TpT Cyber Monday & Tuesday

If you haven't heard, Teachers Pay Teachers is having a HUGE site-wide sale!  I am giving 20% off my entire store.  On top of that, use promo code CYBER to get an additional 28% off at checkout.  Click HERE to visit my store and save!

Teachers Notebook 3-Day Sale

Check out Teachers Notebook 3-Day Sale November 30-December 2!  You can also Build your own Bundles!

I'm having a SALE!



Teachers Pay Teachers was excited to announce yesterday on their Facebook page that they reached 100K followers!  To celebrate they are offering an extra 10% off if you use FB100K at checkout.  Their offer ends at midnight tonight.  I also decided to hold a sale.  I am giving 20% off today and tomorrow!  So... pick up some new activities and save $$ at the same time. :-)

Favorite Free Fonts & How to Install Them

Yes, I'll admit it... I am a fontaholic.  I LOVE fonts and how they can make a big difference in the way a document  or presentation looks.  So today I'm going to share with you my favorite fonts, where to get them and how to install them.  This is something I get asked quite a bit, so I hope you find this post useful.  My favorites are shown below.  These are the fonts I turn to over and over when creating activities.

 

Click on the links below to take you to the download page:

Baby Boston

KG Lego House

Smiley Monster

Archistico

Miss Smarty Pants

KB Dunk Tank

The Blue Cabin

Passing Notes

Miserably Lose

KG This is Not Goodbye

Markus the Cow

Simple Kind of Girl

Annoying Kettle

KG Behind These Hazel Eyes

 

 

Installing Fonts on a PC:

After clicking the link, save the file in a location on your computer, such as My Documents.  The font will download as a zipped file.  To unzip it, double-click the folder and click and drag the fonts out of the folder to your desktop or another location.  Next, open your Control Panel by clicking on Start and finding Control Panel on the right side of the menu.  Open the Fonts folder.  Drag and drop the fonts file into your Fonts folder.  It will copy into the folder and be available in your software programs to use.  Voila!

 

Installing Fonts on a Mac:

Right-click on the font file you want to download and choose Save Link As.  In the Save As screen, choose a location to save the file and click Save.  Open Finder and where you saved the file.  Double-click on the file name.  It will open the font and show all of the letters.  Click on the Install Font button at the bottom of the screen.  It will add the font to the fonts file and be ready to use in your software programs. 

*Note - If you don't have a right-click button, alt option and click on the file or use two fingers to click on your touchpad.

 

**Note - If you have a program, such as Word, open when you install a font you may need to close the program and reopen it in order for the fonts to show in your list.

 

Happy Creating!



Tomorrow's the Big Day

Well, it's time to say good-bye to summer and hello to a new school year.  I have to admit, it's been a great summer and I'm going to miss it, but it is always exciting to start anew.  As a technology integration specialist, I love finding and creating resources for my teachers.  This year, I have several new goals, including this blog.  I hope to add tons of ideas and resources here for my teachers and for you!  Make sure to follow my blog so you don't miss out on a thing. I hope everyone is having a great start to their school year.  Now, I guess it's time for me to get ready for my first day tomorrow.  "Talk" with you soon. :)

It's a SALE!

Have you heard the news??? 

TpT will begin their BIG Back to School site-wide sale in just a few hours and I can hardly wait!  There are sooooo many awesome resources on the site you can get to start your school year off right.  And... yes, my store will be participating in the big event, too.  You will be able to get anything from my TpT store for 20% off... then use the promo code BTS13 at checkout for an even bigger savings ---- 28% OFF!  Now that's a sale!!!  The sale is only on for 2 days... August 18th and 19th.  Click on the graphic below to rush right on over and start shopping!

 

During the sale, get my latest products for back to school:

Newsletters for the Year! - 44 Seasonal Themed Newsletter Templates

Literary Genres Bulletin Board Set and Activities

Place Value to Hundreds (SMARTboard Math Lesson)

and so much more!

Happy Shopping!!!

Look What's New... Newsletter Templates!

You may have noticed I've been a little MIA lately.  I have been having a great summer and just spent the last week at the beach with my family.  And... this coming week is "Girlfriends Week" so I am headed back to the beach tomorrow with some of my favorite teacher peeps... YAY!  I am really looking forward to my last fun week of my summer break before heading back to school on the 19th. 

In the meantime, I worked a little at the beach last week and finished my latest project - a set of newsletter templates.  44 to be exact!  That is enough to for a different weekly newsletter for each week of the school year!  I am really excited about the way they turned out. :-)

Each newsletter is completely customizable.  Change the dates, title, section titles, text, etc.  You can also change the fonts and their sizes.  In addition, I included links to the free fonts I used and directions on how to download and install fonts on your machine.  In case you are trying to come up a cute title for your newsletter, I also include lots of title ideas!

The newsletters are seasonal themed with backgrounds and clipart representing the month and seasons.  Below are the months and themes included with the number of templates per month:

The themes included are:
August – Back to School (4)
September – Back to School and fall (4)
October – fall leaves, pumpkins, Halloween (5)
November – harvest, Native Americans, Thanksgiving (4)
December – winter and Christmas (3)
January – winter, ice skating, snowmen, penguins (4)
February – groundhogs, Valentines, hearts (4)
March – lion/lamb, rainbows, St. Patrick’s Day (4)
April – spring, April showers (4)
May – flowers, butterflies (4)
June – summer, beach (3)
July – 4th of July (1)

And here is a look at a few samples of the templates:

 

 

 

 

 

Interested?  Pick up my newsletter templates on Teachers Pay Teachers or Teachers Notebook. 

I'll end this post with a picture from my family beach week.  I hope you are having an excellent summer! 

Blogging Tutorials

This summer I decided to learn more about blogging and work on improving the look of my blog.  I was thrilled to find these great tutorials.  I learned how to create my own background and I am loving the new look of my blog.  I hope you like it too!  They have lots of tutorials on ways to improve a blog.  Here's where you can find the tutorials if you want to learn more about blogging, too!

I'm Having a Sale!

In honor of this great summer I'm having a Flip Flop Sale in both my TpT and TN stores!  Check them out for 15% off all of my products from July 21-26 at the TN store and July 21-24 at the TpT store.  I hope you are having a great summer, too!

In honor of my summer sale, I am giving away my newest product "Literary Genres Bulletin Board Set and Activities" to one lucky winner on the Giveaway page on Teachers Notebook! This chevron themed bulletin board set and activities is perfect for your classroom to teach your students about fiction and nonfiction genres and to use as a reference in your library. 19 genres with descriptions are included in 3 different sizes as well as student activities and a game. To enter for the giveaway, click on the Deals/Giveaways tab at the top of the page, then click on View All Giveaways.  The giveaway ends tomorrow night (July 23) so hurry to enter!

Look What's NEW!

I am so excited about my newest creation on Literary Genres!!!  Several years ago when I was teaching 3^rd grade I created a bulletin board that resembled a graphic web of the genres to help my students learn about fiction and nonfiction types of literature.  It was very basic looking so I decided to spruce it up some.  It ended up turning into a bulletin board set of 3 different sizes as well as an advance organizer, a sort for students, a concentration game, Bingo boards and reading slips!  Wow!  I guess I got a little carried away.  

The set includes a bulletin board set in 3 different sizes.  The large size is full page and has the genre name and description.

The medium size is half page and has the genre name on one half page and the description on another half page.  One way to arrange this on a board is to fold a piece of cardstock in half like a card and glue the genre name on top and the description on the inside.  Students can lift the “flap” to read the description. 

The smallest size is the perfect size for book bin labels.  They have the name and description on separate labels.  

I’ve also included an advance organizer for students to glue in their reading notebooks, some bulletin board ideas and book slips for arranging the genres and slips.  

4 Reading Bingo cards are part of this set.  Use them monthly or quarterly for students to keep track of which genres they have read.

Students can complete the Genre sort and play the concentration game!  And as a special thank you for checking out my blog, I’ve included the Genre sort as a FREEBIE!

You can purchase the full product in my Teachers Pay Teachers or Teachers Notebook stores.

Thank you SO much!

Sherri

Bloglovin

I just joined Bloglovin to follow my favorite blogs.  I'm lovin' it already!  Check it out and follow my blog with Bloglovin !

Fractions!

It's been a while since I've posted.  I've been a little busy enjoying my summer break and taking a breather from school stuff. :)  Before break began, I spent some time working with my division math gurus on a fractions committee.  Our focus next year will be to improve our fractions instruction.  I will be spending some time this summer creating fractions activities and I can't wait to share them with you!  Be on the lookout for new activities soon. 

Prezi Presentations

Love, love, love this web 2.0 tool for creating presentations!  Prezi.com is an online tool that allows you to create presentations on a single canvas that zoom in, out and around ideas.  They are constantly improving and adding to the tool and have many templates you can use.  I have created Prezis with students in 3rd-7th grade and they love the fresh look and feel!  It is an easy to use program and they learn it quickly.  Check it out -- http://prezi.com/

Welcome!

Welcome to my instructional technology blog.  I am finally taking the plunge and diving into the blogging world!  Here I will post ideas and resources for you to use in your classroom.  I hope you will find lots you can use. :)