Educational XD XD

I'm so excited to link up again with  Miss V's Busy Bees  and  Mrs D's Corner  for the Back 2 School Linky - Week 2! This week is all about... ASSESSMENT! In case you've missed the schedule, here's what we're talking about each week to get you ready for Back To School! We all know how important assessment is, and we also know how sometimes it just takes... forever. You know like when your PLC has a set aside a day for you to make assessments, and then you sit there with your team and by the end of the day your eyes are bugging out from all of it... maybe that's just me?  Well, regardless, I decided to go ahead and make my own quick math assessments so that they'd be ready to go whenever I needed them. I created short, 1/4 page assessments for every 2nd grade math standard.  You can check out the freebie in my TPT shop. When copying, I only need to copy 6 pages and quickly cut them out. (I'm thinking this year I might actually go ahead and copy ALL o

I'm linking up with Kelly and Kim's Kreations for Markdown Monday!  Today I'm putting two of my word problem resources on sale. My school has pushed a big focus on problem solving, especially with the different problem types listed in the Common Core. The hard part for me: making sure I was teaching all of the different types of problems!  So I've created... The Word Problem Pals ! This is 6 sets of task cards for practicing the different problem types.  Let me show you some of the problems. This set of cards practices the start unknown problem type. In your purchase, you will receive 2 sets - one within 20 and another within 100 (great for differentiation!) Set up for these problems usually looks like this:  ? + 5 = 12 This next set shows change unknown. Again, in your purchase you will get a set within 20 and another within 100. These problems are generally set up like this: 6 + ? = 13 The final sets are comparing problems - these were the trickiest for my kiddos! Se

I'm so excited to be linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for my very first Five For Friday!!! Here's a little peek at my week! At the beginning of the week I went to the Dollar Tree and snatched up these reusable lunch containers. They are absolutely PERFECT for organizing base 10 blocks! I have 5 tables of kiddos in my room, so I ended up purchasing 10 containers that way each table can share two during a lesson. I am loving  this organization. It's going to make using these so much easier!  My husband and I live in downtown Lexington and decided to walk to dinner one night this week. The weather has been amazing - 70 degrees and NO humidity... in mid-July!! Anyway, we walked to this cute little restaurant and decided to eat outside. After sitting down and looking at our menus for about a minute, we looked over and realized about a hundred yards away was a community yoga & meditation class! We had a good laugh... and then proceeded to Google when the next one was hap

I'm so excited to link up with Miss V's Busy Bees and Mrs D's Corner for the Back 2 School Linky! It's all about getting ready for B2S with tips, tricks, and advice on all sorts of different topics!  Here's a look at the weekly topics we'll be sharing. This week's topic is all about... Behavior!! And don't worry, I've got a freebie for you if you make it to the end of the post! :) #teachersloverewardstoo Some days managing behavior seems a little bit like this: We've all been there, right?  I'm here today to share with you a few of my favorite behavior management tricks that will hopefully help you survive "those kinds of days". The first trick... DUCK BUCKS . I teach with the amazing Brianna Price from The Price of Teaching , and she is the creator of this fabulous tool.  Duck Bucks is a very simple classroom reward system that is used just like money. Duck Bucks come in $1, $5, $10, and $20. I give them to students as a reward f

I'm linking up with Tara for my very first Monday Made It post! Today I wanted to share with you this little hope chest/bench that my husband and I bought at a used furniture shop for $75. We hated the cover (obviously - it's disgusting). Before purchasing we figured we should see just how simple or not  simple this would be. It turns out the cushion is simply screwed to the inside. I wanted to change the color of it, and we thought spray painting might  be a total disaster. We decided to give it a go anyway. :) We bought 4 bottles of white spray so that it would match the other furniture in our home. Turns out the spray paint works! It didn't look runny or cheap and it went on like a gem! While it dried, I picked out some fabric to cover it. It was actually very simple to do. I have become best friends with my staple gun that my dad bought me! I now feel like I can reupholster anything! (side not - turns out other reupholstery projects are quite difficult). Anyway, after I

Today I want to share with you how in the world I plan to live (successfully!) without my teacher desk! This past year I had a teacher desk. It was huge. It was heavy. It was AWFUL. I bargained with my principal to get a kidney table in my room, which I did finally get. However, they wouldn't take the big, bulky teacher desk out of my room, so I shoved it up against a wall and got over it. (Well, I tried to get over it - but I hated it.) I resolved to keep it clear and actually use my desk since it was going to stay in my room. But, who am I kidding? It collected papers, books, and weird stuff the kids hand you because they think you want it. "No, Johnny, I don't want that random scrap of paper you found on the floor. Just go throw it away. Henry, no I don't want your boogers. Please go get a tissue." ( the boogers really happened...) It all (besides the boogers) ended up on my desk. Did I sit at my desk? Absolutely not. It actually kind of stressed me out just t

Let me start by saying - Hello, AGAIN! In January I began this little journey through TPT, blogging, Facebooking, and Instagramming, and I tried to do it all. I was crazy enough to think that I could start all four of those. Epic FAIL. Soooooo, I'm giving myself a fresh start! Some of you may know me already, but I'm Katie from Simply Creative in KY. I'm headed in to my 4th year of teaching 2nd grade at a little school just outside of Lexington, and I work with the BEST people ever. Here's a little snapshot of some of us celebrating the end of the year. I've been married for 3 years, and I have the most supportive husband on the planet.  He's been so encouraging as I've started my little TPT shop, and he's been my biggest advocate to get my butt in gear when it comes to blogging! For over a month now I've been telling him, "I'm going to start blogging again, but I just don't know what to say!" So one day my husband texts me, "C