Giveaway at Target Treasures!

                                                     
Hadar over at Target Treasures Blog is having a great giveaway!  The winner will get a $20 certificate to Target!  Wow, after all my finds, I am sure I would still be able to put that to good use!  Check it out and good luck!

Grade Level Linky Party and a Giveaway!

I am sorry to me MIA lately!  We have been traveling a lot lately and then next week is VBS!  I direct our VBS (and Sunday School) Program.  So, it is a bit hairy around here now!  Last week we camped with two other families at Hocking Hills.  It was so pretty!

My husband has been working on making a taxi for our New York VBS theme and I have others helping me with a skyline background!  Other ideas are in the works as well.  I will be sure to take pictures next week and post them!

Anyways, There are a few things I wanted to post today!  First off, there is a Grade level linky party going on at the Teacher's Lane Blog.  Stop by and join in!
Also, I am so excited to be so close to 30 followers!  Once I hit 30 followers, I will be having a giveaway!
I will back to posting here very soon!

Birthday Freebies!

Donna over at http://peacelovelearning.blogspot.com/  is celebrating her birthday by giving many great birthday freebies!  Go and check out her wonderful blog! 

Target JACKPOT....250 Miles Away!

My family and I traveled to Chicago this past weekend to visit my husband's sister and family!  We always enjoy this trip and the big city...although we always are happy to return to our farm in Michigan. 

Anyways, each summer I am disappointed that our Targets back at home do not have all of the teacher finds that you all are always posting about!  I usually am able to get to the Target near my family in Chicago!  This year was an ABSOLUTE SUCCESS!  Check out my finds!  Above you can see the stickers, birthday certificates, paper.  I also found some cute pencils for the first day of school...more to come on my plans for Open House and the first day of school....

Cute name plates for the fall (first name only), more for later to put first and last name, and then a set for the name bags I make for each student each fall.  I will have a post for Name Bags in August when I am putting them together and can share some photos.  I also found some matching name tags for the first day of school.

Here you will see some of the craft supplies I picked up:  Glitter pom poms, pipe cleaners and jewels.

Cute signs for line up time.

A few new pointers to add to our collection.

Mini dry erase markers and write and wipe stips.  These will work great in my Literacy Work Stations!

I found some Dr. Seuss pencils and stickers for his birthday in March. They also had some cute Dr. Seuss silly bandz, but our school does not allow silly bandz.

I also grabbed these cute ABC stamps and small stamp pads for Literacy Stations.  Fran over at Kindergarten Crayons  posted about these stamps and even offered some freebie activities to go with them!  Check it out!



They had a Dollar Tree too that is usually better then the ones around me.  We didn't have time to make the trip so I am hoping to find some good finds back at home....we shall see!


Be sure to check out  the Classroom Shopping Linky Party taking place at  Ladybug's Teacher Files  and see what everyone else is finding!  You will also see that I have a few other shopping/garage sale posts from earlier.  Enjoy your shopping!  I may need to put the brakes on this shopping spree soon!

A few pictures from our Chicago trip...
We visited the Shedd Aquarium, the beach, Volo Car Museum and a few nice restaruants.  At the Shedd Aquarium, we really enjoyed the Aquatic Show and the Beluga whales.  My pictures from this visit were not that great.

My son has LOVED Herbie the Love Bug for a few years now and even had it as his theme for his 7th birthday.  I had been searching for a car museum that may be nearby a place that we would travel to at some point soon.  Since we visit Chicago each summer I thought I would try that avenue.  About an hour away I found the Volo Car Museum.  We saw many Star Cars and two (and a half) Hebies!  Remember the movie that Herbie was cut in half?  That was pretty cool to see and my son was in awe to finally see the actual Herbie!

Have a great 4th!

Mrs. Parker's Giveaway!

Mrs. Parker over at Learning with Mrs. Parker is having a giveaway!  To celebrate 500 followers, she is hosting a giveaway to win the Sounds Fun Phonics Music CD and Flashcards from Heidi's Songs! 

I LOVE her music and products!  This would be a great addition to any classroom!  Hop on over to Learning with Mrs. Parker's blog to eneter to win and to check out her awesome blog.  Good Luck! 

New Read Alouds for the Fall-Mrs. Parker's Linky Party!

Learning with Mrs. Parker is having a linky party for favorite new read aloud books for the beginning of the school year!  I have many that I have used for several years that have already been mentioned.  Another that is not new either, but a good one is Kevin Knows the Rules.  This book is written wonderfully and really explains the school rules well to children.  This book was recommended through Teacher.net a few years ago.  The illustrations are well done and has a poster that can be used in the classroom as well.

Click here for a link that has more information and teaching ideas for this great book!

Of course I am also looking forward to the release of the new Pete the Cat book later this month!



Posting Comments on Blogs

Kristen over at Ladybug's Teacher Files has posted a wonderful tutorial on how to make commenting easier.  I went right away and fixed it on my blog.  However, I was still having a problem with my blog and then with some others that I wanted to post comments to.  For some blogs, I could not get them to reccognize me as a blogger user.  Everytime I would sign in, it would keep bouncing me back.  So, today I looked more closely into the settings and was able to fix mine.  Here's what I did:  under Settings, I clicked on Comments.  Then, I clicked the option to have my comment window to be as a pop up.  Once I did that, it then recognized me as a blogger user and already signed in.  I now have the option to post a comment.  I wanted to let others know in case you might be interested in making that change or if you were unable to comment on my own blog.  I have so many times wanted to leave comments on wonderful posts, but have not been able to.  I hope this helps someone!!
Holly