Spring Fever!

Ahhh...I got my first pedicure of the year a few days ago, I've had my sunroof open, and my flip flops on for about a week now.  It's spring!  I love it!  This spring weather makes me want to stop straightening my hair every day and let it be all wavy/crazy curly.  But I need some new product recommendations.  Any curly/wavy girls out there who use something AMAZING in their hair care to share?!  I hear Sephora calling my name... 

In addition to being excited about spring, I'm also excited to be the featured teacher over at Teaching Blog Addict today!  Head over there and check out my post to grab some spring freebies!

Aaannddd...I was excited to find the time to update some of the items in my TpT store to be all springified!

Bee, Bee: A Book About Flat Shapes

Dragonfly, Dragonfly: Number Words

Butterfly, Butterfly: Time to the Hour

Bunny, Bunny: A Book About Flat Shapes

Bunny, Bunny: Number Words

Bunny, Bunny: Time to the Hour

Spring Numbers: Counting to 10

Spring Numbers: Teen Numbers

I'm also thinking it's going to be time for another fun teacher blogger exchange soon!  Our spring break is in eight school days, so I'm sure Sarah and I will spend part of our break getting a new exchange ready.  I'm kind of thinking about either a Pinterest-inspired exchange {Thanks to Lisa from Live, Laugh, and Learn to Love for the idea of "A Very Pinteresting Exchange"!} or an Oprah-esque favorite things exchange.  Any other fun ideas out there? 

Oh, back to those fun springy things I just posted in my store...I'll be giving ALL of those away to one lucky person.  Just say anything in the comments {say hi, suggest a hair product, tell me I'm wonderful, leave an idea for the upcoming exchange, anything goes!} and I'll choose one lucky winner tomorrow when I get home from school! 

New Blog!!!

Sarah and I are so incredibly excited to share our new blog with you!

 

We are moving the exchange chit chat over to a brand new blog!  Starting Wednesday, all giveaways will take place over there.  And it's where all future exchanges will take place as well.  {Yep, we have more up our sleeves.  Seems like every time we get partners matched up, we get emails from people who didn't find out about it until too late.  And we like to keep everyone happy.  Soo...there will be several exchanges throughout the year for those who want to participate!}  This way we don't have to keep trying to bounce back and forth between each other's blogs.  Anyway, click the button above to go check it out and follow so you can receive updates on all the fun things we have planned!

 

Tomorrow I'll be back to normal.  Who am I kidding.  I wouldn't know normal if it hit me in the face.  I'll just be back.  With something other than valentines exchange information.  {I know...it's about time, right!}

 

Holy Emails, Batman!

Let me apologize in advance for the fact that this post and my last one are both nothing but valentine exchange information.  But it's kind of taken over my life.  So that's all I have for you folks tonight.  Will you love me anyway?  I'm going to take care of a few housekeeping things {before I go take care of real live housekeeping...my poor house has been neglected the past couple of days}:

Gift Exchange Participants: You have all {and by all, I mean every last 140 of you!} been matched with a partner and you should have an email from me in your inbox.  Or maybe it's in your junk mail.  But I'm not junk.  So you may want to add teacherbloggerexchange{at}gmail{dot}com to your contacts so you don't miss anything from us!  If you have checked your junk mail and still don't see anything from me, please email at the address above and we will get it to you ASAP!

Classroom Exchange Participants: I am going to get this squared away over the weekend.  If you have not received an email by Monday morning, please email me and we will get you the information ASAP!

Sponsors: If you haven't already, you will get an email from us very soon letting you know what day your giveaway will take place and what you need to do as far as getting us your product.  If you haven't received an email yet, don't panic!  We started with February 1st and are working our way through the 14th...your giveaway may just be taking place a little later!  We have some AWESOME giveaways for you folks!!

Well, maybe I can leave you with a cute little story from today...

After our math intervention time, the interventionist told me that one of my lovely ladies kindly informed the rest of the group that she needed to fart {I know, I know...some of you are probably running around screaming, "Ms. Preppy said the F word, Ms. Preppy said the F word!"}.  Anyway, she needed to fart.  The interventionist asked, "Now, would you have said that in front of Justin Bieber?"  Little Lady got quiet and blushed.  So apparently "would you do that in front of Justin Bieber" is the new litmus test for whether or not something is socially acceptable.  I think we need WYDTIFOJB bracelets.  They would be all the rage.  I'll get right on that.

Last Call!

Short post tonight because I am working away at the Be My Valentine Exchange!  I'm pretty sure we have a hojillion people signed up!  Sarah and I are busy emailing sponsors, matching partners, and matching up classrooms.  Just wanted to post a quick reminder that tonight is the deadline to sign up.  We will start emailing partner information tomorrow and will have them all finished by Wednesday.  You won't want to miss out on the fun!

Non sequitur

Oh wow!  The response to the Be My Valentine Exchange has been UNREAL!  Since Friday, we've had so many people sign up to participate in the gift exchange, class exchange, and sponsor a giveaway.  In fact, we have more than 14 sponsors!  This means we will be able to give away more than 1 fun prize each day from February 1st through the 14th!  You guys have been so incredibly generous by donating items for the giveaways.  Because the response has been so overwhelming, we are going to close the sign ups for sponsoring a giveaway on Wednesday, January 18th.  This way we have plenty of time to get in touch with everyone and get things organized.  So...head over on over and sign up if you would like to sponsor a giveaway!  Sarah and I are so excited; this may be more fun than Holly Bloggy {could that even be possible?}!

In other super fun news...Diana from Cole's Little Pups and I are ready to have lunch with our friends in Western KY/Southern IN!  We are planning a lunch date for Saturday, January 28th at 1pm.  Email me at mspreppyblog@gmail.com for all of the details.  We hope to see several of you there!

Last week I started teaching bar models to my 2nd graders.  Wheweee....some of them totally get it, but the rest of them are having a rough time!  I asked you guys for some help and some of you pointed me to some great technology resources.  But I still couldn't find any great centers or hands on activities.  So, I've been working away this week creating some bar modeling activities.  Here's a little freebie/preview!  I hope to have the whole shebang up in my TpT store by tomorrow.

Students read the problems, use the bar to create their bar model, then sort based on whether the problem is part-part-whole or whole-part-part.  We LOVE sorting activities and this really helps them to understand what kind of relationship the bar model is demonstrating so they can choose the correct operation.  Grab your copy here.

Hope you guys have an awesome day off tomorrow!  I'm so excited about having another day to sleep in, blogstalk, and watch Lifetime movies!  We ended up having a snow day on Friday, so I'm enjoying a four day weekend.  Be jealous.

Be My Valentine {2012 Exchange}

Sarah and I are back and ready for yet another fun exchange!  We had tons of fun organizing the Christmas exchange and seeing all of the amazingly cute things you guys made and purchased for your partners.  We have a few exciting additions for Valentine's Day!  Check out all of the details below:

Sign Up to be a Participant:

-Sign ups begin now and close on Sunday, January 22nd.
-We will send out partners by Wednesday, January 25th.
-Craft and/or shop and send out your gift by February 6th to make sure it arrives in time.
-$10 limit, excluding shipping.  Be creative and fun!
-Please make sure that you follow through if you sign up.  It's no fun to work so hard on creating a special gift for a new friend and not receive one in return!
-Our Canadian friends will be able to participate as long as there are other Canadian friends!  Please note in the subject if you are from Canada.
-To sign up, email the questionnaire below to teacherbloggerexchange@gmail.com by January 22nd.

Be My Valentine Questionnaire

Name {for monogramming}:
Mailing Address:

Email:

Blog/Website {not required to participate, but will help your partner get to know you better}:

Grade level:

Favorite color(s):

Favorite candy/treat:

Favorite fast food:

Favorite magazine:

Favorite lip gloss/nail polish:

Anything else you want your partner to know:

Class Exchange:

We are also organizing a class valentine exchange.  More details will come on this in the next couple of days.  If you are interested in participating in this part of the exchange, please send an email to teacherbloggerexchange@gmail.com with "Class Exchange" in the subject line.  Include your state, grade level, and number of students in your class.

Sign up to Sponsor a Giveaway!

The giveaways for Holly Bloggy Christmas were so much fun!  This time, we plan to do a giveaway each day from February 1st through Valentine's Day!  Simply participating in the exchange will be your entry for each giveaway.  We will use random.org to choose a winner each day.  But...to make this happen, we need some fabulous sponsors!  We want to give away some units/products for K-2, some for 3-5, and then some things that are just plain fun like gift cards, jewelry, decor, etc.  If you would like to sponsor a giveaway, please fill out this form.  We will select sponsors by January 22nd.  Sponsors will be mentioned in any email sent or blog post made about the Be My Valentine Exchange!

Grab Our Button!
{HUGE thank you to Lauren at The First Grade Diaries for making this for me!}

<center><a href="http://mspreppy.blogspot.com/p/be-my-valentine-exchange.html" target="_blank"><img alt="Be My Valentine" src="http://i1081.photobucket.com/albums/j352/mspreppyblog/Valentine_Exchange1.png"/></a></center>

Hope you will join in the fun!  As always, if you have questions feel free to leave a comment or shoot me an email!

...updating...

Long time, no see, my friends!  Thank you for sharing your critter stories and wishing me luck last week.  Some of your stories gave me the heebie jeebies.  Luckily, I did not see anything scurrying about.  Whew!  Really dodged a bullet there.  My coworker told me about something that you can plug in and it lets off some kind of sound or something that the little mice don't like.  I am definitely going to invest in some of those.  Because I'd rather not see another mouse.  Ever.

I only worked one day this past week.  The first day back from break.  So the kids were exhausted and not really with it.  My sub said they were awesome the rest of the week, so hopefully the awesomeness will continue when I have to work a full five days next week.  Why was I out, you ask? 

{I'm the short one.  The tall girl is my little sister.  I only clarify for you because waitresses at restaurants can't seem to get it straight.  She gets the drink menu and I get the kid's menu.  Never fails.  Every time.  I'll enjoy my youthful looks for as long as I can.}

My little brother was deployed to Afghanistan for a year.  He's enjoying {and by enjoy, I mean training all day long} sunny Texas {see why I said enjoy?  Texas has to be funner than Afghanistan} for the next few weeks and then he will head on over.  So we spent a couple of days in Indianapolis having some family time {at PF Changs.  Yum!} and seeing him off.  I told him that I have about 450 or so teacher friends that I can count on to keep the mail coming all year long.  Please let me know if you, your class, or your school would like a soldier buddy to send letters, etc to throughout the year.  Either comment or email me {mspreppyblog at gmail dot com} and I'll get you hooked up with all of the information. 

In other superfun news, Sarah and I are all in on a Valentine's exchange!  We will be posting details very soon, so check back with us.  We have some exciting things up our sleeves!