Winner!!

Congratulations to Huda Alnasir for being the winner of the TpT Gift Certificate! It has been emailed to you!

Thanks to everyone who entered, and be on the lookout....I'll be doing some type of giveaway each month for the year of 2014!

-Lauren

A Merry Christmas Giveaway!

I have been so blessed this year by TpT and I would love to give a Christmas gift to you! I am giving away a $25 gift certificate to Teachers Pay Teachers that you can use at anyone's store! There are several ways to enter.

 Good luck, and Merry Christmas!!

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Break Time!

Yay for Christmas Break! So far we've seen Santa, put up the tree, decorated cookies, and gone looking at lights! We've been to several parties, and my husband and I won an ugly sweater contest :-)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Plans for this week include making a gingerbread house, getting hot chocolate at Starbucks, and maybe making a few Christmas crafts! My mother in law gets everyone new Christmas pajamas every year, so one of our favorite traditions is opening those on Christmas Eve, then reading the Christmas story together from the Bible. Can't wait!  

Featured - Winter Mystery Picture Graphs

I've just finished a new set of Mystery Picture Graphs for Winter/the New Year. These are made by coloring in the squares using the coordinates given on the alphanumeric grid! Everyone has given great feedback about these graphs and buyers unanimously say, "The kids loved it!"

The penguin graph is FREE and is featured this week on My Primary Paradise as one the top 5 Freebies!

I hope you all are having a fabulous break!!

2013 Winter Holiday Tips & Freebies!

I am so honored to have been chosen to have a page in one of these great books this year! If you aren't familiar with them, there are 4 books (PreK-K, 1-2, 3-6, 7-12) each with 50 pages of holiday ideas, tips, and free resources! My Rudolph Hundreds Chart Mystery Picture was chosen as one of the freebies in the PreK-K book! Check them out here:

Winner!

Congratulations to Cecile for being the winner of the 300 Follower Giveaway!

The Starbucks gift card has been sent to your email! Thank you everyone for entering!

-Lauren

Currently December

The 300 Follower Giveaway is in full swing! If you haven't entered yet, there are still 2 days to enter to win a $15 gift card to Starbucks! Just scroll down to the previous post!

Also, I'm joining up with Farley at Oh Boy 4th Grade for this month's "Currently!"

300 Follower Starbucks Gift Card Giveaway!!

I'm so thankful for all of my TpT followers! I can't believe I'm almost at 300! To show my appreciation, I'm giving away a $15 gift card to Starbucks! I am in love with coffee, and although I love plain coffee, I also love the fancy holiday drinks! My favorite would have to be the Pumpkin Spice Latte!

To enter the giveaway:
First make sure you are a follower on TpT!
Then just leave a comment here on my blog and tell me your favorite drink from Starbucks!
The giveaway will last until midnight Dec 3, then Rafflecopter will pick a winner!
Thanks everyone, ya'll are the best!

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Turkey Crafts

 

I will be spending the next few days with my family at my sister's house for Thanksgiving. She has 3 young boys, and with my 4 there we'll have 7 kids, ages 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, and 3 months! I've been doing some browsing around for some great crafts we can do with the older ones while we're there to try and have a little bit of structure and sanity (if that's possible). Here are some of my favorite finds!!

I love this idea of just letting them paint the feathers on a paper plate! Cutting out a million feathers gets old quick!

 

 

I feel like most of my crafty things with the kids are using the same materials over and over - paper, crayons, glue, and paint. Using beans or pasta is something different that I think they will really enjoy!

This one would be great to do after a nature walk to collect leaves!

And although this might be a little difficult for the kids...I think this is one I'd like to try...

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Thanksgiving Link Up!!

With less than 2 weeks until Thanksgiving, I wanted us to share our best Thanksgiving products! Here are a few of mine!


Hundreds Chart Mystery Pictures - Thanksgiving Pack - Grades K-2



Turkey Multiplication Mystery Picture - Grades 2-4

Mystery Picture Graphs - Fall Pack - Grades 3-5

 

 Link up your favorite free or paid Thanksgiving products here!

 

Hundreds Charts

Recently I've been going crazy creating new Hundred Chart Mystery Pictures. They are so fun to make and kids love them! I've recently added some new sets: Thanksgiving, Christmas, Winter, Spring, Summer, Insects, and Ocean Animals. I've got a couple of freebies up too - this pilgrim hat is perfect for Thanksgiving fun!

 

Pilgrim Hat

 

 

October Frenzy!

 

 

I'm so excited to be a part of my 3rd Facebook Frenzy! This is a great opportunity to get some great FREE resources that you won't find anywhere else (at least not for free!) I am a part of the 2nd-3rd grade group this time. I've got a couple of new mystery picture graphs paired with 2 that are already part of my Fall Pack that I'll be giving away! Anyone who "likes" my facebook page will be able to download for free! Then you can move through all the pages (23 in my group) and get a ton of great resources! I'm so excited! It will be up and running tomorrow (Friday) through Monday!

 

Click here to get started at my facebook page! 

October Link Up!

There's more to October than just Halloween! There's also Columbus Day, United Nations Day, and World Animal Day (not sure what that is...but I saw it on my calendar!)

Link up your activities that go with any of these October themes!!
(You can put the name of the activity/product instead of "Your Name"!

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Autumn Freebies Link-Up Party!

I'm joining "Notebooking Nook" and many others in sharing fall freebies!

I added my Hundreds Chart Pumpkin which is part of the Halloween Pack (see post below)!

Click on the picture above to see many more fall freebies, or link up your own!

Halloween Hundreds Chart Mystery Pictures

I'm not a fan of Halloween. The ghosts, witches, scariness...I just don't like it! We still let our kids dress up in costumes, but we go to our church's Fall Festival for games and treats instead of trick-or-treating. Anyway....I wanted to do some more hundreds chart pictures that were themed for the upcoming holidays, so I came up with some for the month of October that could go with a Halloween theme, but aren't scary.  The pictures are a pumpkin, bat, candy corn, owl, and spider.

 

These are great for grades K-2 to practice number recognition and place value! Click here to get them!

Less Blogging More Insta!



 



I've been noticing a trend with not only myself, but also a lot of my other blogging buddies (teachers and others!) Now it seems that blogging just takes a little too much effort and time, and people are more likely to use Instagram and Twitter for updates! I haven't yet jumped on the Twitter bandwagon, but I do love my Instagram! So, I decided to start a teaching account.

With it I hope to post pictures of what we're doing in homeschool, new products I'm making, and anything else teacher-ish that strikes my fancy! We'll see how it goes. With all the craziness of life, and now having 4 little kids at home, it will be a quick and easy way to share! I will still be blogging, but now maybe I won't feel guilty when I let 2 weeks pass without writing anything! :-)

Anyway, my new Instagram name is mrsthompsonstreasures.

I'd love you to follow me and I would love to follow you! Leave a comment with your Instagram username!

-Lauren

Baby & Pumpkins

First things first....I've been away for a week because I had my baby girl!! We named her Cayla, and she is wonderful. You can see pictures here on my family blog.

Second, as I was sweating myself into a puddle during my son's soccer game today at noon in the 100* heat, I was thinking about how ready I am for fall...and pumpkins! I just love pumpkins! So to hopefully usher in some fall-ish weather soon, I'm going to share this Pumpkin Mystery Picture Graph for free the rest of the weekend! These are so fun for the kids (best for grades 3 and up) and great practice using graphs, coordinates, and following directions! Have fun....and if you are having some cooler weather, send a little my way!

 

~Lauren

Bundle Up!

I just recently discovered the idea of "bundling" on TpT. This is where teachers will put several similar products together and {usually} sell them for a discounted price. Maybe everyone already knew that....where have I been? :)

Anyway, I think it's a great idea! So I recently made several bundles available in my store! The first is some Math Journal Daily Prompts - geared at 1st or 2nd grade.

The second one is a bundle of Reading Comprehension Cards - for grades 2-4!

 

 

Link up below with a great bundle from your store....and browse around at some other great deals!!
(You can put the name of the product instead of Your Name if you'd like!)

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Computer Time!

I started my first day of school today. No....not as the teacher....as the student! My husband and I are doing a training school this fall so that we can go back overseas next year. What this means however, is that I have to leave my sweet kiddos at home with a sitter four mornings a week while we are in class! Since we are homeschooling, this creates a challenge for our schedule! So, what we've been doing is having the kids have computer time in the morning (not the whole time of course, an hour for the oldest and half hour for the preschooler) and then when I get home at 12:30, we do a little bit of work before they have rest time. It seems to be working pretty good so far. I am amazed at all the great websites out there for the kids to learn! Not all are free, but a lot of them are! I wanted to share the websites that I have found fun and useful for my kids!



ABCya.com - This is a completely FREE site with tons of educational games divided up by subjects and grade levels (K-5).



Starfall.com - This has some great free games and activities, but also has a paid version where you get access to more. I decided to pay for a year's subscription ($35) since I don't have as much time as I'd like this fall to plan stuff for the kids. There are so many great things on the website, not only reading, but various math skills as well. I feel that it is very much worth it!



Istation - This is a program that many schools use (I think it's just a Texas thing), but I found out I could use it as home for free by setting up a home account. It is great for helping my son practice his reading and comprehension skills, and it gives great reports on his progress!

I know there are so many other great websites out there, these are just the 3 that we have fallen in love with!

What websites have you discovered that work well at your school or home?

Wednesday Freebies #9

Here are some great freebies for you this week!

1. Back to School Roll and Cover Activity Pack 

By: Preslar's Place

 

 

2. First Week of School: Puzzle Activity to Teach Classroom Rules

By: ReflectiveThinker

 

3. Fun Math animation based activity for Multiplication and Problem Solving

By: PrepToon - Common Core Math Animations

 

 

4. Number Posters 0-5

By: Tabitha Savage

 

 

 

Have a great week everyone!!

-Lauren 

 

What Can You Do...

with number cards??

I just created these Apple Number Line Cards with number 1-100 that can be used to put up a number line in a classroom. But they are so versatile and can be used for many other things!

 

 

Some other ways I can think of to use them are:

• Flashcards
• Games (Around the World, or Concentration if you print 2 copies)
• Skip Counting Practice

I'd love to hear your ideas ! Leave a comment with a fun/creative way you use number cards in the classroom or at home with your kids!!

 

Thanks for sharing!

-Lauren

 

Linky Party - Wishlists!!

I don't know about you, but I'm hoping a lot of people who have wishlisted my items decide that the Back to School Sale is the right time to buy! Go ahead and link up with your most wishlisted item, and also if you want, one that is on your wishlist to buy!!

My most wishlisted item is my Hundreds Chart Mystery Pictures - a set of 24 mystery pictures using the 100s chart, great for K-2!

 

Something on my own wishlist to buy is this Daily Calendar Book. I'd love to use it with my kids at home!

 



 

What's on your wishlist??

(Put the name of the item instead of your name!) 

 

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Back to School Sale is Coming to TpT!

Yes, the back to school sale is finally here! Visit my store August 18-19 and everything will be 28% off!! Just use the promo code BTS13 when you check out! Go ahead and browse around, load up that cart and get ready to save!

P.S. If you are a seller, you are welcome to use this banner and button to promote your sale as well! They are available for FREE here!

Thanks!

-Lauren

Keep Calm and...

 

Unless you have been hiding under a big rock lately, you've no doubt noticed that there are now "Keep Calm" posters for just about anything you can imagine!! Personally, I think it's getting slightly annoying, but that's beside the point. :-)

 

My point is that a few weeks ago when starting preschool with my 3 year old, I had to keep reminding myself to "keep calm and teach on." You see, when I started preschool with my son, who is now 5, it was a breeze. He is one of those kids who just "got it." I did all the normal mommy stuff with him, reading lots of books, talking about colors, letters, and numbers, and by the time he was 4 he could read and do math problems in his head!

 

Before starting with my daughter, I told myself that my son was an exception, not the rule, and it probably wasn't going to be that easy for my other kids. I didn't want to compare them. But....wow, easier said than done! After 4 weeks now of practicing letters with my daughter, I can see a little progress for sure, but then I'll show her a picture of "B" and ask what sound it makes and she'll say, "aaa, like aaaapple!" Oy! It's a little frustrating. I know she's only 3, and I'm NOT pushing her, she loves to do school and always asks to do more. I just have to remember to keep calm and .... teach on!

Double Feature & Facebook Frenzy!!

Today I'm honored to have 2 of my freebies featured on different sites!

First, one of my free Mystery Picture Graphs is featured on Teacher Gems!



And second, my Colorful Polka Dot Backgrounds will be featured today on the FB page Teacher Made Freebies!

 

Check out their sites for more great freebies today!

 

Also, the August Facebook Frenzy started this morning and will continue through Monday!!

 

 

You can start at my FB page and then keep clicking through to get all the great free resources only available here!! I am a part of the grades 3+ and Clipart group, but if you need more K-2 stuff, you can start at Creation Castle.

 

It really is a fabulous FREE Friday :-)

 

And this has nothing to do with any of that....but I am having my 36 week OB check up today. I'm scheduled to have this baby 3 weeks from today! So excited :-)

 

-Lauren