Summer Countdown Blog Hop!

Summer is a'coming!!! I have only 10 1/2 days left with my students, which means we'll be starting our 10-day balloon countdown on Tuesday! Some of us have gotten together to share some of our tips and freebies with you to help your summer countdown end smoothly!

My summer countdown tip is....Don't start your countdown too soon or begin tearing down your room. I like to do a 10-day countdown or less. Students are already beginning to check out, and once they see bulletin boards being torn down or things being packed up, you might as well call it a year, because they will! Keep your students engaged in learning until the end. 

 A couple of years ago, I started doing a 10-day balloon countdown in my room and it seems to be the all-time favorite! What makes it so fun is not only do I choose the best behaved students to pop the balloon each day, each balloon has a slip of paper in it with some sort of fun activity that we do that day! You can easily shorten this to less days too. 

Click on the picture to download 20 activities for your balloon countdown!

You may also like this summer countdown that I used to use before I started doing the balloon countdown! You can also download it for free! 

Another tip to ending your year smoothly, is to get a head start on next year so you're not so overwhelmed come August or September! I'm going to help you do just that, by giving you a chance to win this USB Flashdrive Bracelet loaded with products for next year!! 

Two winners will be chosen! Bracelets will be loaded with 6 products of your choice from my store and shipped directly to you! Unfortunately, this giveaway is only open to U.S. residents! 

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Cheers to a smooth ending and a happy summer!!

Five for Friday!

Well, I said I would hopefully be back this week to link up with Doodle Bugs Teaching to share some exciting news!! Well I'm back, so if you read my Five for Friday post last week, you know what that means!!!

I won!!!! 

If you didn't read last week's post....and have no idea what I'm talking about...I was named Educator of the Year at the Community Awards dinner Saturday night! The night was amazing! You can read all about my amazing evening {here} or just scroll down to the next post.

No school today for this teacher! We honor Nevada Day the last Friday of October. I've joined in with all of these NV TpTers to bring you a sale today! Check it out {here}.

This is going on right now and I'm participating! Hop on over and grab some great tricks and spooktacular treats from numerous bloggers...and enter my giveaway!

We made some delicious, mini pumpkin cream pies this week! Super easy and no bake!

I got a little creative this year and made these cute treats for yesterday's Halloween party!

What a fabulous week!

If you didn't get here from the link up, head on over and link up your fun from your Halloween week!

Thanks a Bunch,

SPED Tricks & Treats Blog Hop!!!

Are you ready for some great tricks and treats? It's a SPED Tricks and Treats Blog Hop hosted by my blogging buddy at Mrs. D's Corner! Just hop from one blog to another to grab some great tips and freebies from all of us this Halloween!

Easy Peasy Caramel Apples!!!

These caramel apples are great for Halloween and are so easy for the kids to make! Only 3 ingredients are required.

Caramel or Caramel Apple icing, small green apples, and sprinkles (not pictured). You will also need to pick up some wooden skewers and wax paper. I used dowel rods from the craft section so they were not pointy and sharp at the ends.

Now here's how easy they are! 

1. Prepare your apples by washing them and placing a skewer/dowel in the center of each one. Place them on your wax paper.

 2. Take the lid and seal off of the frosting and stick it in the microwave. Microwaves always vary, but I microwaved mine for about 45 seconds. You want it to be somewhat runny like liquid. 

3. The reason I suggest small apples is because students will dip and roll their apple around in the icing container itself. There will be some spillage with the first apple, but not the apples following.

4. Place on the wax paper and let your student sprinkle away. TIP: Allow icing to set for a few seconds before adding the sprinkles, otherwise they will run right off. It doesn't take long for the icing to set, so the dipping process needs to be fast.

That's it! 

Your candy apples are done in minutes and your students will LOVE them!!! :) 

A great and inexpensive treat your kids can make for their Halloween Party! And kids especially love eating things they make themselves!

And now for a little non-related Halloween trick I recently came up with that has helped me in my classroom!

I just love these little book sets from Lakeshore and my students do too....especially the non-fiction ones with real photos. But keeping track of who read what has been a challenge for me. You see, my students will grab books from the boxes that they have already mastered! Like all students they like to make us proud and like to have success! Who doesn't, right? 

So they were getting books they had mastered and showing off to me how good they are reading! When I would say slyly, "Didn't you already master this book?" Of course they would reply, "No." 

So while very simple, It's WORKING! My problem has been solved. 

I had one of my assistants tape this little insert into each book and my students will now write their names here once the book is mastered. I'm also making them use pen now, so my little slicksters can't erase it. 

Since it's gently taped, it can easily be removed and replaced as needed or each year without ruining my books.

If you could use this organizing system for your little readers, download it for free!

You got your TRICKS, now it's time for your TREATS! Click on each freebie pic below to grab all three of your Halloween freebies!!

And if that's not a pretty great Trick or Treat, I'm also having a giveaway!!!

Win this flashdrive bracelet loaded with 5 products of your choice from my store!

Enter here!!!

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MORE!!!??!

Click on Miss, Hey Miss' Button for more!!!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

from

THE BENDER BUNCH!!!

SpEd BTS Blophop {Free e-book & Lots of Giveaways!}

Back to School is just around the corner for many! I know I say that rather fluently, but it is what it is I guess! I am in no means ready to go back! I'm leaving tomorrow for Indiana and once I come back, I'll have a little less than two weeks to get everything on my "summer to-do list" done and prep for my year! {GASP} Yikes is right!? Writing that made it just hit home people! I might be going into panic mode right at this moment! 

Well if you're feeling like me right now, I'm glad you're here. I have teamed up again this year with my special ed blogging buddies to not only bring you some fabulous giveaways, but this year we've also compiled an e-book for you! This e-book is loaded with freebies and tips from 25 special ed teacher/bloggers and will provide you with some shortcuts for starting your new year out! Click on it to download!

 This e-book is amazing...but wait! Before you get indulged in all of the awesomeness of it, hop around to all of our blogs and enter our giveaways! All 25 of us have a giveaway for you! 

I'm giving away a $25 TpT gift certificate to spend in any store you choose! Spend this gift certificate on any of your BTS wishlist needs! 

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Now click on the blog after mine and just keep going until you've entered all 25 giveaways! This link up will be displayed on all of our blogs to help you easily advance through the hop! 

An InLinkz Link-up

SPED Summer Bloghop {Week 4: Paraprofessionals}

 I hope you have been enjoying our sped summer blog hop! This week is all about working with Paras! Ahhh, a question many of us special educators struggle with! 

Some of us get lucky and get great paraprofessionals, and some of us aren't so lucky! I have experienced both! I feel very fortunate at this time to have two of the best aides I could ask for! But I've also had some bad experiences as well! 

One mistake I found I made when I first started teaching was not being a part of the interview process. Be a part of this process!

My school just hired people for the position as they were referred from the district office, and being a new teacher, I didn't know any different.

 My first year teaching at this school, I got an aide that could not stand germs, she couldn't stand stinky kids, and heaven forbid a kid draw back a fist and attempt to hit her. This lady was at the sink washing her hands more than she was working with kids! Really? That doesn't work in my classroom! My class consists of snotty nose, stinky kids that come to school unbathed and wearing the same clothes, and kids that hit, kick, spit, scratch, throw, and I even had one one year that would pee on you! 

I decided at that point, that it was time to get involved with the process! I went to my principal and requested to be a part of the interview process in the future and expressed my concerns. She was more than fine with it and was in fact pleased that I wanted to be involved. 

So this led me to come up with some tools to better prepare myself and prevent this from happening in the future! I knew she was transferring at the end of the year and that I would be getting someone new again. So I prepared some Interview Questions, a Paraprofessional Code of Ethics, and a Para Checklist for myself. Don't worry, you'll get to download all of it!

Here are my Interview Questions

I wanted to make sure that the applicant's I would be interviewing understood what my classroom was like and what they were going to have to deal with. Their reactions say it all when some of these questions are asked. It also gives them the opportunity to back out if they do not think they can handle the situations discussed in the interview. My principal even asked me if she could have a copy of my interview questions last year to use at an interview she was conducting for another teacher. ((Smiles)) 

If and once they were hired, I wanted to provide some guidelines and code of ethics to them, as one of my first aides had broken many code of ethics in my classroom....which was my fault because I was not prepared and had not participated in the interview process! So now that this was changing, I prepared this Code of Ethics that I go over with them upon their employment!

And then, to help me remember everything that I need to do to get them acclimated, I made a personal checklist for myself!

I have been using these documents for the last 3 years, and they have been very beneficial for me! I hope they will help you too! You can click on each one to download it for free! 

If you'd like to see how I utilize and schedule my paras during the instructional day, you can read all about that here.

I also use this communication log in my para's centers for them to write notes to me about my students....like aha moments, or something a child may be struggling with in the center, etc. I really love that I started doing this! It's been great and I also used it as evidence for one of my Professional Standards during my evaluation. 

And of course, what's a blog hop without a giveaway, right? 

Pin the very first image up top to Pinterest, leave your pin URL in a comment below, and one random winner will get to choose any item from my store! 

Thanks a Bunch!

Now head over to......