"Whoooo" is Rocket's New Friend?

Last week in the library we made some new friends.  We literally MADE friends--for one of our favorite story characters, Rocket the dog from the book "Rocket Writes a Story" by Tad Hills! In this sequel to "How Rocket Learned to Read", Rocket befriends a shy owl and learns about the writing process at the same time. The kids loved this project! Take a look at a few of their masterpieces:

These new friends are cute for sure, but also WISE, because they have the very important job of holding word cards for their primary-grade owners. First, have students write words they can use in their own stories: 

Each student's cards are then stored inside the owl, providing motivation to collect lots more great words to use when writing stories!

If you are interested in more unique and educational activities to go with the Rocket stories, click the following links that will take you directly to my TPT store and the corresponding unit for that book:

"Rocket Writes a Story" Book Study Unit

"How Rocket Learned to Read" Book Study Unit

I can't resist one more picture of these cuties before signing off. "Whoooo" else thinks they're adorable?!

~Swersty

Bow Wow! It's a Puppy Palooza and a Huge TpT Sale!

What do you get when you mix puppies, learning to read, and learning to write stories?

These two great books!

Click here to learn more about Tad Hills and his awesome books!

Some of you will remember that I've recommended Tad Hills' "Rocket" stories before, but with the start of school right around the corner for many of us, I wanted to remind everyone about these fabulous books. They are perfect for the beginning of the year! And what kid doesn't like puppies?

Even before the first "Rocket" story was published, we were mixing puppies and reading here at my house.

That's my daughter (in 2008) reading to Butterball and Samson, our brand new Labrador puppies!

Samson and Butterball were birthday gifts for my kids, and were featured on my daughter's 8th birthday invitation in this picture from four years ago:

Two high-energy puppies, a hammock and one 8-year old girl made for a fun photo shoot!

When Samson and Butterball were about 6 months old, we took them to our church for Animal Blessing Day. And believe me, they needed all the blessings they could get because, let's just say they were not always on their best behavior!

2 dogs + holidays = FUN!

Halloween 2008

Christmas 2008

But out of all the "kids with dogs" pictures, these two are my favorites:

Now that's some serious Puppy Love!

It's obvious that kids and puppies are a good mix. Look what happens when you share "How Rocket Learned to Read" and then introduce your class to a basket of puppies (the stuffed animal kind):

 Adopt us!

Choosing a name collar for puppy

 We're gonna be best buds!

 Reading to puppy

"Teaching" puppy to read important words

All ready for a Puppy Reading Parade!

See all the cool stuff that can happen when you add puppies to your classroom? Go out and buy "How Rocket Learned to Read" and "Rocket Writes a Story" by Tad Hills and then head over to my TpT store and pick up both "Puppy Palooza" units for a whole lot of fun, educational activities to go along with the books. The units are only $4.00 each, but TpT is having a gigantic sale August 12-13, so you can get them (and everything else in my store) for nearly 30% off!

While you're there, take a look at a few other "puppy" items in my store you might be interested in as well:

Puppy Palooza Transportation Bracelets $2.50

Puppy Palooza Student Desk Tags (5 different designs) FREE!

Here's hoping that you find enough goodies in TpT's Back to School Sale to say "Bow WOW"!

~Swersty

Help! I've (bloggy) fallen and I can't get up!

Yikes! Is it August already? Seriously? Where has the summer gone? I have less than 2 weeks left before district meetings, work days, inservice, etc. start up again and I am NOT ready, people! I didn't get all the things checked off my summer "to do" list yet, and I have been an absentee blogger to boot. 

What happened to June and July? You didn't ask for it, but here it is--my summer in pictures: 

JUNE ~ We kicked off summer with a marshmallow roast in the backyard!

I listened to the sounds of summer in June. A LOT. This noisy bug evidently loves Texas and was out in force. Multiply him by like a gazillion and you have so much noise you can't hear yourself think! 

I met (and melted) with a Squirrel at the Central Texas Blogger Meet-Up!

Went to Mexico with the family, but left early due to a family situation back home. Definitely the low-point of my summer.

More melting! Fun in the sun at Six Flags Fiesta Texas with Reagan.

I played a lot of Words With Friends and even got a word worth 143 points! Can you say "word nerd"? How sad is it that this was a highlight of my summer?!

Umm, speaking of words, I learned some new ones. I found time to do a little summer reading (and blushed 50 shades of RED)!!!  I'm pretty sure if I had an "inner goddess", she'd be blushing, too.

I finally got a new car! Well, new to me, anyway--it's a 2010 Acura MDX. Here I am trying to be patient while filling out all the paperwork. 

And here it is in my driveway--ain't she purty?!!

Did you notice that there was no mention of school? That's crazy because I have a ton of stuff to prepare for this year and I haven't really worried about it, at least not until I got this text from an over-achieving friend yesterday:

I love her last response! "Forever" isn't much of an exaggeration--that girl has been working hard and her room is looking so good! In fact, while I've been writing this post I got another text from her about going up to school to work! I'm sure many of you, like Reagan, are  spending your time off working on school projects--I just haven't fully gotten into "school mode" yet.

The only school-related project I have worked on is another Puppy Palooza unit for my TpT store. Puppy Palooza 2 is based on the book "Rocket Writes a Story", which is a sequel to "How Rocket Learned to Read" by Tad Hills.

This is a great book and perfect for primary-aged kids just beginning to write! Even if you don't get the unit, consider buying this newly-released book--you won't regret it! 

If you are interested in fun activities to go with the book, click here to go to my TpT store. For some reason, there are glitches with downloading the preview file from TpT that haven't been resolved yet, so I've included the preview here:

Are you wondering about all the owl stuff in a unit called Puppy Palooza 2? Rocket's new friend in the book is a shy owl, so there you go...

And here I go--off to soak up the summer sun and NOT think about school!

~Swersty

Lots of Firsts!

This is a post about firsts: my first TpT sale in honor of Teacher Appreciation Week, my first Currently, and a favorite first grade teacher. First thing's first (pun intended--hee hee), the big TpT sale:

Since this is my very first time to participate, everything in my store will be on sale! OK, being new to TpT I only have one item in my store other than a freebie, but still, a sale's a sale, right? Puppy Palooza is the item you need to get during this massive sale. Check it out at my store here.

And here's my first Currently, thanks to Farley from Oh Boy Fourth Grade:

And finally, a picture of me with my favorite first grade teacher blogger friend, Reagan from Tunstall's Teaching Tidbits. This was taken last week during her library lesson. As usual, I made her wear a silly hat!

Happy weekend everybody, and remember that the first day of summer is right around the corner!

~Swersty

Wowza!

For all you TpT friends out there, please look at what I woke up to this beautiful Sunday morning:

I was so pumped about being mentioned in the newsletter! So who was the first person I shouted told the good news? If you're thinking my husband, you're wrong (although he was the second person I told). I called the one person I knew who would understand my excitement. The one person who would appreciate my little-girl giddiness. Have you guessed who yet? It's none other than my bloggy mentor, Reagan of Tunstall Teaching Tidbits! (She is probably sick of hearing from me since I ask for her help and advice ALL the time, but luckily she's waaaaay too sweet to tell me to get lost--even at 8:15 on a Sunday morning!) 

The thing I've been bugging Reagan about lately is for feedback on my second item for my TpT store. It's called "Puppy Palooza" and is a book study unit for How Rocket Learned to Read by Tad Hills. It's selling for $4.00 and if you're interested in buying it, click here to go to my store. (While you're there, grab my "Chef de la YOU!" unit--it's free!)

Whew! I've had so much excitement I'm ready for a nap now. I wonder if Reagan is tired since she was awakened by a phone call from a crazy librarian early this morning. Maybe I'll give her a call now and see... 

~Swersty