Things I Love - April Edition

This has now become my most favorite jacket ever! And that is saying a lot because I have quite the coat/jacket problem. My dear sissy gave me a gift card for my birthday and I was able to get this amazing faux leather jacket!

Not only that, the price tag was incorrect, so I got a $30 refund too! :))) (That is me beaming about that!) I wanted to add a link to this but it is sold out already. It is by BLANKNYC and it is so comfy and it goes with everything. I adore the asymmetrical zipper too, more than I can express!

I got this one at Macys with a giftcard from my lovely parents! Macys is having their Friends and Family sale, so I saved 25% on this too! It is by INC and it is really a deep black but I had to lighten the picture to show all the ruffle detailing.

I got this INC top at Macys too, for 25% off. Mine is a taupey color, but the sequins give it a silver look. I am smitten with this shirt. I feel it will make going back to school on the Monday morning after vacation just a bit easier!

My last Macys purchase was this Fossil handbag. I have not bought a Fossil bag in a few years but I could not resist this one. The colors are so pretty and you cannot go wrong with 25% off and a gift card!

My new dresses!! I love these two so much that I have no idea how I will choose which one to wear first! We have a Dress Barn near us now and I must say I am very excited about that!
Blouses!! I have a lot of blouses and I am so glad that it is finally warm enough for me to wear them again! I love winter but I tend to dress a bit more somberly as it goes on!

Finally we have something that I have wanted to buy for ages but for some reason never got around to getting.

The Conair Infinitipro Spin Air Rotating Styler. I seen a lot of infomercials for this. A lot. Since I have never successfully mastered the art of holding a hair dryer AND a hairbrush this is definitely the tool for me! I have curly hair and rarely straighten it - mostly because I whack myself with the hairbrush when I try to. Plus, my hair gets really frizzy and then I have to straighten it for another half hour.

I tried it yesterday, and again today, and I really really love it! I still have to dry my roots with a regular hair dryer first, otherwise it takes too long. But it really does smooth out your hair without taking away too much volume. I still have to use the straightener too, but it does not take anywhere near as long as it did before. It was so much faster that I will now be straightening my hair way more than two times a year!

What are your current obsessions for this month?

Sight Word Games

First up, hooray for spring break! Now if only it would warm up a teensy bit more! Of course I cannot complain too much, at least it is sunny out!

This is one of my favorite games to play with my students, it is a fun way to review those tricky sight words. Once you play it with your class or group a few times, it makes a great center activity! I like to have my students make sentences out of each word they land on.

There are four boards, each one with 25 of the first 100 sight words on it.

I also included gray scale copies of each board. These work well for student take home copies and for summer activity packs!

This set is available in my TpT shop!

Beaded Bracelets and Giveaway Winner!

I have a plethora of necklaces. Seriously, you can see it here if you want to know just how bad it is! My bracelets are substantial as well, but I find they never last me as long. Most likely that is because I have a tendency to whack them against things or snag them at school.

Michaels has been having a great deal on Bead Gallery beads lately - 55% off! I figured that would be a great time to get back to making jewelry!

I love this one so much! It has three of those silver plated beads. It is not really glitter or stones, it is druzy! And I believe virtually indestructible! I tend to be vicious on the stones in my bracelets, unintentionally of course! I had four hearts and black beads left, so I think I may be making a pair of earrings soon!

I was afraid I wasn't going to like how this turned bracelet out, but I do! I had a purple glass bead with a golden tint in my hand all throughout the store. But something about it was not right. Then I saw these gorgeous beads - I love the swirls of blues and greens! I think it compliments the antiqued silver nicely.

Lastly we have my silver and rhinestone bracelet. I loved how the round beads look sand dollarish! It was definitely the easiest to make too, just six beads and some elastic. That is definitely how I like my jewelry making to be!

I am totally smitten with all of them and I think I may have a hard time choosing which one I will wear first! Perhaps I will go for a layered look this Monday!

Last but not least Congratulations to Maria! She is the winner of the Silent E Bunting Games! I will be emailing you tonight Maria!

Have a great night!

Silent E Bunting Games

This is a updated version of a Silent E game I created back when I first opened my shop. I really did not like the bunting I had used - I made it myself and it was dreadful! I also did not like the font, it was way too swirly to read easily.

I am slowly updating all the items in my shop to make them easier to read. I just started a Facebook and Twitter page that will have updates on all these changes! You can find them on the right-hand side at the top of this page! Thanks to my fabulously talented sister for making these adorable buttons!

This set has five game boards all with Silent E words (a, i, o , u and a mixed vowel board for reviewing.)

They are great for Literacy Centers and small group work! I have been playing this game with my first grade group all week. We were using the Candy Colored Long Vowel Team Games - but I noticed that when they were reading their books they were not reading Silent E words with the long vowel sound. I figured it was time for a review!

They really enjoy discussing each word that they land on and what it means. They especially like when they can act out the words too! I like taking the extra time to do this when we play these games, it really lets me see how well they are comprehending the words they decode.

I included gray scale copies of all the games, as well as the rules. I am going to put a pack of these gray scale copies together for them to take home this summer! That way I will know that they can keep on practicing these skills!

This set is available in my TpT shop!

March's Nail Art and Giveaway Winner!!

This was a lazy nails week!  I loved how the gold and black turned out awhile back so I decided to try it out with China Glaze Draped in Velvet combined with Sally Hansen's Fractured Foil on half the nail. I love these colors together!

I was totally inspired by these amazing nails I saw on Polish Obsession - I adore the way Marisa's came out!!  I have a tendency to space my dots out too much. I want to try this one again soon with the dots closer together, or even overlapping like she did. I used Rimmel Lasting Finish Wild Orchid for the base. The dots were done with Essie No Place Like Chrome, Zoya Charisma, and a Confetti Periwinkle color that I can find no link for! I bought it on a whim years ago at some drugstore. I really like the shade though!

This week I decided to try sponge art again. I used Essie Go Overboard for my base, Essie No Place Like Chrome for the petals and China Glaze Champagne Bubbles for the centers.







I chopped a cosmetic sponge into little triangles to make the petals. I  dipped it in the polish (on a plate) and lightly dabbed the tiny corner against my nail. Some came out nice...some rather horribly!

(Take note of the pinky!)  I was informed by a someone that it bore no resemblance to a flower!! However, I love them, in fact I have been admiring them all week!

Next up we have my Spring Matching Games winner! Congratulations Cherie, you are the winner! I will be emailing you tonight! Thanks to everyone who commented!

So what is on your nails this week? Let me know below!

Spring Matching Games

We switched up our Intervention groups recently and I have discovered that while my new first grade crew are at a higher reading level, they are lacking on recognition of many of their letters! There is a lot of b and d reversals and confusion over j, g sounds as well as names of letters. I thought I would put together a quick matching game we can use to reinforce each letter in both the uppercase and lowercase style.


I included Rules for both Go Fish and Memory. I play Go Fish with my students in our small groups but everyone now and then we have a technology crisis! (The rest of my crew is working on Raz-Kids.com, reading stories on their level.) If I have to go off to help someone with a computer mishap I like to have a game ready for the ones who are waiting ever so patiently for me! I find that Memory works great in this case. They are pro's at laying out the cards for whatever skill we are on and they match away while I tend to the computer issue!

I also included a set of cards with the numbers 1-20 and pictures representing each number. We used to play with one dice but recently I switched to two - it helps to speed up the game when we are short on time! I noticed that many of my students are unable to recognize groups of numbers! I thought this might be a good way to help with that!

There are 20 cards with numbers 1-20 and 20 cards with the pictures for 1-20. We are going to be trying this game out this week and I am hoping that it will help increase their ability to recognize how many are in a group!

This set is available in my TpT shop!

Neon Love!

I, being a 80's child, have a love for all things neon! So when I saw these sneakers I knew I just had to have them! Anything that pairs black with neon is perfect for me!

I mean, how could I resist! The bottoms are adorable and the laces, well I am 100% certain I had the same pair of laces when I was a kid!

So after staring at them longingly day after day, unable to wear them to work due to our dress code and not willing to risk wearing them in the icky winter weather, I decided to try this look out on my nails!

Michaels had this amazing glitter that was just what I was looking for!

Here we have black and neon attempt #1. Bear in mind that I had never used loose glitter on my nails before!

I liked these but I was not completely smitten. I think the glitter is too transparent to use on black polish. I am going to try it out on white soon - I think that will pop more!

I wanted the black to be solid but instead I ended up with little bits of glitter all over it. I think next time I will seal the glitter half off with clear coat first. Then I will coat the whole nail. Dragging the clear polish down the nail made a gradient glitter look that I wasn't really going for!
Since I was not totally satisfied with that experiment I decided to try again. This one was way worse! Perhaps I should refrain from doing my nails at 9 pm on a Sunday night in the future! The neon polish looked good...but the black glitter, not so much!

I think my error was in shaking the glitter over my nail rather than just pinching a bit over it. They reminded me so much of something that I could not place. Then I realized. My nails looked like Wooly Willy! They were way too heavy and textured! This manicure lasted one day - mainly because we had a snow day last Tuesday and I was able to scrape it off and change it up a bit!

So whilst I love my sneakers I definitely have not achieved a neon/black nail look that I adore yet. However I will conquer it, I promise! (Or perhaps I should say I hope!?!)

What's on your nails this week?

The Wrap Up = Perfect Bun!! Giveaway Winner!

I am a huge fan of buns, but my hair is starting to get really long. It has become a bit more annoying trying to create a nicely shaped bun. I tried the sock bun, I really did, but it is not my friend. The sock shows through and it always tangles and rips my hair in a horrible way when I attempt to take it out.

Lo and behold I came across a tweet the other day that mentioned a hair stylist who created a tool that makes quick easy buns. I clicked onto the website and I was definitely intrigued! Sarah Potempa is now my new favorite person. She has invented the best bun creator EVER! It is called The Wrap Up and it seriously rocks! The video made it look so easy that I just had to have it! (It comes in yellow and black too!)

It arrived today and I am totally smitten!

The first picture shows how it looks closed, the middle is how it opens for you to slide your hair in. The last picture shows how it folds over to close up! 

You just put your hair in a ponytail, slide The Wrap Up over it, then slide it down to the bottom of your hair. Next you roll it all the way back up to where your ponytail is. The last step is to close it into a circle and spread your hair around to hide the tool! 

Voila - the perfect bun in no time at all! This is definitely going to be my favorite summer style! It is very lightweight, soft and foamy and does not destroy your hair which is one of the best parts! 

(Side note: This post is all from my true adoration of this product. I was not asked to blog about it but I just had to tell you lovely ladies about it once I tried it! I already got my sister hooked on it too!!)

Last but not least, congratulations Rachel! You are the winner of the Springtime Syllable Bingo Set! I will be emailing you tonight! Thanks to everyone who entered!

Have a great night!

Springtime Syllable Bingo

My first graders loved playing the St. Patrick's Day Syllable Bingo games so I wanted to make a Spring version that would last a bit longer and offer some longer words. Several of my first graders are still struggling identifying the syllables in words and I think reviewing with this set will help a lot!

 There are 60 word cards ranging from 1 syllable - 4 syllables:

There are six 3 x 3 boards:

 And six 5 x 5 boards:

It also includes game pieces for the 3 x 3 boards:

And the 5 x 5 boards:
The two different sized boards are helpful for differentiating for abilities, or even for the time you have allotted for the activity. I start off by using the  3 x 3 boards when my students are beginning to practice counting or clapping out the syllables. Once they are a bit more comfortable we switch to the 5 x 5 boards. Sometimes if I need a quick closing activity I will switch back to the smaller boards too!

This set is available in my TpT shop!

Have a great weekend everyone!

Spring Silent E Games with Blends & Digraphs

Spring is almost here!! (I am choosing to ignore the fact that we will be getting ANOTHER snowstorm early next week.) Instead I shall focus on Springy thoughts! My focus with my first graders has been on blends and digraphs in short vowel words for the past few weeks. Now it is time to move onto the dreaded Silent E words!! I decided to put my intense desire for all things Springly to good use when making this game!

It has five game boards:
Long A, Long I, Long O, a board with both Long E and U words and a mixed vowel board for reviewing. Each board also has beginning blends and digraphs.

I included Score Sheets, and a sample score sheet, in this set too. If you use these activities in literacy centers or stations it makes a great assessment sheet. Each student records the word they land on and then uses the word in a sentence. They earn 1 point for each word they use correctly!

This set also includes gray scale versions of all the items in case you would like to send copies home with your class for practice!

This set is available in my TpT shop!

St. Patrick's Day Short Vowel Games with Blends & Digraphs

The very minute we arrived back from winter break my first graders began talking about St. Patrick's Day! That has led to us doing a countdown towards it each day this week - needless to say they are beyond excited about it!!

Since we have been working on blends and digraphs in Intervention lately I decided to combine that skill with St. Patrick's Day!

This set includes 6 game boards: Short a, e, i, o, u and a mixed vowel board that is great for reviewing all the short vowel sounds.

During Intervention my students and I play these games together. We each read the word  we land on and then use it in a sentence. I included Score Sheets for small groups who are playing the game with their classmates, either in centers, stations or reading groups. The Score Sheet has a column where they record the word they landed on and a place for a sentence that uses the word.

This works well as an assessment tool when students are playing the game independently. I collect the sheets and give each correct sentence 1 point. It allows me to see whether or not they understand what each word means.

This set includes gray scale versions of all the game boards, Rules of Play and Score Sheets as well.  It is available in my TpT shop.

Have a great weekend!