The Children are Nestled All Snug in Their Beds...

Which is how I feel right now...all warm and fuzzy with my little ones asleep upstairs.
I am so blessed.

I am savoring these moments
because I know the magic of both my children
who believe in the magic of elves and Santa
will not last long.

I am remembering the true meaning of Christmas
and it brings tears to my eyes.

Bless all my blogging friends this Christmas
and may you cherish the time with all that you hold dear.

Here are my little elves:)

We did have "a real live elf in our house" this year (words of my daughter)!  

I took some pictures of our elf on the shelf and will share later.  

It was so fun!  

Merry Christmas <3

Winter Sale at TPT

The TPT winter sale is here!!
Thank you to Casey at Second Grade Maniac for hosting such a wonderful blog hop!
In between all of your holiday preparations, take the time to shop a sale in your comfy clothes:)
Merry Christmas everyone!

Tell Me Something Good (Easy Homemade Gift for Anyone!)

I came across this linky from the wonderful Rowdy in First Grade and knew that I needed to join in!  We all could use a little "Tell Me Something Good" after the terrible tragedy in Connecticut that is weighing heavily on everyone's hearts.  I found this weekend to be very difficult imagining what those families are going through.  It was also difficult to even think about it and pray for their loss around my own children who pick up on my mood.  Like any parent, I want to shield them from pain as much as I can.  This linky is "Tell Me Something Good, Christmas Edition:

Something Good at Home:  One activity I accomplished this weekend was making my annual peppermint bark.  I'm sure many of you have made this, but if you haven't, it is SO easy and just about everyone LOVES it!  With just 6 trays of bark, I made bags for 30 people.  I first got the idea when a student gave me homemade peppermint bark as a gift and I sat down and ate the whole bag (I have quite the sweet tooth!).

To begin, I start with some chocolate wafers like these 2 lb. bags (about $5 each):

I make six trays consisting of one tray of dark chocolate, one tray of milk chocolate, two trays of dark/white layered, and two trays of white/milk layered.  These bags are 2 lbs. of chocolate and I use 2 lbs. per cookie sheet (one pound white and one pound of dark/milk for the layered bark).  

Melt the chocolate over a double boiler:

Add 1 to 2 cups crushed peppermint to the melted chocolate.  I just started buying the peppermint crushed in bulk but my husband and I used to buy candy canes, unwrap them, and grind them in years past (what was I thinking!?!).  This is SO easy!

I spread the chocolate in a cookie sheet lined with foil.  Be sure to wipe the water off the bottom of the double boiler before pouring in the pan.  Water mixing with your chocolate = potential disaster.

When layering the milk/dark with white, spread the first layer and then melt the white chocolate.  Be sure to spread the white chocolate quickly or it will start to melt the first layer and mix together.

Next, sprinkle extra peppermint on the top layer right after spreading.

I place the pan in the freezer for about 15 minutes and then break into triangles.  The chocolate peels right off the foil.  Here is the dark chocolate bark:

Here is the white chocolate/dark chocolate layered bark:

I bought these cute bags from the Martha Stewart line this year.

Here it is all packaged up:)

Something good at school:  We received our second round of pen pal letters from Indianapolis!  It was perfect timing because this will be a fun activity in the days leading up to Christmas break.  I will be posting about the travel brochures they mailed us and what we plan to send them in January.  We also received a huge box of Scholastic books today.  I was so blessed to have used a lot of bonus points saved from last year and $3 online order coupons to get new books for our library.  I told the students that I would introduce new books into the library each day this week as a little countdown to Christmas.  They loved this and were already trying to guess what might be the new books tomorrow:)

I hope everyone has a wonderful week and continues to just "Do What You Do Best."  Merry Christmas!

Silence for Sandy Hook Elementary

Monday Made It, Literacy Centers, APPR binder:)

I am linking up with my blogging idol, Tara, from 4th Grade Frolics for Monday-Made It!

I am absolutely loving all the products I have recently bought or got as freebies on TPT!  Cyber Monday Sale, I love you!  Finding time to sort, print, and laminate has been a challenge but I cannot wait to use so many items.

One item I bought, printed, and laminated are the Folktales Sorting Cards from TPT here.  I am going to use these for a literacy station to practice the subgenres of folktales (legends, fairytales, fables, and tall tales).  The cards also included Porquoi and Trickster Tales.

I made this worksheet to go with the folktales sorting card station.  You can get it here on google docs.  This is my first time linking a google doc, so please let me know if it doesn't work!

One of my favorite sellers on TPT is Rachel Lynette!  I purchased this Folktales: Fairytales, Fables, Tall Tales, Legends, and Myths pack and it really streamlined my materials.

I also love the December Literacy Centers for Big Kids that I purchased from the amazing Miss Klohn (Adventures of a 6th Grade Teacher).  Here is the Fact and Opinion Sort laminating (have I mentioned how much I LOVE this laminator?!?).

Here is the "Snowmen Sentences Fix-Up" laminated and cut from the same package.  Love it!

I also love all these literacy centers for grammar work from the TPT's Winter Holiday EBook!
"Santa's Prickly Punctuation Problem" is FREE From the Dragons Den and can be found here at TPT.  I laminated the answer keys for a literacy center and love that there is extra practice on commas, quotation marks, and a friendly letter. There is a little for everyone in this 28 page packet with pages for 1st to 5th grade!

 This is the "Great Gift Mix Up" laminated for a FREE math center from Lindsay Perro.

These are a great FREE math center on "Snowman Word Problems" from Time for Teaching.

After posting my APPR binder dividers for the Danielson Model of Teacher Evaluation here on TPT, I received a request to create APPR binder dividers for the standards and elements of the TED (Teacher Evaluation Development) model.  

Here are the Danielson Model binder dividers for each domain and component at TPT:

Here are the APPR binder dividers for the standards and elements of the TED (Teacher Evaluation Development) model on TPT:

Finally, for my home Made-It, I have the wreath that I spruced up for my new fireplace:)  I have never, ever modified a wreath before and I really like how it turned out.  I don't consider myself very crafty (the curtains in my classroom were made with a hot-glue gun and my teacher stool was made using scrapbook paper!), so when I can buy things and make it into something somewhat crafty, I am feeling pretty good!  hehe!  

Wreath before sprucing up:

Wreath after sprucing up:

My hubby figured out how to hang this 36" wreath on the fireplace using a hook in the ceiling.  It is barely noticeable and is tied to fishing line.  I have heard of people doing this before but never actually tried it.  Genius!  Can you see the hook in the ceiling here?

Two more weeks to go and so much to get done!  It always seems to get done somehow though, right? Have a wonderful week everyone:)

If you haven't heard of this new blog, Collaboration Cuties, you have to check it out.  They have an awesome, well-established TPT store and just started this blog!  This weekend only they are giving away a product from their store ($5 and under) to anyone who comments:)

December Currently:)

I still cannot believe it is December!  It definitely doesn't feel like it since today was 50+ degrees in NY!  Living in an area that receives an average of 200" of snow a year, this weather sure does make the winter (well, fall) really fly by!  It is amazing how much easier your day is when you don't have to worrying about scraping your car, putting snow boots on the kids, and driving in low visibility up a huge hill to work in the morning!  

Anywho...I know many of you do not experience the lovely joys of lake effect snow...This is the December Currently from the wonderful, Farley at Oh' Boy Fourth Grade (LOVE her!).

I really do love this time of the year but the hustle and bustle wears me out!  I always get sick around Christmas (gee, I wonder why?) but I am trying to make a good effort to get things done early and go to bed at a decent hour each night.  

My shopping is just about done and I have checklists for cookies, cards, and present wrapping.  I am not usually so neurotic but there is something to be said for schedules:)  Every year I make about six kinds of cookies and give out tins to all our neighbors and my buddies at work.  Last year I tried making the dough during the week and freezing it.  Then, on the weekends when Christmas was close, I would only have to bake the cookies!  It was SO much easier that way!!  I don't know why I never thought of that before:)

I finally ordered an "Elf on the Shelf" for my kiddos at home.  They are only going to be this little for a short time and I just secretly want to see their little expressions when they see that elf!  hehe:)  

I have thought about introducing the elf to my 4th graders but my group is pretty skeptical this year.  The "desk fairy" appears every so often and they have been relentless in asking questions!  One student came up to me a few weeks ago and said, "The desk fairy needs to come soon!  Hint, hint!"  This boy has a great sense of humor and I couldn't help myself.  I just started cracking up!  At least he said it when not many others were around to hear because there are a few that are believers.  

I am having fun checking out the various Elf on the Shelf linky parties at Run! Miss Nelson's Got the Camera:

and Seusstastic Classroom Inspirations:

Check them out!

APPR with Danielson, Lovely Wreath, and Shout-out:)

This was my evaluation week and let's just say, I am SO OVERJOYED that the first round is over!  Is anyone else using the Danielson Framework for teacher evaluations (APPR)?  This is our first year and to say that everyone is stressed out is an understatement.

We had to get 12 artifacts ready for each of the components in domains one and four.  They couldn't be "just any" artifacts that fit in that domain.  They had to be one of the three "recommended artifacts".  Between the artifacts, the pre-conference expectations, the 23-page evaluation that we will receive from our administrator, the state growth score, (determined by state test scores), the local growth score (which has yet to be finalized), I have been quite the mess.  To top it off, some of the artifacts are vague as to what is expected and we have already been told that no one will get a perfect score on their evaluation.

In the past, our evaluations have been a "S-Satisfactory" or "N-Needs Improvement" for each category.  Just about everyone got an "S" for everything.  I know that there is always room for improvement, but I guess the idea of not getting a glowing evaluation is scary.  Also, it is very difficult to get a four on all the components on the Danielson rubric but since each district negotiates their own points system, our system states that you get 2 points if you are a three or four on the rubric.  That shouldn't be too difficult, right?  However, if just one of the bullets under a component falls in the two range on the rubric, you get a score of 0.  So, since no one will get a perfect score, our administrator will be searching for a place to give a score of 0 on at least one component.  Dislike!

Anyway, to make me feel somewhat more organized, I created domain and component dividers for my artifacts binder.  You can see them here at my TPT store.

I was observed for 85 minutes and my administrator attempted to write down everything I said.  During my writing conferences with Daily 4 (I just use 4 of the Daily 5 components), I was followed around the room and she had to lean in quite close to me because I sit right next to the student and talk softly.  There are not many teachers implementing Daily 5 at my school and it will be interesting to hear what my admin thinks of it.  At least this evaluation is over and next we will have a walkthrough sometime in the spring.  I won't know when it is coming, so it might be less painful!

I decorated the house for Christmas last weekend and with all the stress this week brought, the decorations gave me a sense of peace and Christmas spirit each evening.  We renovated our fireplace last spring:

Well, I was bound and determined to get a wreath on that fireplace even though my hubby was skeptical.  This is how the wreath looked before I spruced it up (36" Martha Stewart, Home Depot).

Matching garland also from Home Depot:

 Ta-Da!  Here is the wreath and garland all spruced up with extra ornaments, glitter curly things, pine cones, and holly berries:)  Love!

So, if you are feeling the crunch of all the APPR mumbo jumbo, try to remember to stop and think about what is most important this Christmas season.  I know that I have too many blessings to count!

The first three people to comment that you are using the Danielson Framework can have my APPR binder dividers for free!  Leave your email address:)

Don't forget to check out the 100 follower giveaway (pencil sharpener and some amazing TPT products!) at Don't Let the Teacher Stay Up Late!  Her blog is amazing!!