Tuesday Tip (And some other things)

Are you in countdown mode yet?  I am!!  I got a catch of some spring weather (felt like summer weather)  and BOY I'm ready for some more of that sunshine!!  BUT--if you live in Ohio--you know that our weather changes at a drop of a hat.  My new mini-unit was made due to the lovely Ohio weather! :)  Check it out!

You can click HERE to see what all the unit includes, but I tried my hand at a craft again.  

Here's a picture of him.

If you hop over to my TpT store, you will also find that I uploaded some new centers too.  

I had already posted Hop Into Spring-Math Centers.

LINK

But I also put together a literacy pack very similar them. 

LINK

These centers have no recording sheets. They are games to add to your tubs, or place at a center. 

The games are similar in both packs as it makes for explaining rules so SIMPLE! :)

I know that some people like to buy "bundles"--so--

 I bundled them and am offering them at a discounted price. 

 LINK

I hope you take the time to check them out.  

**I have such a hard time blogging about products. I don't want my readers to think that I'm all about selling (though the extra income is nice--as I want to do more for my own kids--so the bakery may be on hold for a while).  However, the amount of time I put into them (and the clipart--OY!)  I just never know whether to blog what I've made or just hope you run into it.....So, here's a small freebie sample from the Just Ducky pack from above. Maybe it's a happy medium? **

Click the picture above to download your copy from Google Docs.

Now for my Tuesday Tip.

It's just a simple tip--perhaps even advice. 
Last year I posted a picture similar to these bumble bees.
We are back to the same story in our basal, so I chose to do them with my class again.

This bumble bee came from a Creative Teaching Press book I think--maybe a monthly one.  I'm a teacher hoarder--I hate getting rid of stuff, because I never know what I need.  (Mind you I still have 4-6 stuff and hope to NEVER go back to those grades, but kept it just in case!)  What I do instead is take the old and make it something I can still use.  Originally this was to be a paper bag puppet. I decided to make it into a labeling activity.  You can do this with a lot of your old materials from Mailbox, Creative Teaching Press, Good Apple, etc.  All I simply did was type up some labels.  You could even choose to turn it into a writing assignment.  I've heard coworkers and friends talking about getting rid of some of their old stuff, but if you are one debating doing this, think about how you can revamp it to match the needs of your students and Common Core.    Simple enough, right? You know though, I didn't start thinking about how I could change things until I started reading blogs and blogging.  It's amazing how much I've changed as a teacher over the past year. 

One more tip---I said last year I made these bumblebees.  You know how easy it was for me to remember that?  I simply store everything for each basal story in a folder.  I label the folder and put any worksheets, sorts, flash cards for spelling words/vocabulary words, retelling cards (We have great picture prompts from Treasures), phonics decodable readers, parent homework letters, writing activities, etc. all inside of the folder.  Then each year I can see what I have, or what I need.  Though I do change what I'm doing from year to year depending on student abilities, this is a quick guide--AND helpful should I need a sub. 


So do you organize your reading basal stuff? If so, what do you do?