A lot of Work

For as much time as I haven't been on my blog, I have actually been doing a lot of school work. I just love those few people who still think teachers don't do any work over breaks. (and maybe there are a few teachers who do leave their work behind) but I have NO IDEA how that doesn't stress them out completely. 

I have been busily working on Teachers Pay Teachers products because it really is a big goal of mine for 2014 to become part of the "TpT world" and the "blogging adventure" ... so I have been busy learning and trying new things with products and experimenting with power point and so on. My aim in all of this is NOT to become a millionaire. My aim is really and truly to become a better teacher, and as I'm just a little over a month into this adventure, I can honestly say that it has forced me to become a better educator. I look at EVERYTHING with a critical eye. Worksheets that come with our pre-packaged curriculum I look at and think "I can make that, and make it BETTER" ... so I go home and do that. I look at other teachers' products and critique them, always learning from what they have done, how to use space and colors, where it's best to place clip art and text boxes, how to layer and form pages. It's been so much fun for me! 

I go to sleep making lists in my head of things I want to make, how I can help my teammates, what other teachers may want, what I want my goals to be with this adventure, and it's energizing. At one point on break, I actually went to bed, had too much going on in my head, and had to wake back up to create another product. Whoops! 

Another aspect of this that has already made me a better educator is that I have had to scrutinize the standards with every product I make. I know what they say for my grade level, and often I look ahead and below to see what they should have known and where they will be going with their information. 

So with all this cheesy enthusiasm, I am going to be throwing a sale in my store starting tomorrow in honor of the New Year, in honor of our break being over and in honor of me upgrading to premium membership (woot!) 10% off everything! 

And I just added a whole new unit for an Introduction to Multiplication for my Second Graders. I spent many days over break working on it, and I'm really excited to get back and start it! We're also going to start "workstations." Here's a visual of what the plans look like in the unit: 

In the Unit there are also 20 other pages of sheets/stations/sorts aligned to the common core to supplement the Singapore Lessons that we teach from!
Have a great week back to school, or if you're starting with PD or workdays... I know we're getting ready for a big winter storm here in MO!