Five for Friday

I have linked up with Kacey from Doodle Bugs Teaching for another week of Five for Friday. I am not quite sure where the week went, but regardless, here we go..

 The Winner Wednesday linky-party will be held this coming Wednesday, June 3^rd. I am really excited to do this again! There were some amazing products discussed last month and I cannot wait to see what is in store for the month of June. If you would like to participate please check out my post from last month for all of the details. Click {here}.

 I have been working hard to get my NO PREP Kindergarten Summer Review and NO PREP First Grade Summer Review finished. The kindergarten packet is complete and uploaded {here} and the first grade review will be uploaded hopefully today or Saturday at the latest. I just have a few pages for Language Arts pages to finish. I know it is a little late as some of you are already finished with school, but hopefully a few people can still use them. If not, they will be nice and ready for you next year. I really wanted to include a little bit of everything in these review packets. The majority of the pages are language arts and math, but there are also several science and social studies worksheets. 

Here is the kindergarten packet all ready to go.

 Here are some of the worksheets from the packet. I chose one from language arts, math, science, and social studies. 

You can see more of this product by looking at the preview on my TpT store. 

 I have spent a chunk of the week going through my Pinterest and trying to organize it. Holy cow! That is a task in itself. I could literally spend days upon days simply doing only that. My Pinterest account was a hot mess, but is finally starting to look better. I am hoping to make some board covers in the next week or two and then start adding to my boards. At least there is some order to it now. I just started my trial with Tailwind for pinning. I cannot wait to put some time into this and get started using it. I have heard great things about it. How do you organize all of your pins?

 I recently found an awesome website called LunaPic and I pretty much use it every single day. You can do so much with this website and it is all free! If you ever have a picture that needs editing, adjusting, and/or special effects, then this would be great for you to check out. Click {here} to go directly to their website. 

It is still raining in Texas. It is getting out of hand. The lakes have been at least ten feet under for years and now they are at their maximum. We got a crazy storm two nights ago and had a raging river in the greenbelt behind out house in thirty minutes time. We have lived in this house for almost five years now and have never seen anything like it. In the past four weeks it has only not rained once. That. Is. Nuts. Texas weather is crazy. It looks like next week we will finally get a break, which is great because my daughter is going stir crazy being stuck inside. Toddlers need space to run wild, apparently. Who knew?! 

Well, that is all for my week. I hope to see you back on Wednesday for Winner Wednesday. Have a great weekend!

Weekly Summer Link-Up: My Goals for the Summer

I am linking up with Monica at I Heart Grade 3 for this awesome summer linky. Every week there will be a different topic to blog about and this week is ‘My goals for the summer…’ I am looking forward to being a part of this every week. It will encourage me to post more than once (Five for Friday). Ha!

My to-do list is out. Of. Control. It is a little on the overwhelming side, but going through and organizing it for this post will hopefully help me get a better grasp on what I NEED to do and possibly prioritize things a little bit better.

UPDATE, UPDATE, UPDATE

I have updated several of my products, HOWEVER, there are still a lot of products to go. I want to have everything updated in the next couple of months so that my store is looking exactly how I would like before the new school year.

VEGAS

I cannot believe we have less than fifty days until Vegas. That is crazy. It was not long ago that it seemed in the distant future. Now it will be here before we know it. I have pretty much everything I need for Vegas purchased, except for clothes. I need to go shopping and buy some cute clothes because I am pretty sure yoga pants and tank tops will not be proper attire for the conference. I also need to finish getting donations and doing prep work for the Full-Time on TpT Vegas Meet-Up I am co-hosting. You can RSVP for this event by clicking {here}.

BLOG

I really want to get my blog moved over to WordPress. I am going to try and be patient and wait until after the TpT conference, but it is really hard to do that. Hopefully I can just focus all of my energy on updating my store until then so it can wait. I am hoping that once the new school year starts, I can come up with some better way to consistently blog. I have a ton of ideas on things I can blog about, but I am struggling to find the time.

CREATE NEW PRODUCTS

Like with blogging, I have a long list of new product ideas that I want to create. Once I get my store updated, I will try and start tackling this list. Creating new things is so much fun and I cannot wait to be able to focus my energy on this section.

FIND A HEALTHY BALANCE

I have only been doing TpT for about four months (since taking a four year break) and I am really struggling with trying to find a schedule that works best for me and my family. One of my goals this summer is to try and find a healthy balance of everything. Working from home is hard. I have not done a great job with juggling everything, and I hope to figure out something in the near future.

FAMILY TIME

I would love to create a schedule for my girls with activities that we can do throughout the summer. We still have music and swim, but school and other classes are off for the summer. I envision having a craft day, a field trip day, a water day, etc. I think that Molly would love this and it will keep all of us sane for the next couple of months. 

That is all I have for the moment. I am sure as soon as I press 'publish' I will think of three more things I can add to my list. :) Head back over to Monica's blog to check out what all the other teachers have for their summer goals. Check back next week for 'Why I started blogging.'

Five for Friday

I have linked up with the fabulous Kacey at Doodle Bugs Teaching for another Five for Friday. Last week was crazy and I did not get to link up, which made me so sad because this has become a great blogging habit for me. 

 I have been updating (scratch redoing) items like crazy the past couple of weeks. I started with my best seller and I am slowly working my way down. Pretty much any extra time has been spent doing that. Here are some of the products that I have updated lately. You can click on the pictures to see more of the product at my store page.

 I submitted my application to have my store name trademarked this week. I am pretty excited about it. Since this is something that I envision doing long term, I wanted to make it finalized before someone else might have taken it. I used trademarkplus.com. If you are ever interested in doing it please let me know and I can send you the coupon that I used. It should take up to three months so hopefully I will hear something in the not so distant future.

 Today is the deadline to RSVP for the DFW Mini Meet-Up on May 30, 2015. It is tentatively scheduled to be hosted at Mia Dia in Grapevine, but due to the overwhelming response that will be changing to a different Grapevine restaurant that can accommodate this size without charging an arm and a leg. We have some great giveaways planned and I cannot wait to meet everyone. If you have not RSVPd click {here} to do so before the end of the night.

I finished the Whole 30 this week and I am beyond proud to have accomplished it. I decided to do the Whole 30 because I have an autoimmune disease and doctors have been telling me for years that I would feel SO much better if I would just be gluten free. I told them they were crazy and that there was no way that was even possible. I have bought several gluten free and Paleo cookbooks over the last year or two and have really enjoyed the food, but also would really enjoy pizza and bread from time to time too. I thought if I did Whole 30, it would give me a decent amount of time to commit (it seemed doable having a fixed time frame) and see if it made a significant difference and it did. I feel so much better. I think that I might do one more round before TpT Vegas and then I envision continuing eating closely to Whole 30 indefinitely. I will eat rice, but try and be gluten free. I will not be 100%, because sometimes it just doesn’t make sense. My plan is to allow a ‘cheat meal’ every week. I know that sometimes it will be more, but I think it is healthy to put at least one meal a week in there to enjoy anything I feel like. To celebrate being done I enjoyed a large glass of wine and sushi. 

I emailed Oriental Trading a few weeks ago about being a part of their blogger program. They give $75 worth of products to people that will blog about the items. I decided that I was going to set up a tot school in our upstairs playroom and what better way to get that started than with the help of all of Oriental Trading’s amazing education products. I will probably not have it all complete for another month or so, but I am so excited about it that I had to share now. 

That is all I have for this week. Head back over to Kacey's page to check out what all the other amazing bloggers have been up to this week. I hope you have a great weekend!

Five for Friday

  

  I have been busy updating products in my store. I am currently working on my top seller ‘Food Chains’ which was in desperate need of a makeover. I am also adding several activities to it. I am hoping to have it finished and uploaded sometime this weekend. Here is a sneak peek.

 

  This summer at the TpT conference I will be co-hosting a Full Time on TpT Vegas Meet-Up. My sweet friend, Sara, and I have been working hard to get donations for this event for the swag bag and giveaways and we have some really cool stuff so far. If you (or someone you know) would love to donate please contact me. Also, if you are full time on TpT and would like to join us for this event, you can RSVP by June 19th {here}.

 This week was the first Winner Wednesday linky party and I think it went really well. I had some amazing bloggers link up and had several people that tried to win my showcased product. If you would like to participate in the next Winner Wednesday, it will take place on June 3^rd. Click {here} to get all of the information that you will need. I will mention it again the week prior just in case you forget.

 

  I am over halfway done with my first full round of Whole 30. After today, I will only have eleven days left. That means eleven more days until I can have wine and sushi. Woohoo! I have really enjoyed doing this and I am happy I finally committed to a full 30 days. If you have even thought about doing it, I definitely recommend it.

 

  My husband has been getting his MBA the past two and a half years and he had his last official class on Tuesday night. He left for China for twelve nights for his final school credits and then he will be done FOREVER!!!! He has worked SO hard on this and I am so proud of everything that he has done. I am also looking forward to having him back home with no classes to go to or homework/studies to complete after work and on the weekends.

Another big thank you to Kacey at Doodle Bugs Teaching for hosting this awesome linky every single week. You should head {here} to check out all the other amazing bloggers that have linked up.

 

Winner Wednesday: Sight Word Practice Mat Bundle

 

Welcome to the first ever Winner Wednesday at A Dab of Glue Will Do! This linky will take place the first Wednesday of every month. I will pick a popular product from my store and explain it in detail, with pictures. The best part of it all, is that YOU will have a chance to win that product for FREE. All you will have to do is enter your name to be entered into the Rafflecopter. Easy Peasy. What do you have to lose?

 

The product that I chose for you today is my Dolch Sight Word Practice Mat Bundle. You can see this product in my store by clicking {here}. There are nearly 200 pages worth of NO PREP practice mats that can easily be implemented into your daily literacy centers. This product includes all Dolch Words {pre-primer, primer, first grade, and second grade}.

 

It is strongly recommended that you laminate these prior to use. One, they will be much more durable and last a lot longer and two, you can have students write on them with a vis-a-vis marker {which makes any center twenty times more fun, right!?} and easily clean it off with a wipe or damp sponge when it is time to clean up.

 

Do you want to know what to do with each practice mat? Below is a great visual that shows what students will be expected to do.

1) The student will SAY the word.

2) The student will BUILD the word with letter manipulatives. {You can use letters that you have printed and cut out, plastic letters, or magnetic letters.}

3) The student will TRACE the word. {I have vis-a-vis markers and let the students use these when they are in the centers.}

4. The student will SAY the sentence. {This requires that the student identifies the sight word within a sentence, while recognizing other common words. Having a picture with the sentence allows students to use picture clues to guide them if they are stuck on a particular word.}

5. The student will WRITE the sentence. {Similar to tracing it, I have students use the vis-a-vis markers to complete this step.}

6. The student will CREATE their own sentence using the sight word. {This step is great because it requires the student to apply their knowledge about the given word. I find it helpful to see which students can complete the step as it serves as a great assessment tool.}

 I always love to have an extension activity for my high students. When they finish completing the mat as described above, I encourage them to find popcorn (sight) words and circle or popcorn around the word. They also know to look for blends, digraphs, long and short vowels, etc.

 

I find that having the repetition of working with the same word in a variety of different activities is a great combination for helping students to better learn and retain their sight words.

 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

If you do not want to wait for the giveaway to be over and you want to purchase this product now, click {here}. Don't forget to follow me on Bloglovin so you will be the first to know when Winner Wednesday has gone live each month.

 

Want to be a part of Winner Wednesday?

 

This linky party will take place on the first Wednesday of every month. I would love for you to join in on the fun and have a chance to win some awesome products for FREE! 

 

Here is how to link-up:

1. Save the 'Winner Wednesday' images to your computer.

2. Create a blog post about one product from your store. Try to include authentic pictures, not just pictures from your TpT store, if possible.

3. Add cover page of product to the "Winner Wednesday' product image.

4. Set up Rafflecopter to run for the entire day of Wednesday {Please only require name for entry}.

5. Link up by clicking the 'add your link' button {or you can email me your permalink prior to the link-up going live}.

6. Don't forget to check out the other Winner Wednesday products that have been shared and leave comments on any that you particularly like! 

An InLinkz Link-up