What the Teacher Wants...PENCIL Shoes!

I mean, come on! How fun are these? My favorite part is the No. 2 painted on the side (you can't see it in this picture because it's on the other side).  The attention to detail is so fun and cute! These are my new go-to shoe on Fridays.

All the teachers wanted to snatch these pencil shoes off my feet and my students were OBSESSED!  The only problem is I had to stop them from trying to touch my feet while they were at the carpet. HA!

Kick your feet up in style!

They are hand painted and come in different styles and colors.  Check them out at Ms. Head of the Class's Etsy Shop!

This sure beats the teacher-sweater, doesn't it?

Book Study: Work-sheets Don’t Grow Dendrites, Starting February 28th!

Get Ready to do some on-line professional learning with some of your favorite bloggers! After visiting the Ron Clark Academy, so many of us are so inspired to find ways to reach our learners in fun and exciting ways! Starting February 28th, we are going to be hosting a linky party each Tuesday and Saturday with chapters from this book: Worksheets Don't Build Dendrites.

Linky parties will take place on these different blogs each time. Here is the order so you can plan accordingly :)

Kickin it in Kindergarten- Chapters 1 and 2 (February 28th)

Mrs. Wills Kindergarten- Chapter 3 (March 7th)

Queen of the First Grade Jungle Chapter 4 (March 10th)

Fabulous in First Chapter 5 (March 14th)

One Extra Degree Chapter 6 (March 17th)

Mrs. Jump's Class Chapter 7 (March 28th)

The First Grade Parade Chapter 8 (March 31st)

In April, you will be visiting these girls for the remainder of the study:

Mrs. Ehle's Kindergarten Chapter 9 and 10 (April 4th)

What The Teacher Wants Chapter 11 (April 7th)

First Grader At Last Chapter 12 (April 11th)

Erica's Ed Ventures Chapter 13 (April 14th)

KinderGals Chapter 14 and 15 (April 18th)

A Rocky Top Teacher Chapter 16 (April 21st)

Mrs. Wills Kindergarten Chapter 17 (April 25th)

Little Warriors Chapter 18 (April 28th)

Falling Into First Chapter 19 (May 2nd)

Kickin' it in Kindergarten Chapter 20 (May 5th)

You can join in for whatever part you like! If you are not a blogger, that is OK! We will want you to join in on the fun. You can participate in the conversation in the comments or on our social media outlets.

Follow us on Instagram (@whattheteacherwants)

or

Facebook

 We want this to be a positive collaboration between teachers! The whole point is to encourage each other with inspiring ideas while still using research-based best practice.

We hope you will join! Here is a YouTube video where you can hear a little more about what the book is about.

Writing Descriptive Sentences

Are you as frustrated with these types of sentences from your students as I am??? 

"It is fun."

"I like it."

"She is nice."

But... it's MY fault they are were writing like that. It's my job to teach them how to make descriptive sentences. So, we started learning about adjectives. I love Kristin's Parts of Speech Cards!

And then we snuck in some synonym work! You can read about my Fancy Word Pack {here}.

And we finished up with learning about BLAH sentences and WOW sentences with Kelley's Pack! It was SO MUCH FUN.  You can read more about how she uses it in her classroom {here}. 

*The BLAH and WOW words with the 2 boys clipart is not in Kelley's pack. 

We did a LOT of practice and modeling before I let them loose to turn a BLAH sentence into a WOW.  After we did some of Kelley's practice pages, my students were ready to try on their own.  I had them read the BLAH sentence that was given to them (they all got a different one).  Then, on a piece of scrap paper, they brainstormed ideas and details that they could add to their BLAH sentence.  They even practice writing their sentence before they got to write it on their final drafts.

I had them illustrate their WOW sentences (see how I snuck in a little visualizing with this).

I hope this helps your students build great sentences!

LOOK WHAT WE GOT!

We are linking up with Blog Hoppin':

Here are a few of the things that Rachelle picked up from the sale today:

Love this pack by The Moffatt Girls to help my kiddos with their sight words (who doesn't love coloring?):

Oh my word...LOVE this notebook from Abby. She's a creative genius and I can't wait to start using it with my kiddos.

I can't wait to print and laminate this pack!  Math facts will be memorized soon! Thanks, Doodle Bugs!

This one I bought a little while back from The Teacher Wife, but I just used it last week again when we talked about true/false equations. This is a perfect introduction to missing addends. Love it!

Natalie went shopping today too. Here's a few of the teaching goodies she picked up:

Hope King has this adorable Ultimate Writing Bundle which has some super cute craftivities!

I grabbed this cute Wild Ones Wax Museum pack from Amanda at One Extra Degree. I think it will complement my Wild About Animals Research Writing pack and will be a fun way for students to demonstrate their learning about animals!

Lastly, I picked up this Make It Neat pack from the fabulous Deedee from Mrs. Wills Kinder. My 3 year old son LOVES letters and loves learning so I bought this to help me teach him about handwriting at home!

YAY! So excited for the Cyber Monday (tonight) and Tuesday sale at TeachersPayTeachers. Our stores are 20% off PLUS if you use the discount code CYBER, you can get an additional 10% off. 

Love this cute button from Traci!

Did You Hear?

There is a pretty big giveaway going on at Blog Hoppin' right now. 

If you like shopping at Teachers Pay Teachers, then you will love this! 10 lucky winners will win a $50 gift card to TPT and one winner will get a $100 gift card to TPT! That would buy quite a bit of lessons, activities, and clip art packs! 

(Plus, all 11 winners will win a whole goodie pack full of lessons and ideas from the Blog Hoppin' authors!)

Hurry over to Blog Hoppin' and enter to win these fabulous prizes!

***

Want a cute idea for your Thanksgiving party? My friend, Lindsay, from Artsy-Fartsy Mama made the *cutest* set of Thanksgiving Bingo cards and they are FREE on her blog!! 

If you grab her freebie, make sure to say thanks by leaving her a comment. Tell her the girls at What the Teacher Wants sent you!

***

One more thing... My family blog got a makeover and I wanted to share it with you in case you're looking for a new design. I love the new, bright colors!

Check out this design shop by Laura: 

Teacher Week 2013

Teacher week is NEXT week! I'm so excited for all of the pictures, tips, and tricks that YOU all will share! :)

Each day we will have TWO Blog Hoppers host the topic of the day right HERE on Blog Hoppin'!  Then, we will have a linky party at the end of the post for YOU to link up!  Simple, right?!

Here are the topics (pick one, pick 2, or pick them all!)

Once you have your post all ready to go {and it's on the topic}, add this button to the post and link it back to Blog Hoppin'!  Then you will be all set to link up!  Also, if you are an *instagramer* use the hashtag #teacherweek13 to show off your ideas!  

See you next week!!!!!

You're on a Roll So Far and Giveaway Winners!

The school year has already started for some of my teammates (I'm in a year-round school and I start later than the other tracks). I wanted to show my appreciation for my teammates and how much they've already done in the past 2 weeks! 

Or... your little one could give this gift to their teacher after the first week of school!  Every teachers loves a treat, right? ;)

I just bought some cinnamon rolls from a local bakery, printed the tags {You're on a roll... GET IT????} and added a little Washi Tape. VIOLA! 

You can download this freebie {here}. Enjoy!

Seeds and Plants GALORE!

This week was full of lots of science fun!!!  We integrated some writing into this week, while learning about seeds!  

This week we've watched lots of BrainPOP Jr. videos. Seriously.... if your school doesn't have a BrainPOP subscription, they totally should (It includes BrainPop, BrainPOP Jr. and BrainPOP ESL)! They are great to use to introduce or reinforce any topic. And the best part???? If you have a subscription, you can  view all the videos on your iPad and it has the subtitles. So, I can use it for Listen to Reading during Daily 5.

We talked about how seeds spread and we read this book. I laugh every time I read the title. It just sounds so SCANDALOUS!  :)

We then made these seed flip books:

Click {here} to download the flip book

We watched the BrainPOP Jr. on soil and then we made Soil Snacks!  

I use:

Pudding (mud-button layer)

Graham Crackers (sub soil- middle layer)

Oreo (top soil- top layer)

Gummy Worm (anywhere!)

After eating our delicious Soil Snacks, we surveyed our classmates and filled out the graph:

 Then, we wrote a how-to:

Click {here} to download the Soil Snack pages

Next up, this cute craftivity from Amy!!!  I've always called mine Soil Snack, but I love the sound of Dirt Puddin'! ;) I just wish I had a cute southern accent like Amy!

A Pair of Pears

I just had to share how cute these came out! We have been learning about homophones and so I introduced the topic with the book Dear, Deer and then used Sarah Cooley's Pair of Pears Pack! ADORABLE!

{Purchase Here}

And my favorite of ALL time!  

All of our Instagram Followers {@whattheteacherwants} saw this last week:

PLEASE check out Sarah's Pack: