I am so excited! I woke up this morning and found out that I had won a $5 DonorsChoose gift card from Jennifer at Herding Kats in Kindergarten. She was originally going to choose two $10 winners, but she added two $5 winners, as well. How extremely sweet is that? The kindness she shows despite the frustrations she is feeling this week is very refreshing. Go check out her blog and give her some love this week. She could use some support and encouragement and I know you are all good about that! :)

Plus, check out the great Pilgrim CVC Game Jennifer created below. I think it will be great to use with my higher level students. I love the graphics, too! 
  CVC Pilgrim Game

I recently entered a Seat Sack giveaway on Facebook for a Teacher Tote and much to my surprise, I won! I was beyond thrilled and when I emailed the company with my shipping information, I mentioned that I would blog about the tote when I received it. I promptly received an email back stating that there would also be something in the box for me to review on my blog. It wasn’t a little surprise either, it was a HUGE surprise!

The box was filled with a class set of 25 red Seat Sacks, a leatherette File-n-Save Sack for my file cabinet and a brand new beautiful tote! I was giddy with excitement! My family thought I was crazy, but it was well worth it! Check out this wonderful box of goodies!


For the tote, I went with Caldera Red and it is beautiful! I was very impressed with the quality and size of the tote, along with the lining, double straps, extra pockets, a place to add my keys, phone, etc. I thought I would use it for day to day items I tote back and forth to school, but found that it is the perfect size for my laptop. Yay! 

Check out the great selection of totes here. Right now, they are buy one get one half off using code BOGOTOTE. These would make excellent gifts for your teacher friends or your child's teacher.

Michelle H. at Seat Sack was such a wonderful representative of the company. She returned emails promptly and had excellent communication. I was very impressed with the entire experience and I certainly feel blessed to have gotten so many quality items to use in my classroom.

If you are thinking about purchasing Seat Sacks to save room at your desks or tables or just to organize your space at home, I highly recommend Seat Sacks. Also, now would be an excellent time to stock up, because they are selling the Seat Sacks for buy one get one 50% off using the code BOGOrange2011.

I feel like these are the most important features that  a teacher would look for in a Seat Sack:

• machine washable
• large variety of sizes to fit most chairs
• slips directly over the back of a chair
• organizes books, folders,  binders, dry erase boards, etc.
• easy to clean
• quality material

I encourage you to check out Seat Sack and see for yourself the amazing products they have available for your classroom.

It all started with a quick glimpse of the Old Granny Who Swallowed Thanksgiving Dinner graphic set on the Scrappin Doodles Facebook page yesterday and I knew I had to get busy creating a few things for my Kindergarten kiddos. I LOVE all of the Little Old Lady Who Swallowed a … books. It seems like my students love them just as much.

Click on the picture below to take you to my TpT store to purchase your copy! 


To those of you finding this post via Pinterest, I'm sorry, but this unit is no longer free. So many people were having trouble downloading it through Google Docs that I have completely updated it and added an additional 20 pages and added it to my TpT store. I hope you understand. Feel free to check out the wonderful lesson plans that Deb at Writing Every Day Works created to go with the book and printables.  What an amazing resource!

You can find more activities or lesson at the following links:

• Almost Unschoolers activities
• Making Learning Fun
• Lesson Plans from the Texas Dept. of State Health Services

Just a few pages to create an anchor chart for labeling the Mayflower, along with a student response sheet. Just click on the picture above to take you to the freebie.