Lucky Me...Lucky You!

Happy St. Patty's weekend!  Besides the facts that I love weekends, the color green, corned beef and cabbage with a nice pint of Guinness...and, of course, Leprecauhns, I am feeling celebratory for a few more reasons.  Here's why:

1)Lucky me...lucky you! I have some great news, and in the spirit of St. Patrick's Day this weekend, I will share it in the form of a limerick:

There was once a Deal of the Day
That made me so happy to say,
“Teacher’s Notebook’s the place
To put a smile on your face
With forty percent less to pay!”
(Thank you...Thank you...LOL)

What does this mean for you? Well, Teacher's Notebook has started a new program called Deal of the Day. Sellers bid for the chance to be featured, and I won the spot for 7th grade TODAY! This means a 40% savings for you on the product of my choice...which is: Content Area Roots, Prefixes and Suffixes - PowerPoint and Memory Match Centers (Originally priced at $9.00 - today it is on sale for $5.40!) 

(Click on the image to see the Daily Deal at TN.)

In addition, I have put the rest of my products at Teacher's Notebook on sale, too!  

Take a look and click an item that interests you! :)

2) Teachers Pay Teachers SALE - Well, I need to share the luck, I think!  All products at my TPT store are 20% off as well!

(Click on the image to go dirctly to my TPT store.)

BOTH SALES RUN TODAY and TOMORROW - 3/16 and 3/17!

Lucky me...Lucky you!

3) The Teacher's Chair Giveaway -  Talk about some incredible luck...There's still time, my friends, to enter a fabulous giveaway being held at The Teacher's Chair!  Make sure you head on over in the few hours remaining to check out all of the fantastic prizes that will go to one lucky winner.

You have a crazy number of chances to win and you may find some great new blogs to follow in the process.

May our good fortune continue to grow! :)

Enjoy!

Friday Favorites

My Friday has been exceptionally nice here this week!  We had a little bit of snow on the ground when we went to bed last night...and lo and behold: SNOW DAY today!!  The only thing better than a surprise snow day as a teacher was seeing my Kindergartner's face this morning.  He was up with the phone call (at 5:46 AM), way before he needed to be, but he was not tired at all.  His was the kind of happiness that only Santa, the Easter Bunny and...some good ol' snow can bring, and it was my favorite moment of the week. :)

This opportunity to have a lazy day with my boy leads me to my first favorite I'll be sharing today.  I happened to catch this craft project on The Chew today, and instantly thought how this would be awesome in a classroom.  It's a DIY Dry Erase Calendar that seems pretty easy to make, and looks pretty sweet!

Picture from The Chew @ ABC.com

Here's the link to materials and directions: Clinton's Craft Corner Coasters and Calendar. (The coasters are petty cute, too!  Scroll down the page.  The calendar is the 2nd project.)  I'll wait a day or two to see if a video clip of the project is added to their site and I'll post the link for that, too.

The second thing I want to share with you for my Friday Favorites this week is a video that has been making it's way around the world of social media.  It was actually brought to my attention recently by a person who posted it on my Facebook wall.  She also made a simple, touching and quite eloquent request.  She asked me to please "tell all of the teachers this. It is true. "Sticks and stones can break your bones, but words can never hurt you," is the biggest lie that parents and teachers tell. Those of us that survived being bullied, did it by believing the bullies were wrong. But we will spend the rest of our lives with the doubt. This is the best thing I have ever seen explaining what it feels like."

I was touched by her honesty and her desire to share something that was so personal in order to make sure that this moving video about the power of words continues to be seen. The To This Day Project is well worth the time to watch for both teens and adults. Containing an important message that is shared in a way that will undoubtedly get the attention of middle school students, this is a perfect catalyst for free-writes or discussions.  If you haven't come across it yet, please think about taking a few minutes to watch...and consider passing along.

  





Lastly, I just want to remind you that a fantastic giveaway is still going on at The Teacher's Chair!

There's still time to see if March 17th will be your lucky day!  If you haven't checked out all the great prizes (including a product from my store), take time to visit and enter to win!

Have a great weekend!

Friday Favorites and an Upcoming Giveaway

TGIF!  Seriously.  Just one of those weeks where I'm glad to have a chance to reflect and share with you some favorite things to remind myself of what's important...things including kindness and compassion, a new freebie AND this week, a little news about an up and coming giveaway that I'm super-excited to be a part of because it's celebrating a fantastic bloggy-buddy!

First up is my favorite find of the week.  This video clip has been making the rounds, and though you may have seen it, it's worth a second look.  Consider making time and sharing it with your students and your children, too.  It's another great example of young people stepping up and and showing that kindness and compassion do exist in our schools.  These student athletes have followed the examples of the adults in their lives - specifically parents and coaches in this instance - to go above and beyond in making sure that a very deserving peer is able to experience success on the basketball court.  A must-see:



Love it!!
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Next up is a FREEBIE!  March 1st it is (SO hard to believe it's already here) ...so here is the next in my Cooperative Learning Partners monthly themes.  This month it's:

(Click the image to download.)

Make copies on cardstock, if possible, to make them more sturdy.

3-hole punch them along the top so that they can stay in the front of each student's binder for quick referencing. :)

(Click HERE for the October post that started it all and explains how to use them in your class.  Check out my FREEBIES page as well to collect the previous months if you would like, too.)

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Lastly, I'm so very happy to share some big news with you!!  I can't give too many details yet, but a wonderful bloggy-buddy is planning to share some really great stuff this Saturday.  Tracey from The Teacher's Chair has created the Teaching Blog Circle (a true example of kindness in and of itself) and many of us in it are participating.  She has posted some details of one part of her giveaway already and I would love for you to see it.  Click on the image below to check it out.  Then, be sure to stop by The Teacher's Chair first thing tomorrow to find out how to enter for chances (That's right!  Way more than one!) to win.  What a great way to start a long-awaited weekend, right?!  Yay!! :)

Enjoy the weekend...and good luck!

Giveaway Winner AND Valentine's Day Bookmarks FREEBIE

Thank you so much to all of you who participated in my very first giveaway here on Middle School Matters Blog.  Congratulations to Tina C.!  She will be receiving a FREE item of her choice from my TpT store.  If she is even half as excited about this as I am, the news has been a great start to her Monday morning!  I'll be doing something like this again very soon, for certain, so keep checking in. :)




No need to wait to get ready for Valentine's Day!  Alone or with other sweet treats added by you, these free Valentine bookmarks will hopefully encourage your readers to fall in love with a good book! With 4 different designs made with upper-grade students in mind, just download, copy (probably on cardstock, if possible, would be best) and cut apart to use these as a gift or prize on Valentine's day.  

(Click on the image to download.)

Sa-weet! :)

I hope you find this FREEBIE helpful.  I'm linking this post to Classroom Freebies' Manic Monday for January 28th.  Be sure to click on the link and check out all of the great resources available to you!

Thanks for stopping by!

SURPRISE!!! It's a Flash Giveaway!

(Sorry about all of the exclamation points...I'm just super excited about this! :-) )

So I just noticed that Teachers Pay Teachers has altered their product statistics pages a bit, and sellers can now see the number of items placed in wishlists.  I was SO excited to see the number of people interested in my products and I've decided to...make someone's wish come true! :-)  This is my FIRST little contest, and it is a SURPRISE: Flash Giveaway - the prize being one item of your choice from my TpT store...FREE!

Just take a look at the Rafflecopter widget below...and if you would like to try for a chance to win, choose one or both options for entries into the giveaway.  That's it!  This will run for Sunday, January 27th (only one day)...and then the winner will be randomly drawn.  When I wake up Monday, I, with coffee in hand, will email the winner.  I really can't wait to see which item will be chosen.  Best of luck - being a winner is a great way to start your week!

(Click here to go directly to my TpT store and look around.)

a Rafflecopter giveaway