was a big surprise. Thank goodness we did get new carpet because the other was ruined from the construction, but it was still so exciting! 

I was told by the technology gurus today that they will be setting up in our classrooms as soon as they get the ceiling tiles back in. Hopefully that will be tomorrow! :) I left a sweet note for them hoping that they will place my computers where I would like them, but that might be wishful thinking. 

Today was our last day of collaborative planning and I am pretty pleased with how it went. Last year I really just did my own thing and there was very little collaboration between myself and the other teachers. I honestly think that this is going to hold me more accountable and it will also make me stay on top of my lesson plans. I got a little lazy with them by the end of last school year. How does your district or campus do lesson planning? Are you required to plan collaboratively, or do you do your own thing?

Reading/Writing Workshop Must Haves

I am so excited that Lindsay is having her first linky party! Lindsay is a fellow Texan who is moving from 5th to 3rd grade for this upcoming school year. 

For her first linky party, she is wanting us to share some of our Must-Haves for Reading and/or Writing Workshop. Even though I teach 6th grade, I absolutely love having time for Reading and Writing Workshop in my classroom. The problem is, I do not know any different and cannot imagine my classroom without it. :)

One. Lots of anchor charts. Here are a few of the ones that we made this past school year in my classroom.

Source: missklohnsclassroom.blogspot.com via Katie on Pinterest

Source: missklohnsclassroom.blogspot.com via Katie on Pinterest

Two. Reading and Writing Notebooks. You can read more about mine here.

Three. A large classroom library that has lots of choices and varied materials for students to choose from. If you are a follower you know that my classroom is total chaos right now, otherwise I would have some new pictures of my updated classroom library for you. You will have to check back closer to the 27th to see them. :)

Four. An easel! I can now say I am the proud owner of this one. I cannot wait to use this with my kiddos to make anchor charts this coming school year.

What are your must have items for Reading and Writing Workshop? Go link up with Lindsay and share your favorites!

Whole Brain Teaching

I have seen a lot of buzz about this lately and am absolutely loving it! I have always been a firm believer in allowing students to talk with classmates and using gestures to help them remember what we are learning. After doing lots of research this summer, I am excited to say that I will officially be implementing Whole Brain Teaching (WBT) in my classroom this school year. 

Have you or will you be using Whole Brain Teaching within your classroom? If you have used it before, what is your favorite component of it? What advice would you give a newbie who will be implementing it in their own classroom?

There are some really great videos out on Youtube with examples of WBT in action. Here are a few of my favorites that I have come across this summer:

700 Followers Giveaway!

It is finally here...my epic giveaway for reaching 700 followers that is! I still cannot believe that there are this many of you who are interested in reading about what is going on in my classroom. I have been lucky enough to have several bloggers help me out for my giveaway. 

If you are the lucky winner, here is what you can win:

Sweet Reagan donated her Back to School Math Centers.

Amanda is going to be giving the lucky winner a unit of their choice from her Intermediate Site, Lightbulb Minds. One of my favorite things from there is the Best School Year Ever Novel Study. My kids loved it this past school year! You can also visit Lightbulb Minds on Facebook.

Jennifer is going to allow the winner to choose a product from her TpT store.

Elizabeth has donated her Test Taking Foldables Set. 

Christina is letting the winner choose an item from one of her stores. Check her out on TpT and Teacher's Notebook.

Stephanie has donated her Reading Response Comprehension Skills Mats.

Michelle has donated her Four in a Row Mental Math for Middle School.

Mor is giving the lucky winner a copy of her Interactive Student Notebook from her TpT store.

Sewing Sassy is giving the lucky winner a choice of their grade level on a shirt. She is on Facebook too. She has done a couple of shirts for me already, and I have two more on order right now for the upcoming football season! Below is an example of what it could possibly look like.

Amber is going to give the winner a copy of her Common Core Vocabulary Pack in your grade level that you teach. Be sure and check it out in her TpT store.

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Mrs. A has donated her Owl Birthday Board Bulletin Set as well as her set of Famous Trios for grouping students.


Laura is also giving away two items from her store. 

Farley is also going to let the winner pick an item from either her TpT or Teacher's Notebook Store!

Now I am sure you are wondering how you can win. I am going to use Rafflecopter once again because it is the easiest way to do it! Good Luck! The winner will be selected next Sunday, August 12th!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

August Currently!!!

I am linking up with the fabulous Farley from over at Oh' Boy 4th Grade for her monthly Currently linky party. It is always so much fun! Go check it out and her blog too while you are at it. I am lucky enough to have met her in person, and she really is as cool as she seems!

I didn't realize how hard it was to read until after I uploaded it. Sorry. I was also dumb and didn't save it except as a JPEG. 

I mentioned that I am thinking about my classroom and how there is no way that it is going to be ready in time. The sad thing is that it looks way better. Anyone want to volunteer to come set it up with me?

P.S. My giveaway will be posted later today sometime, so be looking for it! Trust me, it is going to be epic!!!

New Year Resolutions and Novel Studies

One of my favorite things about teaching Language Arts is all of the novels that we get to read in my classroom. I really didn't do a great job of this during my first year because the choices I had to choose from were not the best. One of the things that I really worked on this past year was finding quality novels to read with my students as well as growing my collection of novel sets of 6 for book clubs. Right now I am planning on reading The Wednesday Wars and The Giver with my Pre-AP class. I just finished TWW and loved, loved, loved it! I think my kids, especially, the boys will enjoy it too! As for my regular classes I am not quite sure what I want to read with them yet. Even though it is a little easy, I think I am going to start the school year by reading The Best School Year Ever because my kids really liked that a lot last year. I think it is the perfect book to get their feet with and it gives them a positive experience with their first novel as a middle schooler. If you teach middle school, or upper elementary, what are your favorite novels to read as a whole class? What are some novels that you have used for lit circles or book clubs? 

I am also linking up with Amanda Madden for her Back to School Resolutions linky party. Make sure you go and link up over at her blog if you choose to participate. 

One. I need to manage my time after school better. Sometimes last year I would be up there until 6 or 7p.m. This school year my goal is to be gone no later than 5:15p.m. each day. I also really want to limit the amount of work that I take home with me to complete if I can. I think part of the problem is that I am a single 20 something and do not have a family or husband at home so it makes it easy to take things home with me.

Two.Stay organized. Last year I was very organized when the school year began, but it never lasted. I had to do some serious reorganizing at the semester. I think I will do a better job of it this year because I simply know what to expect. I am hoping that I can do a better job of teaching my students procedures about keeping their things organized too in the room which I think will help me stay organized at the same time.

Three.Stay positive. Last year I think I did a good job of this the first semester, but I let others get to me during the second semester. I need to do my part with this too by bringing a positive attitude to my classroom each day and realizing that every day cannot be perfect.There were some changes made to my team as a whole for this upcoming year and I think that the freshness of some new faces will help with this too.

Four. Share what I am doing in my classroom on a weekly basis on my blog. I love seeing what you all are doing in your classroom, so I want to share more of what I am doing too. I am thinking that each Sunday I am going to reflect on what I did during the previous week and hope to share pictures of that too.

On a side note, my campus found out yesterday that we met AYP!!! I could not be more excited since we had not met it in the previous year.