My Sleeping Marathon...and 2 New Freebies!

I hope everyone is having a wonderful long weekend!

I had an away game that I coached on Friday and on Saturday morning I was up at 4:30am to get ready and head to our second cheer competition.  Hold on.  Let me repeat that.  I was up at 4:30am -- on a Saturday.  There should be rules against these kind of things. However, the girls did a great job and improved on their own score from last week.  That night, we also had a home game that they had to cheer at.  One word - exhaustion! 

So, guess what I spent all of Sunday doing?

Sleeping. (And Weston joined me of course!)  I'm not just talking "sleep in" a bit...I slept for 14 hours straight.  My poor husband went to church by himself because he told me later he tried three times to wake me up.  My body was screaming for sleep!  I feel SO much better today. :) 

Today I'm catching up on visiting all of your blogs, working on my Valentine's Writing Pack, and grading papers.  I was really late on getting my January Word Builders Freebie Pack out for all of you, so I went ahead and posted January AND February for everyone!  You can click on the pictures to jump to my TpT store and download them for your word work activities, literacy centers, or early finishers. :)

I also wanted to share a great giveaway that my friend Kristy is hosting over at The Phonics Phenomenon.  You can win a $25.00 TpT Gift Certificate! I met Kristy at a workshop I was giving on teacher blogging this past summer. She is SO sweet and is so knowledgeable on intervention activities.  Kristy hung out in my classroom with me for a day this fall and we had so much fun sharing ideas together!  To enter her giveaway, click on the picture below.  

Thanks for stopping by! :)  I hope you enjoy the rest of your day off.

Happy Learning,

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After Christmas Sale & Flat Gingerbread Participants Needed!

I took a little "Christmas Vacation" from my blog to enjoy some much needed time with family and friends for the holidays.  I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas! Although I am a little late, here is our Christmas card to share with all of you! :)

If you're like me, I get a little sad after Christmas is over.  I spend so much time planning, wrapping, and baking and it flies by so fast!  However, one of my favorite things to do after Christmas is grab some great after Christmas sales!  So, from today until Friday, I'm throwing an After Christmas Sale in my TpT shop.  Everything will be 15% off.  Click the picture below to jump to my store.  

Finally, I wanted to throw out an invitation for followers of my blog to join my Gingerbread Exchange Project that I will be starting in January with my kiddos.  I always do my gingerbread unit in January because it covers about three weeks and I simply don't have time in December for it after all of the fun Christmas activities. :)

If you wish to join, I will take the first participant from each state. Here's how it works.  Your class will decorate a gingerbread man for each state that participates to represent the state you live in.  For example, I live in Ohio.  Last year, we glued on buckeyes for our gingerbread man's buttons, and put pictures of a ladybug and cardinal on it to represent our state insect and bird.  We wrote and made copies of a class letter that teaches about our state (climate, interesting facts, etc.) We mailed a letter with a gingerbread man to the classrooms in the project.  Then, we waited for the other gingerbread men to arrive at our school!  We had SO much fun learning about states around our country and displayed them on a large map in our hallway.  It was a great way to tie in some teaching about weather, climate, habitat, and differences for social studies.  It also gave us some great research practice as we wrote our class letter and made our gingerbread men.  

Here's how to join.  You will need to commit to mailing your gingerbread to participating classes no later than Friday, January 18th.  (I will send you a template you can use for your gingerbread man.) That gives us about 2 weeks after break to make our gingerbread and letter.  (I run off copies of what the kids will cut and glue on and have each kid make one or two gingerbread men - EASY!).  ***I already have participants from the states of Ohio, Illinois, Louisiana, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, and Arizona, so if you live in any of those states, I'm so sorry but they have been taken. (I will take other states on a "first come/first serve basis."***  If you wish to join, email me your Grade, State, and School Address by Sunday, December 29th at secondgradesugarandspice@gmail.com   Then, I will compose the master list of participants and addresses and send it out to everyone who is in the project. :)  

Here is a picture of our gingerbread exchange map before all of our gingerbread came in last year! :)  

Thank you so much and I hope everyone has a great week!  I will be spending it shopping with some teacher friends from my old school (can't wait to see them!) and hanging out with family some more! :) Don't you just love Christmas break?!

Happy Learning,

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