Holiday Cards with Treat

I cannot tell you how much I adore Treat... You can read more about them in my recent post here, but I wanted to share some holiday card ideas that I just love.  Not only are these cards.. a card! But a GIFT... they are amazing quality (thick card stock) and can be designed front, inside, to back.  I have worked on a few projects, but the holidays are my FAVORITE time of year.

The card above was designed for my special parents of the students I teach. Above I wrote "treat myself" because it's a treat to ME to see people so happy :) My students' parents help me each and every day, and I wanted to find a personalized way to say THANK YOU to them.  It's so perfect to have such a supportive team to help each child learn and love to the best of their abilities.  And what better than the holidays to show them how much I appreciate them? :)

Something that I was nervous about with my cards was how I was going to be able to personalize each one, but use the SAME design... Treat makes it SO easy for me to just customize, copy the card, and change the name! After picking out the design (there's TONS of choices so this took me a while!) I easily made the cards fit to each parent with a special message and picture inside.  I put one of the class pictures inside and I know the parents will love it :) 

 I made photo holiday cards for my family and friends, but I wanted to make a special card for my cousin (my one and only first cousin) Jamie.  I will be the maid of honor (first time for me!) in her wedding in September 2015 and I wanted her to know how much I appreciate her and what a fantastic year it's going to be :) 

 :) 

Happy Holidays! 

12th Day of Christmas

Today is 12/12, and it's the 12th Day of Christmas in Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah's hosted giveaway :) Some lovely ladies have some great prizes up for grabs! Check it out and enter HERE!

I love this time of year.   Through all of the craziness of the holidays, I try to take time to myself (even a few minutes!) and just reflect on the holiday season. I LOVE giving and I wish I could give more and more. My loved ones mean so much to me! Below is my sweet Lily, taken by a great photographer.  I got her last August when she was just weeks old, and she is my love!!

 Do you shop at Petsmart near you? I love this time of the year when they have great deals and coupons!

 I hope you continue to enjoy your holiday season! Such a blessing to have such wonderful students, parents, family, friends, and Mike in my life! :)

Day #9 of Twelve Days of Christmas

Don't miss Day 9 and the rest of the 12 Days of Christmas Giveaway! Hosted by the lovely Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah Designs and lots of my blogging friends :) To enter, click HERE!

Holidays, Crafts, 12 Days of Christmas

 One of my favorite units to teach during the year is Rachelle Smith's Holidays Around the World unit.  This is one of my favorite and best purchases I have EVER made on TPT... please check out her full bundle HERE - it's the perfect pack to teach your little ones about the importance of learning about all holidays.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas ! - My babies made these adorable winter paintings (using white crayon!) with our sweet art teacher, Mrs. Ciotti.  I love the individualized creativity in each art project they do!

 I came across this amazing Elf craft from Today in Second Grade! My kids loved creating their elves and elf profiles! The templates were very easy to use and some of the names and interests of the elves were very cute - for example, one named her elf "Cookie Crumble!" You can find this product HERE from Miss Nicole!

We are right smack in the middle of Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah Designs 12 Days of Christmas giveaway.. with some of the best people I know :) There's only a few hours left, so head on over HERE to enter to win some wonderful prizes!

Stay tuned every day for 6 more days for new wonderful TPTers to be featured, and wonderful prizes to be won.  This really is the best time of the year! Xo I love you all, and thank you for all of your support. I am almost reaching the first milestone on TPT and I could not be more surprised, thrilled, excited, and blessed.  

Have a great night!

12 days of Christmas giveaway

TPT Cyber Sale 12/1-12/2! All of my products are 28% off with the code TPTCYBER :) I hope you find something that you can use for the holidays! Below are a few of my holiday products!

And of course.. here's a freebie!

Giveaway alert!!!

Day #3 of the Twelve Days of Christmas is with... yours truly! And three of the most amazing people I know... Kindergarten Smorgasboard, Jen Jones (Hello Literacy), and the wonderful lady that is hosting this amazing giveaway, Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah Designs :)

For Day 3, you have the chance to win $20 total in TPT Store credits from our stores ($5 each!) and a $30 Starbucks gift card (so you can enjoy the toasty lattes or maybe some warm chocolate chip cookies!) I truly feel blessed to know and work with such great individuals. 

Please make sure you check back on Wednesday, 12/3/14 for this amazing giveaway and prizes!! So thankful for Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah Designs for putting this together.
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Happy Holidays :) 

Happy Thanksgiving!

 

I am thankful for all of my family, friends/coworkers, Mike, Lily, and my students and their families.  I am thankful for finding joy in the simple things of life, and thankful that my students always help me to strive to be a better person, a better role model.  It is my favorite time of year (especially Christmas) - I just can't wait to be with my wonderful family tomorrow.  I hope you all enjoy!!

My sweeties and I had a Thanksgiving breakfast - they made these adorable table decorations with the inspiration of this pin on Pinterest from A Girl with a Glue Gun :)

 My kids LOVED making this easy freebie from Kristen on TPT! Heart penguins are the cutest :) We are getting ready for winter!

 First real snow fall was today.. I had to share this adorable picture of my sheltie-pom, Lily - I love her and I can't even stand how cute and sweet she is! Mommy's little girl :) 

 Special news! Teachers Pay Teachers will be having their annual Cyber Sale! - My store will be 20% off December 1st and 2nd on all of my products :) Please use the code TPTCYBER and receive an additional 10% off - 28% off products from many TPT sellers (including myself of course!) - this includes bundles with 100's of pages and more! Start wishlisting now;)

Adorable button from The 3AM Teacher

 I leave you with... the best face ever :) My kiddos LOVE Daily 5, and they take it very seriously - and when it is their "Listening to Reading" day, they are ecstatic.  Enjoy your holiday!

Cute displays and projects

I was so excited to get some amazing products from Creative Teaching Press for my sweet coworkers.  I feel as teachers, we know how much our coworkers really mean a lot to us - they help us copy, plan, cope, and support! I love them, and I think these are great gift ideas for coworkers to help stay organized (and they are super cute!) - PS-my sweet Lily wanted to get into the picture for this one!

 The stationery sets at CTP are adorable - they come with a folder, blank cards, list pad, and a pen :) They have many different designs - I happen to love polka dots! The whimsy and paisley styles are adorable too!

I also love their bulletin boards... one of the teachers that I gave this one to is going to laminate to use year after year! Such a cute winter display! on sale right now :) 

Since we are having a Thanksgiving breakfast next week, the kids were very excited to create Thanksgiving placemats - there were SO many to choose from online, but I figured they could let their creativity take over, and create their own! All we needed was paper, markers and crayons, a few stickers, and a laminator/laminating sheets! 

Check out those adorable turkeys and apple pie! ;) 

We also made these turkeys! I love them, you can check out the freebie HERE from The Applicious Teacher! They are actually placemats, but I just changed it up a little bit to fit my classroom and made miniature size ones! They loved it and definitely each put their creative spin on them with the sponge paint. 

During their art class, they also made these beautiful fall trees... they used tissue paper, watercolor, and cardstock!

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

Character Education

Hello all! How is your year going?  Character education is something that is very important at my school.  We have Assembly each day where we meet as a school to talk about the character trait of the month.  Each week, each teacher takes turns teaching a character trait for the whole week, and then at the end of the week, we do star student.  Do you do star of the week in your class?  I change it up every round of star students with a new "special treat" - this round has been writing a book for the star student with wonderful compliments and messages! Some of our character traits that we teach the children about are respect, patience, kindness, perseverance, and responsibility, just to name a few.

I wanted to write to you about a wonderful series that I have discovered... The Wiblets!  We have the book "Demanding Dudley" and absolutely love it.  It sends the message about being appreciative and having patience and respect for things that you want - and by doing this, EVERYONE is happy!

 Here are a few preview pages :) It highlights in bold important words like appreciate, kindness, and smile!

 This is the chart that my Kindergarten and First grade friends came up with about the main idea of the story - I think they got a great message!

 Two students also wanted to draw Demanding Dudley during their free time, and I think they did a wonderful job (they were also excited to be featured on my blog!)

I can't wait to venture more into the Wiblets series.
What do you do for character education? 

And the winners are...

2,452 entries to the giveaway makes me so happy! I really hope that you enjoyed entering and following some truly amazing people.  THANK YOU for all you do and for celebrating my giveaway with me.  I really hope that you stop by my blog and store and other pages again soon and keep in touch :)

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My 29th Birthday Giveaway!

Today is my 29th birthday! :) I have been working long and hard on a wonderful giveaway to all of YOU - I have been very blessed to get to know so many amazing people over the last 3-4 years of blogging and TPT.  To celebrate my birthday, I have teamed up with 18 amazing individuals to win some MAJOR prizes! I have never dreamed of having a giveaway this big!The best part is... I get to share the love with THREE grand prize winners.. there is no first place, second place.. they are all equally wonderful!

 3 GRAND PRIZES
The first winner will receive a $75 gift card to Amazon.com - shop for your favorites with this gift card and get anything from clothes to shoes, home decor and crafts, to makeup or school supplies! The choices are endless!

The second grand prize winner will receive a $75 gift card to Target - talk about one of my favorite stores ;) The choices are endless here too! You can get so many great things here!

The third winner will receive a $30 TPT gift card AND 18 amazing TPT products! We have a variety of grade levels, subjects, bundles, winner choices, and more! An overall prize value worth more than $100!

Besides a $30 gift card to TPT, here are each of the TPT products you could win in prize package 3! Click on each of the links to see the amazing prizes (or start wishlisting in the stores that have selected winner's choice!)
December Writing Prompts from KTP on TPT
 Winners Choice from Primarily Au-Some
Thanksgiving Dodecahedron Project Kit from Created By Mr. Hughes
Winner's Choice from Miss V's Busy Bees
Winner's Choice from Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah Designs-$5 or under
Itsy Bitsy Books-Two Sets from Anita Goodwin (I Live 2 Learn I Love 2 Grow)
Maps and Globes for Little Kids from Kinder Kay
Sun Catchers (Bundle) from Firstie Kidoodles
Winner's Choice from Emily Hutchison (Curious Firsties)
Scientist for a Day-No Prep Take Home Science from The Write Stuff
Read and Write the Room All Year Long from Mrs. Pauley's Kindergarten
November Pick a Prompt from Second Grade is Out of This World
Geometrocity: Create a Build of City Made of Math Using Geometry from Digital Divide and Conquer
Math Games Bundle-Silent Partners by Emily Gibbons
Reading, Writing, and Rounding Decimals Spin and Practice from Joy in Sixth
On The Farm Unit from Celeste DiDonato (The Education Highway)
Number of the Day (Giving Thanks) Second Grade Math from Mrs Balius
Winner's Choice from Laura Love to Teach 
*All winners choices exclude bundles.
All three winners will be chosen the morning of November 16th by Rafflecopter. Contest runs from November 10th 12:00am to November 15th 12:00am.

Here are the fantastic contributors to my giveaway:

Please make sure you enter every entry on the rafflecopter for not only a better chance for you to win, but also to follow some truly amazing people.  Also, if you share, you get extra entries each day :)
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Thanks for celebrating my birthday with me! Love you all!