New Product Alert: Monthly Reading Log Brag Tags

Do you use brag tags in your classroom?  If not, YOU SHOULD!  First, let's go over some FAQs.

What are brag tags?
Brag tags are small, printable cards for your students to earn.  They collect them and add them to a keychain, necklace, or place of your choice.

Why brag tags?
Kids love showing off something they have earned.  The more brag tags they collect, the more pride they will have of their set.  What's better than students taking ownership of their work and accomplishments?  I don't know.  You tell me!

Why do teachers love brag tags?
Brag tags are great incentives for accomplishing academic and behavioral goals.  They are also very easy to manage and store.  I am about to order myself one of these babies to easily store all of my brag tags.

Akro-Mills 10164 64 Drawer Plastic Parts Storage Hardware and Craft Cabinet, 20-inch by 16-inch by 6 1/2 inch

This product includes 12 months worth of brag tags for monthly reading log completion.  The best part?  It's FREE!

Click me to go directly to the product page in my store for purchase!

In my classroom, I start each month by handing out a new reading log which is part of their nightly homework.  Students are to read by themselves or with a parent daily for at least 20 minutes.  Parents initial or sign off each day to verify completion.  At the end of the month I collect reading logs and award each child with a Book It! coupon for a personal pan pizza from Pizza Hut.  Next year I will also be passing out brag tags for students to add to their chain to show off!  

Your students will LOVE collecting their monthly reading log brag tag each month.  Just print on cardstock, laminate (if you wish), hole punch in the top center, and add to a keychain or necklace.  

If you decide to download this product, please leave me some feedback in my store!  I would LOVE to know what you think.  Better yet... take a photo of it in use and make sure to tag me in it!

TPT Seller Challenge: Week Two

How's everyone's 2nd week assignment for the TPT Seller Challenge going?  The challenge for week two is to share your dream for TPT.  Below are my four main focuses.

1. Pay off student loans.
I graduated college four years ago and have somewhere between $10,000-$15,000 of debt to pay off. Paying out-of-state tuition is NO JOKE people.  Without getting too personal, I had a sum of money to help me transition from being a full-time student to the real world after graduation and someone in my family spent it all without me knowing.  It's a really long and dramatic story, but I would LOVE to make some more money via TPT so I can pay off my loans quicker.

2. Fund my wedding.
On March 25th I got ENGAGED to my best friend.  We set our wedding date for July 9, 2016.  It's almost a year away and I don't have a wedding fund to pull from to pay for the wedding.  Our mothers are helping us in any way they can, but we will be paying for the majority of the wedding by ourselves.  As we all know, teachers aren't millionaires.  Womp, womp, womp!  I hope to have more success on TPT so I can help fund our special day.

3. New car.
I have been rocking my 2004 Ford Explorer, Dora, since driving day one.  Dora may only be 11 years old, but she took me back and forth between Auburn and Virginia during college quite a few times.  She is falling apart and it's getting close to new car time.  Her most recent episode was losing A/C about two weeks ago.  Driving around in June without A/C isn't the most pleasurable experience.  Car payments are not possible right now with my 2nd year teacher salary so having more income with the help of TPT would make my goal to purchase a new car possible.

4. Buy a house.
My fiancé and I just moved into a rental townhouse in May since my lease was up in my apartment by the beach.  Our current plan is to stay here for two years so we aren't moving right before the wedding next July and buy something of our own in May 2017.  This date may be two years away, but two years goes by fast and taking on a mortgage is a lot to handle.  If I had some extra income from TPT I could start to put some money aside for a down payment on our first home.

I hope to learn how to grow my brand on TPT even more with the help of the TPT Seller Challenge to make my dreams possible.  What are your TPT dreams?

Organization Project #1

Happy summer, y'all!  Tomorrow I start an all day, two day graduate level class through Regent University to count towards my licensure renewal.  I know I have only been out of school for four years now, but the thought of having to write a paper or take a test is just beyond me right now.  A few years ago I was diagnosed with ADD which explained why I always had such a hard time studying in school.  Even in college I just couldn't seem to sit down, focus, and study.  I have been thinking about going back to graduate school to get my masters for a little while now, but I am extremely hesitant to do so knowing how I am... a total squirrel. 

Anyway... in order to help my squirrely mind I needed to tackle a personal organization project... MY DESKTOP!  I watched Cassie Dahl from Funky in Fourth's video tutorial on how to change up your folder icons a few months ago when she first posted it and was OBSESSED!  I didn't have time to really fix it up how I wanted until today.   You can click either of the pictures below to take you directly to her post to watch the tutorial for yourself.  I cannot thank her enough because now my squirrely brain feels at ease when I look at my desktop. 

TPT Seller Challenge: Week One

Oh my goodness!  Last week sure was a whirlwind!  Our last day of school was on Thursday (WOOHOO!), the TPT Seller Challenge began, and on Friday morning I traveled to Arkansas with my fiancé for his cousin's wedding.  BUUUUUTTTTT I'm back now and ready to start my summer!  Below are my beginning stats for the seller challenge.

I don't have a separate Pinterest account, but I DO have a separate Pinterest board.  My board currently has 957 followers.  Since beginning the challenge I have started my Facebook page.  To be quite honest, I find Instagram to be the easiest platform for my marketing and I easily track other sellers' activity on Instagram.  

Okay, so for week one of the seller challenge I decided to make over my Commutative Property with Bingo Daubers booklet.  You can click any of the product photos to take you directly to my store to purchase.  This is one of my lower maintenance products.  I have some plans to take a look at some of my other products in my store now that school is out.  

I spiffied up the clipart, added a fun and colorful cover page, and updated my fonts.  This may be a simple product, but I'm so glad I made some time to re-do this one.  I used this activity as a formative assessment last year. 

Are you participating in the TPT Seller Challenge?  If not, make sure to check it out!  Stay tuned.  I will be writing about WEEK TWO soon!

Running Record Hundreds Chart FREEBIE

Hey y'all!

As the school year winds down I am starting to catch up on a few things.  For example, I had posted this AWESOME freebie to my TPT store a little while ago but TOTALLY forgot to blog about it!

In the spring I attended a professional development course on struggling readers.  One of the fun finds was a running record hundreds chart to easily find how many words per minute a student can accurately read.  When I saw it I was like, "DUH, Christina!" C'mon!  I swear it has changed the way I take running records during small group.  I copied mine front-to-back for each kid so I can save paper.  I'm not reinventing the wheel here, just changing up the font.  Ha ha!  I'm thinking of starting a support group for us font fanatics.

Click either of the images below to take you straight to my TPT store to grab your copy of this FREEBIE today!

Personal Color-Coded Writing Checklist

3 weeks left!  3 weeks left!

Y'all... I know many of you are already out for summer but I still have 3 weeks left.  OH. MY. GOSH.  haha.  I know y'all know what I mean.  It's the end of the year, everyone is tired, the kids are just done and ready to go... Needless to say I needed something to help my kids edit on their own before getting to me.  I can't look at one more paper without punctuation or sentences without beginning capital letters.  I just can't.  I have a peer editing check list, which is great for my friends who actually go back through anything to check their work, but it's not enough for my friends who need some more support.

For my friends who need some extra help editing I use color-coded editing.  Why I didn't have a personal visual for them to hold onto... I don't know.  I think this somehow got put on the back burner.  Nonetheless, here is my NEWEST product!  It is ON SALE through TOMORROW for just $1.20!!! Go and grab your copy while it's on sale!  Click any of the pictures below to take you directly to my TPT store for your copy.

 Color version

 Black & white version

Larger version to put through a poster maker.

Enjoy and don't forget to leave feedback to let me know what you think!  Thank you for your support, y'all!