Happy, Happy, Happy!!

It is sale time!!! Who doesn't love a great sale? We aren't ready to start thinking about back to school but we will for a few hours in order to snatch up some goodies on sale! Everything in both our stores is 20% off this weekend!

Happy Shopping!!

Bloglovin'

Times, they are a changin'. Starting Monday, Google Reader will no longer be here. Bloglovin' seems to be the place to be. I dreaded it because I am not one for lots of change. I like things that are comfortable. Surprise! Surprise! I love Bloglovin' WAY more than Google Reader. I am still trying to figure it all out but so far-so good! Click the link below to follow us.
Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Also, I found this blog when exploring bloglovin' and she lists 10 Reasons Why I'm Lovin' Bloglovin'. Check her out and you may learn some new things too!

Character & Setting

We are Two Crazy Texas Teachers trying to be the best teacher we have inside of us.  And in order to be the best we have to keep learning and growing.  We are dissecting our report card and have created this great character and setting packet for the entire year.  It is over 36 books, one for each week of the school year and a blank one in case you have a favorite book I didn't include.  We think this is great and is geared for more of the 1st grade level.  I will be posting the Kindergarten Character & Settings packet soon so stay close to our blog as not to miss our 24 hour sale.  It will be a little more tailored toward Kinder skills. But you could always use this packet in Kinder if you like it better.  I think this is a great packet and a great way to keep character and setting reviewed each week on a different book.  Enjoy! Remember as always it's 1/2 off the first 24 hours.

Labor of Love

Our latest project as definitely been a labor of love for me. I am super excited about it and think my kids will love it and it will simplify some of my weekly word family lessons. But this packet took me f.o.r.e.v.e.r! This packet has weekly word family booklets along with color picture cards and their corresponding words. The booklets are 1/2 page to cut down on the amount of paper you use but gives you a daily activity for each family. 

This is a 184 page packet that includes 18 word families. 

at, an, ad, ap, ag

ed, et, en, ell

ip, ig, ill

op, ot, og

ug, ut, un

Included in each booket is:

word search

sorting pictures (rhymes/doesn't rhyme)

glue the word chunk 

independent writing

matching words to pictures

color flash cards with their corresponding words

For the next 24 hours, this HUGE packet will be 1/2 off.

(Email us if you need additional word families. We are willing to make an additional packet.)

In Love!

I have wanted one of these for the past year. The problem is I am a bargain shopper and I just couldn't find one cheap enough. Well, my wonderful hubby remembered I wanted one and bought it for me for our anniversary. So, it started out like this

And with the help of this

and a little paint I was able to make this

 I love it sooooo much! It will definitely cut down on the amount of time my kids spend picking out that "perfect" pencil. By "perfect" I mean "least amount of chew marks".

How did I do this? You can buy the straw dispenser online or at a restaurant supply store. I taped off the push bar at the bottom and took the top off before painting. I then used my new Silhouette Cameo and vinyl to make the "Pencils" label. TaDa!

I bought the Silhouette Cameo back in April and didn't have much time to figure it out with the craziness of end of the year. I finally have time to play with it and am IN LOVE! If you have been thinking about buying something like this (Cricut, Silhouette) then I recommend the Silhouette. What I liked was you don't have to buy expensive cartridges. You can input any clip art or fonts you already have. You can always download images from their website. I just found it better suited my needs and the projects I dream of making. I am not a scrapbooking person. I just wanted to make things for around my house and my classroom.

So, if you are thinking about buying one then click on the Silhouette picture above to go straight to their site. (I am not getting anything from this. Just wanted you to know how amazing it is.) Make sure you sign up as a teacher because they offer a great discount for teachers on everything!

CrAzY Awesome Giveaway!

Another amazing giveaway just started last night. Make sure you hop over and show Corinna some love and hopefully win a ton of goodies! Click on the picture to go straight to her post. Good Luck!!

Classroom Signs

As I've been exploring Pinterest this summer I have been giving lots of thoughts to the beginning of the year. Summer time is always a time for reflection and dreaming. What can I do different? What will make learning meaningful for the students? One night I came across some classroom signs. It got me to thinking about making a class book out of these signs. My thought was to introduce one every day or few then add them to a folder or notebook. We can refer back to them throughout the year and say them aloud when the mood strikes. So I decided to share these with you. Feel free to comment with any others you love.

And I will end with one of my favorites. I created this last year on the computer and mounted each page inside a Dollar Tree frame. They hung outside my classroom. I love it so much!! (BTW: The first page says Kindergarten. This can be used if you want to mount all pages on a poster-laminate-and hang.) There are 4 pages to this document. Click on the picture to download your copy for FREE.

Pin It to Win It

Here is your chance to win any item of your choice from our store. All you have to do is Pin It and you might Win It. The more you pin-the greater chance you have to win. Paste the Pinterest link in the Rafflecopter below. You can either pin a blog post that has a favorite activity you want or you can pin straight from our TpT store. If you pin a blog post and it has more than one activity in it then tell us which one you would like to win. 

Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy!

Click here for our TpT store.

Contest ends Saturday.

Ready-Set-Pin!!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Stamp CrAzY!

It all started with this one

Then we were A.D.D.I.C.T.E.D!! We HAD to have this stamp. Thanks to Maria at Kinder-Craze for creating a video. (Also thanks to Groupon for having an amazing Vista Print offer.) I was making it harder than it actually was. After watching Maria's video we had to make more. So we made the one above and these beauties

Our kids are dying to have one of these stamps on their papers. I think if we start the year using these then handwriting will be awesome!

While you are at Vista Print, make sure you get all the freebies offered since you are already paying for shipping. We created some business cards. They also had invitations/announcements but you only got 10. We couldn't think of a use for 10 so we skipped that one. Here is one of the business cards we created. Students will get a hole punch for every 100 on their spelling test. Once the reach the goal set by us then they get a treat.

This all started with one amazing stamp...Thanks Maria!