I am linking up with Tara at 4th Grade Frolics for her fabulous Monday Made It linky party. I have been busy this past week making some new items for my classroom. My summer goal was to get my classroom and materials organized so that this next year will at least start off organized. So my Made Its are all about organization!

We had a workshop day for our building today and I was excited to get back into my room and do some planning with my fourth grade team. Things started off well but the afternoon was rocky. I came home feeling frustrated and grumpy. I was about to call my mom to vent about what happened when I thought of something she has said to me a million times: PMA - Positive Mental Attitude. Stay positive and things will turn around. Growing up when she would say this, I would get so annoyed. I am not usually a positive person - the glass is almost always half empty. But for some reason thinking about her motto this afternoon helped to calm my frustrations and turn my attitude around. With her motto in mind, I am ready to go back tomorrow and get some more work done!

Since this quote has had such an impact on me today, I want to share it with you. So I am linking up with Mrs. Laffin's Laughings and her:



Do you have a quote that helps you calm down and turn your attitude around?

Tuesdays have been my favorite day of the week this summer. I have gotten some great new resources that I am excited to try out this school year! I decided to share the love and link up with two of my most popular items.

The first product is a graphic organizer that I created last year during our narrative writing unit. My students struggled with developing a conflict so I had them think of a lesson that they learned. I shared about slamming my finger in the door when I was 5 or 6 and I explained that my lesson was make sure your fingers are not in the car door before closing it. Then I modeled how to build up to learning the lesson learned by focusing in on a small moment and using my senses to describe the scene for my readers. Students then chose a seed moment, created their lesson learned, and then filled out the graphic organizer. The resulting stories were fabulous! Unfortunately, I do not have any picture of their final products.

The second product is a conferring form that I used while meeting with students individually to discuss their narrative writing pieces. Down the side are a list of goals that directly relate to the writing Common Core Standards. Along the top you can add your students names. Then as you confer, you can record evidence of skills or strategies applied by students. This form helped me build strategy groups and mini-lessons for my writer's workshop time. It also allowed me to give immediate constructive feedback to my writers.


My Tried It Tuesday is technology related. I am new to the blogging community. I have been reading and following quite a few blogs for the past three years and I have finally worked up the courage to try it myself. I have used bloglovin' as my reader for some time so I knew that I wanted to have a Follow Me button on my page. I think I have followed the directions correctly and I hope that you will  Follow my blog with Bloglovin!

Head back over to The Teaching Tribune to find some great deals and link up with Fourth Grade Flipper to share something that you've tried!

For my first post I am linking up with The Teaching Tribune as part of the Summer Bloggin' series. What a fun way to introduce myself and get to know some great bloggers!


1. I absolutely love to read and always have. One of my earliest memories is sitting with my mom reading Good Morning, Muffin Mouse. She read me that book so often, that I had it memorized and could "read" it to anyone.

2. I really like my name, even though I graduated with at least 3 other girls with the same name. I would be happy with my middle name too - Elizabeth.

3. This was extremely scary for me as a new teacher! I was teaching fifth grade at the time and my student tried to catch a football while swinging. When he let go, he flipped over backwards and landed face first in the wood chips. It was very difficult to keep composed so that I didn't frighten him or the other 100 students on the playground who witnessed it happen!

4. Hermione Granger is my favorite female literary character. She has brains and is not afraid to use them. My husband got to go to to the Harry Potter Universal theme park a few years ago and brought me back Hermione's wand. I get to take it out once a year around Halloween when my school does Character Dress Up Day :)

5. I have a brother who is ten years older than me and a sister that is 7 years younger than me. Yes, that's right. There are 17 years between my brother and my sister. My mom's explanation for the wide spread: Built-in babysitter!

6. I absolutely love breakfast and I cannot function without eating in the morning! Usually it consists of something quick, like toast with Nutella or an english muffin with jelly. But when given the choice of something more substantial I love eggs and french toast.