Chocolate Milk, Por Favor! Blog Tour and Giveaway!

Extra!  Extra! Read All About It!

My favorite author released her newest book, Chocolate Milk, Por Favor!

Maria Dismondy is an award winning author, a former teacher and a mom who writes books that empower others and encourage us to celebrate diversity.  I've known Maria for a few years and have had the pleasure of hearing her presentations several times in my school.  My own children have also been empowered by her message when she visited their schools.  She is a fabulous presenter and I can tell you from experience that her positive message sticks with children and adults.

I've read and enjoyed all of Maria's books in my classroom and at home with my own children. Her new book is the story of a two boys, Gabe and Johnny.  Gabe speaks a different language than the other students in his new school and Johnny struggles to accept Gabe at first.  Throughout the story, Johnny learns to celebrate diversity with empathy.  Chocolate milk plays role in the story as well!

Chocolate Milk, Por Favor! sparked conversations at our house about important topics like ways we can make people feel welcome, getting to know more about people to honor the differences among us, celebrating diversity instead of pretending we are all the same and having empathy for others.  In our family, we want our children to do more than accept others.  We want them to learn from each others differences, accept each other without the expectation that we should all be the same and encourage others to be the best they can be.  I tried to teach the same to the children in my classroom. Chocolate Milk, Por Favor! is a book that I will definitely be recommending to teachers and parents for years to come.

I have a great deal of respect for Maria Dismondy's work and the positive messages she shares.  I am honored that she asked me to create a reader's guide for Chocolate Milk, Por Favor!.   The reader's guide includes activities that are aligned with the common core standards (but will work with any standards) for teachers and parents to use as they enjoy the story together.  You can read more about this book (and her other books) and download the reader's guide for free on Maria's website by clicking on the image below.

As part of the blog tour, Maria is allowing me to giveaway a signed copy of Chocolate Milk, Por Favor! to one lucky winner!  The giveaway ends on April 11th at midnight.

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Congratulations, Maria!

Another fabulous book!

Another powerful message!

Looking forward to filling our shelves and our hearts with more of your stories in the future!

Product Swap Snapshot + Giveaway!

For the next few days, a few of my teacher/blogger friends are spotlighting some products we swapped.  We're also kickin' off our Product Swap Snapshot with a giveaway!  Starting today (4/12) and ending on Wednesday (4/16), you can enter for a chance to win a $50 gift card to The Vintage Pearl!  The Vintage Pearl makes beautiful hand stamped jewelry. I have several of their pieces and have given several more as gifts. You can enter for a chance to win a $50 gift card to The Vintage Pearl at the end of this post.

For our product swap, I had the pleasure of trying out a product from Jill from ABC's and Polka Dots.  Jill is a fellow Michigan blogger and a kindergarten teacher.  Jill and I have become friends during the past year and we're hoping to meet up sometime soon.

I was lucky enough to use Jill's short vowel (cvc) write the room activities with my struggling readers for the past few weeks.  Next year, I'll be able to use all of these with my 1st graders for the first half of the year.  At this time of the year, they were perfect for my struggling readers!

During the first week, I used the Short A Write the Room, Short E Write the Room and Short I Write the Room activities to work with my kiddos during small group instruction.  Then I was able to have a parent helper use the cards from Jill's product to work on word family sorts. Here are the some of the cards from the Short A Write the Room product.

My students were independently able to use ABC order and write the room pages.

My students loved searching for the short vowel word cards around the room for the Write the Room activities!  In fact, they begged me to do it three days in row.  I don't know about you, but I'm all for  any activity that has my struggling students begging me to let them do it practice it again.

Thank you, Jill, for these great resources to help my students!

Please stop by and visit Jill at ABC's and Polka Dots! 

And...over the next few days, please be sure to also visit my friends below 

who will be snapshotting other great products!

Don't forget to enter the giveaway for the $50 gift card to The Vintage Pearl!

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Voila...My New Design!

I'm in love!  But this time not with my husband, or my dogs, or new box of Mr. Sketch markers...

It's my new design that is making my heart flutter today!!!

The talented Kassie from Designs by Kassie deserves all the credit.

All I really did was choose my favorite colors and send her a million emails. Ha!

I loved working with Kassie! 

She is incredibly talented and patient.
 I truly appreciate her design expertise.

Tomorrow...

I'll be joining several of my teacher/blogger friends  for a Product Swap Snapshot and a giveaway!  

Please stop back tomorrow for the details! Oh, how I love my new design!  Thanks again, Kassie!  You are amazing!

Lucky Day and Road Signs

Seriously, I never win anything just by "luck".  I only win things like races against my 8 year old or bets with my husband.  But, last week I WON!  I WON!  I WON!

Remember when Jennifer, from First Grade Blue Skies, had the Jo Tote giveaway?

I WON!!!  For real, I won!

Can you tell that I'm still jumping up and down?

I received an email one morning last week that said I won.
It was real. I picked out my Jo Tote camera bag online.

And then came...my very special delivery.
That's what the box said - love it!
I picked the pewter color because I like my camera bag to match everything.
Seriously, it's so fancy!  It has dividers inside for my lenses
and the cords (even the ones that I have no idea what to do with).
I love it!

Lucky, lucky, lucky!
Thank you, Jennifer!
Thank you, Jo Totes!
I LOVE my stylish new camera bag!
I might just stick my ipad in it (plenty of space for that)
and take it to school tomorrow!

Now, on to the road signs.  If you've visited recently, you know that my school is celebrating March is Reading Month with an informational text theme.  The name of our theme is Information Highway and we have weekly themes as well (food, music, exercise and animals).

My principal had these amazing signs made to hang all over the building to help us get the kids pumped about our road trip!  I just took pictures of a few on my way down the hall the other day.

And here are the reading graphs to track our minutes by grade level. 

I work in a K - 2 building (plus we have Young 5's). 

Each grade level has it's own road.

The vehicle on each road moves up the wall 

as the students bring in their reading logs. 

Here are some of the resources we are using for our Information Highway theme.

I'm off to bed so I can be ready to take on Monday!

Back to School Giveaway Winners!

Thank you to all those who entered my back to school giveaway!

And the winners are...

Congratulations, Lori!  You won the Erin Condren gift card!

Congratulations, Lisa!  You won the Target gift card!

I sent each of you an email about how to claim your prize.  

You'll need to contact me before the end of the day on Thursday, August 8.

(not the 6th like I accidentally wrote in the email - oops)

 

Have You Entered My Back to School Giveaway?

There is still time to enter my Back to School Giveaway!

 Click on the image below to read the details and find out about the 2 prizes.

Hope you'll stop by!

 

Family Traditions

I'm doing a guest post today for the award winning author, Maria Dismondy, on her blog Be The Difference. Maria is doing a summer series about family traditions. I hope you'll stop by and read my post about one of our favorite family traditions. You can click on the image below to read it.

Don't forget to enter my Back to School Giveaway for a chance to win an Erin Condren gift card or a Target gift card! The giveaway ends on August 6!

Back to School Giveaway!

Thank you for visiting today!
It's time for a Back to School Giveaway! 

 2 Prizes = 2 Lucky Winners! 

I hope you'll join me and enter to win!

There are 2 prizes and there will be one winner for each prize!

The first prize will be a $25 to Erin Condren.com!

Erin Condren has ALL kinds of adorable products that would surely make any teacher jump up and down!  You can read about my Erin Condren Life Planner here.  I LOVE my new planner!

The second prize will be a $20 Target gift card!

Who doesn't love Target? (Well, probably my husband...)

The giveaway starts today and will end on August 6.

The winners will be announced on my blog on August 7.

Winners will need to email me before August 9 to claim their prize.

Let the giveaway begin!

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A Tablet for the Teacher

The good folks at Teachers Notebook are supporting teachers again. This time it's with an exciting giveaway! It's called A Tablet for the Teacher Sweepstakes. 

 You can enter one time each day from now until January 31. Head over to check it out!  

  Thank you, Teachers Notebook, for supporting teachers!

Everything's Primary Expo Ticket Winners

It's official...

Katieneu, Mrs. Egley and Maggie McDowell will each receive a free ticket to the Everything's Primary Virtual Teaching Expo! Winners - send me your email and mailing address by Wednesday and I will forward your information to the ticket man.

I want to thank everyone for leaving such detailed comments about the topic of struggling readers. I addressed lots of those things in my presentation for the Everything's Primary Expo. I will try my best to address anything that I did not cover in my posts in the near future.

Remember, the virtual teaching expos are affordable ($14.95 if you register early). I hope you'll consider joining me and the other presenters for this expo.

I'm Giving Away Free Tickets!

Tickets here! Get your tickets here! 

I've always wanted to yell that out.  Another giveaway so soon?  Yep!  I'm gearing up for the Everything's Primary Virtual Teaching Expo (which is sponsored by Teaching Blog Addict and Teachers Notebook).

It's a good thing I'm gearing up, because I'm one of the presenters.  Ha! I've done lots of presentations for educators and parents in the past few years, but this is my first "virtual" presentation. My presentation at the Everything's Primary Expo will be about helping struggling readers. I hope you'll join me!  It's one of the few times that professional development is comfortable (in your own home), affordable (only $14.95 if you register early- or free if you win tickets) and presented by real teachers.

I've attended (watched in my pj's) each of other Virtual Teaching Expos this year.  After watching the Everything's Kindergarten Expo last weekend, I added 3 new components to my writer's workshop and tried 2 new transition activities in my first grade classroom.  I'm looking forward to hearing the ideas the other presenters share at the Everything's Primary Expo.  You can click on the image below to read about their hot topics.

This weekend I'm giving away 3 free tickets to the Everything's Primary Virtual Teaching Expo!  This expo is scheduled to launch on February 25th. You will get one entry for each of the things below.  Three winners will be chosen with the random generator thingy and each winner will win 1 ticket to the Everything's Primary Expo. The giveaway will end on Sunday evening (2/5).

 1.  Since my presentation is about helping struggling readers... leave a comment telling me the most challenging thing about helping your struggling readers. (1 entry)
2.  Sign up for the Virtual Teaching Expo newsletter (scroll to bottom of page and subscribe). (1 entry)

I will be announcing the winners for this giveaway on Monday (2/6)! 

Don't forget to stop by and link up to my "What Do You Love?" linky party!