The School Belle: Back in the Swing of Things...

Hey there, long lost friends! To say I've missed you would be a complete understatement. Boy do we have a MILLION things to catch up on! I promise my blogging, or lack thereof, is completely justified. You see, I have some pretty *BIG* news....

That's right, my friends, the School Belle is officially engaged! My fiance, we'll call him Mr. Appleseed, knowing the ~~obsessive teacher~~ type of person I am, thought it would be completely fitting to pop the question in the place I love best, my classroom! For years, I've been asking him to put a pot on his head, grab a sack of apples, and visit my classroom as Johnny Appleseed himself. Not wanting to embarrass himself, he has politely declined every.single.year. So, when he asked to come this year, naturally I thought nothing of it. Clueless. Imagine my surprise, and my students, when Johnny Appleseed himself got down on one knee.

So friends, I've been on Cloud 9 ever since, and too consumed with wedding planning to even THINK about blogging. But sure enough, I started to miss it and all of you, so here I am!

It's so hard to believe that we are already well into the second nine weeks of the school year! This is by far my most FAVORITE time to be a teacher. The holidays are such a great springboard for wonderful lessons and activities. One of my favorites is teaching comparing/ contrasting two stories using The Gingerbread Man.

Last year, I didn't have much time to focus on gingerbread themed activities, much to my dismay, and I simply refuse to let that happen this year, dang it.

So, my little cuties are in for a week full of gingerbread fun, and I cannot wait! To help me prepare, I created a packet of 10 math and 10 literacy centers. While we read and write about our gingerbread stories, we will also be seeing them throughout all of our literacy and math center fun.

What I love MOST about these cute little centers is that they are holiday themed, and not Christmas. Perfect for us public school teachers...ya feel me?

And they still add just enough holiday cheer to make me one happy teacher!

Click the preview below to check it out!

If you follow me on TPT, you may have noticed that I've been posting "Math with Meaning" center packets, and may have wondered why I chose that title.

As a teacher, one of the most difficult parts of our job {in my opinion} is making sure each of my students is challenged. I never want my students feeling bored in my classroom.

To me boredom= me not doing my job.

And I certainly don't want to go home with that feeling!

To help with this, I have started creating leveled/ differentiated math centers. Each center is aligned to the Common Core and comes with TWO versions. The TWO versions share the same recording sheet, which means its less work for you and less confusion for our cuties!

To keep them organized, I place colored garage sale stickers on the back of each activity {pink for the lower level and green for the higher level}. My students are assigned a color, but don't know exactly what the colors mean. Doing so helps my students focus more on the task at hand, and not who is doing the "harder" work.

If you'd like to check out my differentiated math centers alone, I am selling them separately in my little shop! Click the preview below to check it out!