Wednesday WOW!! FREEBIE!

I hope you will say wow to what I'm about to offer you! I was going to give this to ten lucky followers, but I just couldn't wait that long. Plus you can't either!! You must use this code before October 26th! When you do you'll get this download FREE. I can't tell you how much I use and love MyMemories software. There may be other scrapbooking packages out there, but this is the only one I've used and I can't imagine using another. Every time I use it I think I learn something else WOW about it. Normally this is a $39.97 software package. Today it is FREE! Even if you don't have time to play with it tonight download NOW and play all weekend. Be sure to tell your friends and their friends and their friends to come over here and get this code. Here is all you need to know:
Go to MyMemories.com and click on the software link. Add the software to the cart and use the code in the promo code field.
 FreeTreatAL60

Just copy and paste it since it has to look exactly like that.  Also, make sure you enter that code in the promo code field before checking out. Voila! You can now say, "WOW"

It becomes active on October 20th and will expire on October 26th.

Then you can start doing this...

If you haven't entered my GiveAway for some other great products get moving it ends soon!!

Click HERE!

Then go check out some other Wednesday Wowness over at Curious Firsties!

Happy Birthday to Me! Give Away for YOU!!

Happy Birthday to me! My birthday is coming. I'll be a year older on Saturday. I've already gotten some great gifts. Check these out...

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These boots are made for walkin' and teachin' and sittin' and just about everything! 

Carson Dellosa sent me a birthday gift, too! The best thing about this gift is you can have one too. I love these two 2nd grade Common Core Connections workbooks. I love them because of the I can...statements on the bottom of each page. I love them because they provide meaningful practice for my students. I love them because they are great for sending home with students as homework. I don't pass out a lot of worksheets, but these have shown themselves to be very useful tools for making sure the Common Core State Standards are covered. The matrix in the opening pages of each books shows all the standards covered and what page they are found on. Want one? Be sure to try you luck below!!

Do you like scrapbooking? I love everything about it except the clean up. Since I've started electronic scrapbooking I no longer have the little scraps and pieces of paper laying all over the basement. I use it for home and school. I can save creations as a png, pdf, and jpeg. I love MyMemory software and I'd love to share it with you. I've got 10 downloads to give away and I hope you get one!!

This is a great week for me. I'm the schools Book Fair Chair! Look at the awesome books coming from Scholastic. I've read The Book Whisperer and loved it. Have you read any of these other titles? I can't decide which will be the next gift I give myself!! What do you think?

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Bring a Leaf to School Day

Friday was Bring a Leaf to School Day. Though most of my class forgot to bring a leaf, it was a great success. Now don't leaf me alone. I did maple sure that each student got a leaf. We ran to our school woods and grabbed ten which we sorted, classified and arranged into different leaf creatures.

Then each child chose one leaf to spend the weekend at school. Little did they know, the leaves would not stay just sitting on their desks. They got up and...

I have a whole book that I made about what the leaves did when we all left Friday. I like writing. I haven't always. The more I do it the more I enjoy it. I know that I need to do it, so my students will do it. They will come into school Monday knowing I have a book to share with them. The wonderful, amazing, awesome thing that happens is that many of them have been at home this weekend writing books, too! Making writing fun for you students means they will want to write more and more each day. The more they write, the better they write. The better they write, the more they'll write! Write-on!

If you would like a springboard for your own story or if you would like  a funny story to read with your kids about leaves in school, this book is reasonably priced and you can print it out or just keep it on your computer! Check it out HERE!

Show and Tell

My students love Show and Tell. They give one clue and three students can guess what it is. Then they give another clue and three more students can guess. They can give one more clue before revealing what they brought. Usually we guess what is in the Show and Tell bag. Not today. I don't remember the clues, but I will always remember this show...

Yes this is a diaper. He was going to bring Legos...as usual..."Why don't you bring something different?" his mother asked. "How about a diaper," he replied. The rest is history.

What he didn't expect was my reaction..."Let's do a science experiment with the diaper," said Mrs. Reck. I called to make sure the family didn't want the diaper back. We observed, we hypothesized and we experimented to see how much water a diaper could hold. Never have I had the children's attention like I did with this experiment...Well maybe a couple of other times! 

This diaper held quite a lot of water. 10 of our measuring cups. On the eleventh dump of water when I turned it upside down it had reached saturation. What can you learn with a diaper? Quite a lot! Absorption, and saturation. Observation and predicting. 

Tomorrow we dissect the diaper to see what is allowing absorption and what is doing the absorbing. 

I wonder what tomorrow's Show and Tell will bring...

Yesterday, I promised to show you the pictures of the owls one of my sweet owlets made as a gift for me. We use these to formulate the questions we ask the Show and Teller each day. We ask one question for each owl about what has been shown.

I bet you can't even imagine the questions that went with the diaper. We learned a lot today about different names for human waste and how to safely dispose of it!

Wednesday Wow

I'm linking up with some of my favorite bloggers...Curious Firsties! I wish I taught next door to them. They are kind, generous and thoughtful! I love visiting them for great inspiration and encouragement. If you haven't met them go give them a hoot out!

I'm feeling WOWed by one of my second graders. She is kind, generous and thoughtful. Every day I hear someone comment about how nice she is. If I'm looking for something she just gets up and helps me look for it before anyone else even knows that I'm looking for something...She just knows. Anyone struggling to find the right page...She is right there. Someone drops a pencil...She is there. She isn't showy. She isn't trying to bring attention to herself. She is just wow! She is a gift. She loves to give gifts. She brings me a homemade book or drawing almost every morning. In her quiet unassuming way she hands it to me and quietly says, "I made this for you."

I thought I had a picture of some owls that my kind friend made to hang on our classroom wall, but I cannot find it...grrrr! I'll be back tomorrow to remove these words and show you the awesome owls that she made! I hope you can sleep tonight in anticipation!! Here are some pictures for your enjoyment  while you wait! We took Maple helicopters and used them to count by twos outside on the sidewalk. I am always looking for ways to get my students outside and keep them learning!

My Mammy is a Lamby!

This is the second time I've written this post. I was typing away watching Top Gear with my Cranky Bear when I looked down and there was absolutely nothing there. I don't know where it went. I'm going to make this really quick and just summarize what I said earlier!
 Today was a good day.
A student decided to reorganize the class library.
She had a box for funny books, a box for animal books, a box for books that have worn out spines...Her words not mine! and a box for space books. What really caught my attention was when she said, "This looks like a good book. Look Mrs. Reck, My Mammy is a Lamby!" I looked over and there she was putting this book into a tub she had decided was for books that looked good. Accept it wasn't My Mammy is a Lamby It was My Mamma is a Llama!

What really made me happy and smile was the way she was arranging books. It didn't really matter to me that she didn't quite get the way I sort books. She was excited about books, she was showing me kindness by organizing the classroom library and she had a box of books that looked good to her including My Mammy is a Lamby!

Tomorrow I'm reading My Mamma is a Llama!

The Legend of Thunderfoot

Today we finished our read aloud book  The Legend of Thunderfoot. I'm going to miss Berland, Tripsalot and Thunder of the Foote Clan! The Legend of Thunderfoot by Bill Wallace was one of those books that the kids begged for just one more chapter because the chapters quite often left us wondering how Thunder would manage to survive another close call with a coyote. He managed by being a good friend even when his friends weren't always so kind to him. We are looking for kindness in just about every book we read and we could clearly see it in this charmer. I don't want to give too much away, but if you are looking for a book that has opportunities to infer, predict and make connections, your search is over! This book was appealing to both my girls and my boys.

After completing our reading we had our own naming ceremony. I watched my owlets pretend to be roadrunners and then, as Thunder's parents did to him, I gave them their roadrunner name. I now have a class of roadrunners of the Owl Clan! One of my roadrunners pointed out that no one could be Thunder or Tripsalot as they are now legends and their names are revered! Instead we had Sunshine, Shivers, Spinsalot, Stealthy, Prettyfoot, Skipsabout and more! It's funny how exciting such a small thing becomes in our daily routine.


Now we are going to read complete silliness...The BFG!

Currently October

I left everything at work tonight on purpose! I'm not grading papers or planning. I'm hanging with my homies and watching Merlin. I have to do something at the same time or I'm afraid I'd fall into a deep coma like sleep...I'm that tired. It feels good to be this tired because I know it comes from trying to keep up with the most awesome people I know...first and second graders.

Have you ever had your students do a Currently? I (puffy heart) LOVE Farley's Currently for Kids. If I had brought my work home with me tonight I'd show you the most adorable Currentlys (Currentlies?) you've ever seen. I sent it home as homework and was amazed at the time and thought some of my owlets put into it. I'll show you some next week! 'nough said...Here is my Currently for October...

If it had up to me I would have put more than 24 hours in a day. Next I would have given myself an extra hour in the school day just to have fun with my Owlets! Finally I would make the night three hours longer so I was able to get more sleep and spend a little more time drinking coffee in the mornings! 

My all time favorite field trip was this week. The farm we went to has corn fields, soybeans, a pumpkin patch, pigs, apple trees and more! Giving city kids a chance to see what life on a farm is like is pretty sweet. Check this out...

I love these kids! Seeing all this through their eyes is awesome!

Ready? Here is a treat just for you and the students in your life!

Click on the picture to get your own!

Have you shared your Currently yet? Leave a comment below if you would like to win a whole set of bookmarks! Now I'm off to follow the rule of three!