TPT Sellers Challenge MASTERPIECE

I have FINALLY finished my TPT Sellers Challenge Masterpiece! I don't know why it took me so incredibly long to finish it, but it's finally done!!

I am so excited about finishing this product! I designed it to fit perfectly in the beginning weeks of the year in kindergarten. It would also work in pre-k as well as for first grade RTI groups.

This Masterpiece has consumed my life for so many days now! I have been hard at work adding Literacy and Math centers you can use during the first few months of the school year. This packet contains 12 different activities, 6 each for Literacy and Math. This is a large packet, with almost 300 pages!

I included a Table of Contents so you could get a brief description of each activity as well as which page the activity starts on. Each activity in this packet focuses on the Common Core Standards for Kindergarten.

Math skills include counting up sets and matching numerals, sorting and graphing dessert data, finding number partners of 5 and 10, Play-Dough mats to create sets of candles for a given number, and Easy Reader for counting and color words, matching numerals to numerals, and matching shapes to real world objects.

Literacy activities include reading CVC words and finding a matching picture, identifying letters by name and sound, sequencing the letters of the alphabet, creating sentences that focus on number and color words, reading and writing simple sight words, matching up letter buddies and beginning sounds, and identifying and counting syllables in words.

One of the activities included is 'Shape-cakes Puzzles' where students must match up the top of a cupcake to the bottom based on matching shape and real world item pictures. There is also an assessment sheet (or quick check) for every single activity. This activity has students cutting and gluing real world items to match shapes, and then tracing and free-hand drawing simple 2D shapes.

A Literacy activity that is included has students reading simple CVC words on cards, then coloring in the matching CVC picture on the recording sheet. The quick check included in this activity has students reading the CVC word and gluing the matching picture next to it!

I worked really hard on this packet and tried to include enough activities for you to differentiate for you kiddos those first few months of school. There are way too many activities in this packet to show them all to you, but know that this packet is chock-full of activities to help you through the beginning of the year!

I chose a dessert and snack food theme, since starting a new school year is always sweet! These activities should easily integrate into whatever units or themes you do at the beginning of the year, and soon I will be creating lessons on literature books that fit with this theme!

You can WIN ONE before they are available in my TPT store! I am currently waiting on my awesome friend Jill from Chevron and Centers to edit my Masterpiece and then I can upload it! While we're waiting, I thought it would be neat to raffle off a few! Two lucky winners will get this entire packet, stuffed full of activities to help you through those first few months! Just enter using the Rafflecopter below! I'll choose TWO WINNERS this weekend!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Don't forget to swing back over to see who else has completed their Masterpiece!

Please don't forget that you can still link up for Spotlight Saturday! It's a Teacher's Show and Tell where we can showcase our favorite products, activities, resources, and ideas! Come shine your Spotlight and introduce all to something for the classroom that you love!

Five for Friday

I really love this link up of Doodle Bugs Teaching!! Five for Friday is a great way for me to recap my week!

Let's take a look at what I've been up to this week!

I had my 6th round of laser treatments on my ankle this week. There has been so much improvement since the very first time I went, and each time it gets a little better! The doctor wants to schedule some more treatments and see how my ankle responds. 

I'm most excited about being weight-bearing again! I can FINALLY put weight on my ankle, for the first time since the accident in January. I have to use my walker and wear my brace, and I'm oh-so-slow, but I am able to walk again!! I practice walking with the walker by going up and down the hallway, trying to build up that strength so I can be strong enough to not need to walker anymore!! :-)

My sweet niece got her 16 month pictures done this week. She is so stinkin' cute!! Even better, she is my sister reincarnated!! I LOVE watching my niece give the same attitude my sister did! It's crazy how much of a carbon copy my niece is to my sister!! If my mom were still with us, she would definitely say my sister deserves Lilly!!

I'M HAVING A SALE!!! I'm a little bummed that, because of my ankle, I can't got do any of the fun 4th of July activities. I won't be going to any cookouts or carnivals, no beaches or fireworks. So since I'm stuck on the couch, I decided to celebrate the holiday by having a SALE!!

Come on over and stock up on all sorts of amazing products that you can use this upcoming school year! Help me celebrate the holiday!!

I have been working SO HARD on my TPT Sellers Challenge this week! This week we are to showcase our Masterpiece, and mine isn't quite finished. Thank goodness this challenge is a week and a half instead of the normal week! I will be done very, very soon. NO. MATTER. WHAT. Can you tell I'm ready to be done with it? ;-)   I already have an amazing friend that I have paired up with to edit my Masterpiece. My bloggy bestie Jill from Chevron and Centers is going to be my editing partner! She's so awesome, I know she'll do an amazing job!

Since I don't have my Masterpiece to share yet, I wanted to share with you an update on my TPTSellersChallenge!! I have been keeping track of the numbers all week, each week, instead of just at the beginning and end of the challenge.

Here are my numbers for the first three weeks of TPT Sellers Challenge. I have been lucky enough to see an increase in all areas, which is really awesome! Several of the areas have jumped up by A LOT, too, which is so great to see!! I am also excited to have reached several goals and milestones that I set for myself! I can't wait to celebrate those accomplishments with you as soon as the TPT Seller Challenge is over! Something fun to look forward to!!

Finally, I wanted to touch base with you and share how my Freebie Feedback Challenge is going. If you read my last Five for Friday post you remember that I am challenging myself to leave feedback for every freebie I have downloaded from TPT.

This is what I started with. Whenever I download a new freebie, the number in the blue boxes goes up. Whenever I leave feedback on freebies that I have downloaded, I add those numbers to the green boxes. Finally, I subtract the green from the blue to get the number in the purple boxes, which is how many freebies I have left to leave feedback on.

Here's where I am as of today. I have been trying to leave feedback on freebies at least ten times a day, though there are days where I don't make that goal while other days I exceed it. I think it's neat to see my progress so far. It's pretty cool to see that I have left feedback on over 100 freebies so far!! GO Me!! :-)

Thanks for recapping my week with me! Swing on over to Doodlebugs Teaching to see how else has linked up! I love getting to read about all my favorite bloggy friends!!

Don't forget to come back tomorrow and link up for Spotlight Saturday! In this link up you can showcase your favorite products, resources, activities, and ideas! So many wonderful things have been shared, from detailed planners to fancy handmade paperclips to incredible TPT products! I have learned so many new things, I'm so excited to see what everyone has to Spotlight tomorrow!!

**Credits**
Clipart - Creative Clips, Glitter Meets Glue Designs, Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Da
Fonts - HelloFonts Commercial License
Lettering - Dancing Purple Crayon

TPT Seller Challenge, Dare to Dream

My final blog post for today (can you believe I wrote THREE posts today??) is for another amazing linky that I found. Thank goodness for so many link up parties this summer, they really keep me on my toes and give me something to look forward too! This link up is hosted by Third in Hollywood, Sparkling in Second, Teach Create Motivate, and Peppy Zesty Teacherista. These incredible ladies are hosting a super-fun Summer Link Up that, unless you have zero access to any form of social media, I'm sure you've heard of it. The TPT Seller Challenge link up is in Week 2, and I'm loving every week!! Week 1 was Makeover Madness, where I gave my very first TPT product a HUGE makeover! <click here to read all about it!> This week, it's all about Dreaming Big!!

This week we get to share the dreams we have if our TPT Store ever explodes into something incredible and amazing. I have lots of small goals for my store: get to 500 followers, find a way to improve my sales, add more products to my listing, advertise it better. However, I really don't think about the Big Dreams because they seem so very far out of reach for me. But, it's fun to dream right? And this link up gives us the chance to Dream Big! So here goes!!

If my TPT Store ever becomes what I want it to be, I have some big dreams to fulfill! First off I want to build my dream house! Everything I've ever wanted in a house would get added in. Multiple bedrooms, one of which I would turn into my very own office space for creating and scrapbooking. A master bathroom with a shower so big it needs a bench, and an Infinity tub with a rain forest shower head, just because they are awesome looking. Fireplaces all over the house, because there's nothing like sitting in front of a roaring fire. A wrap-around porch complete with rocking chairs and porch swings. A backyard with a custom-built pool that has a water rock slide and real sand, a garden full of blooms and butterflies with a screened in gazebo, a Treehouse Masters creation, and the perfect spot for a hammock. I would have so much fun designing my dream home, and I'd never want to leave!

If I could, I would travel all over the world! I have never left the East coast, and it's always been a dream of mine to travel! I would get an awesome RV to travel all across this country, visiting every state and learning something new! I'd go on a week long Disney cruise then spend another few weeks at Disney! If I could, I would travel so much during the summer that I was rarely home!

To be debt free, how amazing would that be?? To no longer have to make a student loan payment, car payment, credit card payment...that is an incredible dream!! Someday it would be so awesome for my TPT store to make these dreams come true!!

Click on the picture below to head on over to Sparkling in Second Grade and see who else has linked up to share their dreams! You can link up, too!!

Also, don't forget that you can still link up with me for Spotlight Saturday! Come on over and Spotlight your favorite products, resources, activities, or ideas! Read about my Spotlight of Facebook freebies and an incredibly amazing blogger T-shirt deal from A+ Images, Inc.!!

Makeover Madness

Happy Wednesday everyone! If you teach in my district than today is officially your last day of the school year! Yay, you made it!! Have an amazing summer!! I know that many of you are out of school and some of you have a few days left. Hang in there, summer is so close!!

One of my favorite things about the summer is all of the amazing link ups that various blogs are having! I love all the different topics and challenges! Since I can't walk or do much of anything, these link ups are helping me to stay sane and keeps me involved with our blogging community. The link up that I am writing about today is being hosted by Sparkling in Second, Third in Hollywood, Teach Create Motivate, and PeppyZestyTeacherista! This amazing link up is the TPT Seller Challenge!

Here are my stats for the challenge. My numbers are pretty low, so I have a lot of work to do! I've had my TPT Store and Blog the longest, going on three years now, and those numbers really should be larger. I'm hoping this awesome challenge helps to make them grow!

Week 1 Challenge is Makeover Madness! This is a chance to go back to one of your older products and give it a makeover. Some people just updated the cover and others updated the entire product. I decided to update the entire product.

This product is special to me because it is the very first product I ever created and put in my TPT store. This is a FREEBIE, and was my very first Featured Freebie! Like many creators, we have had facelifts for our products on our To Do Lists for a while now. This challenge gave me the extra push I needed to redo those original products.

In my Before product, I can't believe how different my style has become! Here's what I didn't like about my Before:

I made it in WORD!! I'm not really even sure how, since I have used PowerPoint for so long I can't even remember how to work things around in Word!

Every font and graphic in my Before is a freebie I found! The fonts are from Word and created in WordArt, which is why they're all swirly. 

Nothing pops!! How boring is that cover?? And the number words...yawn!!

The recording sheet didn't even have a border!! GASP!!!

I'm SO GLAD I gave this product a makeover! I am really liking the updated version so much better! Here's what I really like about my After:

The cover POPS! It's really colorful and eye catching, plus it gives a bit of a clue as to what the product is (see the kids holding clipboards?).

I LOVE the new letters for the number words as well as the sparkly leaves for my kinders to count.

And of course I had to make a new recording sheet! The border totally fits with the theme, too!

I am oh-so-grateful for this link up and the push it has given me to makeover my original products! Now I want to completely redo several other products, especially the ones I have made in Word or Notebook. Wow, I have come a LONG WAY since I started this journey almost three years ago! It's so interesting to see how much my style has changed, and to come to terms with the incredible extent of my clipart addiction!!

If you already have this freebie of mine, PLEASE go back and redownload!! If you need a copy, click on the image below to head over to my TPT Store and snag one! Please, please, please follow my store while you're there! Just click on the green star under my name!!

If you want to read about who else is making over their products make sure to click on the image below and head over to this link up!

P.S. - It's not too late to link up with me for Spotlight Saturday! Come shine the Spotlight on one of your favorite ideas or resources!!