Liebster Award: Spreading the Blogging Love

 

Thanks Stephanie A Touch of Class for nominating me for a Liebster Award! If you aren’t familiar, I sure wasn’t, this award is for bloggers who have less than 200 followers but have great content and potential. I’ve been blogging for most of this year and enjoy it as an outlet to get my ideas out there and discover new ones from other teachers! 

1. Why and how long ago did you start blogging? I started blogging because I would spend my days outside the classroom cruising sites like Miss Kindergarten, What the Teacher Wants or Seusstastic and loving their classroom ideas. I thought to myself “huh, I love that I can link up with, explore and get new ideas to use in my own classroom.” I decided then and there that I wanted to share my ideas, inspire others and get even more inspiration from collaborating with other teachers through comments and linky parties. I can’t believe it’s been ten months since my first blog post.  

2. What one word sums up the heart of your blog and why? Sharing- I’m not a super creative person, I don’t have a TPT store, no freebies/giveaways and it’s a miracle when I get an original thought of my own when it comes to crafting. So I am always out there looking for resources that go with a theme in my classroom. I then post about that resource and how I used it in the classroom. I love sharing new ideas and inspiring others who may be working on the same theme.

3. Is there something you learned late in your blog journey you wished you knew before? I learned how to edit my pictures late in my blog journey so they look more appealing. I wish I knew the magic of Picasa earlier so all my photos look amazing! Oh and a tutorial on the Currently linky would have helped too (I’m on my third posting for that linky this year).

4. What is your favorite past time other than blogging? I love to bake and cook! I am always trying something new from pinterest, right now I’m cooking some chewy ginger chocolate chip cookies. I also love just hanging out with my hubby!

5. How many hours per week do you dedicate to your blog? At most I’ll spend about an hour and a half 

6. What category of blog posts do you enjoy the most? Hmm… anything that is inspiring. I love seeing how other teachers use their resources in their classroom.

7. Where does your blog inspiration come from? My inspiration comes from the aforementioned blogs under why I started blogging. I think they got me thinking hey you can do this too! I can inspire others and get my ideas out there.

8. Which post that you've written are you most proud of? Hmmm… probably the 100^th day of school post. That one was fun to share!
  
9. Is there any post you have been planning to do, but have postponing it for a while now?

Probably my Five for Friday, which I just posted. I try to get it done on Friday but I’m always so tired by the end of the week that I usually either post Saturday or wait until the next week.

10. What is your favorite aspect of blogging? I feel like so relaxed and excited to put my ideas out there and when I receive comments it keeps me going and keeps me loving what I’m doing! 

11. Which recipe, project, or idea on my blog would you be most likely to try yourself?  Umm, seeing that we teach different grades, spanning 4 years, I don’t see myself using most of your TPT products but my coworker who does teach 3-5 could get some use out of your products, which look amazing by the way! Definitely passing on the treasures in your store to my coworker Stephanie! Take that back I will use your substitute teacher feedback form! 

So here are my nominations for the Liebster Award! 

1. Abbie from Steppin' Up to First Grade

2. Aly from Getting Carried Away in First Grade

3. Karli from Creating a Thoughtful Classroom 

4. Emerald from If You Mustache I Heart Teaching

5. Stephanie from Lunch, Snack and Recess!

6. Christy from Mrs. Christy's Leaping Loopers

7. Kristin from My Carolina Classroom

8. Lindsay from Mrs. Murray's Kindergarten

9. Abbey from Tremendous First Grade Tales

10. Ashley from The Sassy School Teacher

11. Kristen from Kinderdoodlez 

1.   To those who have been nominated, here are the "official" rules for accepting:
1. In your post, link back to the blogger who nominated you as a thank you and "shout out." (Follow their blog if you haven't already!)  
2. Answer the 11 questions given to you (the ones I answered above).
3. Nominate 11 blogs of your choice that each have less than 200 followers. Provide them with 11 questions to answer or have them answer the questions above.
4. Let your nominees know that they've been nominated and provide them with a link to your post so that they can accept.
5. Send your nominator a link to your post so that s/he can learn more about you as well! (You can just put your post link in the comments below!)

Five For Fraturday

Linking up this week with Doodle Bug for my Five for Fraturday. I must say this has been the busiest four day week I’ve had. Let’s see what we were up to…

For the first time in five years our school gave us Columbus Day off but that didn't stop me from heading into the classroom to get a head start on the week. So I made our art project for next week, cleaned up my table tops, got our text features unit ready, and was out of there by 3, so I could enjoy some of the day outside of the classroom.

On Tuesday morning, I got to work and saw this...

shattered glass from someone's car window. We don't have any janitors at our school so I cleaned up most of the glass early that morning with help from my coworker when she got there. This makes me really sad that people do this right in front of our school and don't care to come back to clean it up.

 

Did you know that Wednesday was National Fossil Day? Well our librarian got us ready for October 15th by giving us books on fossils and dinosaurs. We learned about fossils for a week and then on Wednesday she came in with lots of fossils for us to look at. She brought for our enjoyment a Sabertooth's tooth, Megalodon tooth and even some fossilized poop (the peaches favorite fossil). We all had a lot of fun learning more about fossils and animals from long ago. 

 

 This week really felt like fall. The weather was perfect, the leaves are falling and Charlie Brown was on TV this week! As we are creeping closer to Halloween I love delving into themes. After learning about text features and writer's workshop we decided to do an all about bats book. We read some nonfiction books on bats and decided who was going to do what part of our book. After organizing our book, I had them color and put together a book I got from the mailbox companion website. 

 

 Friday was such a low key day, I only had three of my five peaches so we spent the afternoon working on our writing, working on our bat book and making these cute mummies. I got the idea off of Pinterest and knew I had to make them with Halloween around the corner. They all turned out to be cute and not so creepy.

  When everyone left, I still had mummies on the brain and with Red Ribbon Week starting next Thursday I decided to continue the mummy theme and add in this years Red Ribbon message. It will make for a fun surprise on Monday. I have a mummy craft for my kiddos to do for Red Ribbon Week that will look great with my mummy. 

I wanted to show some pictures of my peaches working on finding text features in nonfiction books. They were all so engaged and working hard. Only one group needed support. It was fun to see all the learning going on. Happy Saturday everyone!