Five for Friday Flashback- New Digital Background Papers! You can win them!

Hi!

We are here for our first summer link up to Kacey for:

And, holy cow, I just realized it's already June 14th.  Wow.  Ok.  I'm not gonna panic that my summer is flying!!

I haven't linked up before now because I couldn't really find 5 things to really talk about but I'm going to try to today.

I wanted to say thank you to all of my sweet blogging friends that checked on me this week to make sure that I was surviving the teacher training that I was giving.  It really means a lot to know that I have friends who I've never met in person but are so encouraging and supportive.  I was a nervous wreck on Monday but was able to read some sweet comments and emails and it really helped me get my head together.  I'm so thankful that we started this blogging journey!!

The "staff development" I was "leading" was called math institute.  Basically, 5 teachers watched me teach 24 students (who I had never met before Monday) math for 3 hours each day.  I was modeling for the teachers what their math instruction should look like (lots of math talk, getting the kids to give evidence or proof for why something is true, lots of uncomfortable wait time while the kids thought, how to teach calendar, and how to do guided math and centers).  We used lots of manipulatives and tried to take the students through CRA (concrete, representational, and abstract thinking in regards to math).

It can be nerve-wracking to have teachers watch you, but I had 5 great teachers who were very open-minded.  I didn't have any Negative Nellys or Debbie Downers, so I was very blessed in that aspect.  We had a lot of good discussion during our debriefing (where they talked about what they saw and how they might apply it).

I had a lot of A-HA moments while doing this.  Obviously, we don't have 3 hours to teach math, so teachers focus on skills and algorithms but the Common Core is going away from that.  This was meant to show what math instruction should look like and to encourage teachers to try it.  I think it went well, but I can't get in the teachers' heads, so I'm not totally sure.

Now that this is behind me, I feel like my summer can start!

I've been doing some online shopping.  Have you heard of Very Jane?  It's probably the worst best thing I did to have those deals sent to my inbox each day.  I've gotten some really cute stuff from there!

I got this skirt in mint.  I can't wait for it to come in the mail!  And I just found out about another website like this called Sassy Steals.  I think I'm in over my head.

I started reading

I posted about the first two chapters HERE if you'd like to see what I think so far.  But, I definitely recommend this book!  If you haven't read it, you still have time to order it and read it with us!

So, once I got home from doing all of this staff development, I wanted to just do something fun!  So I did!  I made some digital papers!  I went totally overboard, but oh well.  It ended up being 62 papers because I just couldn't stop!

These are the colors.  I have pages and pages to show previews, but I didn't want you to have to scroll through all of that!  So, if you want to see all of them, you can go to our TPT store and download the preview.

I'm slightly obsessed with mint and chevron right now (obviously!).  So, I'm going to give you the mint chevron paper for free!  All you have to do is click on it to make it big in it's own window, then right click on the paper and click Save Image As and it should save as a jpeg.  :O)

But, if you'd like the whole pack, you can go to our TPT store and grab it up!

OR

You can pin it to win it!!!!!!

Here are the rules:
1.  Pin one of the pictures of the PAPERS.
2.  Leave a comment with the Pinterest ID in the comment (all you have to do is copy the URL after you pin it to your board and then paste it into the comment section)
3.  Be sure to leave your email address so we can send it to you when you win!

I'll pick 2 winners and announce them on Monday!

Thanks for entering!
:O) Amanda