Fall Door Decor!

Happy Friday everyone! I'm hooking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching to share a Five for Friday! This week I've gone around my school and found 5 great doors for Fall! Door décor-on my campus it is a big thing! Each season teachers and parents work together to create many door displays for each season. Some are simple, some are more complex. Not every class does this, but it is always fun to check out the Pinterest and non-Pinterest displays. Here are some of the fall themed doors found in our building right now!

This door is very Pinterest.  In fact, it was one of three doors in the building.  It is adorable though!  

This cute door is across the hall from me.  The leaves have the kids names on them.  I like how the tree comes off the door and is on the wall.  

I think this door is great! Each pumpkin has writing by the kids in this class.  Yes, all those kids are in this class.  This is one of our co-teaching classrooms.  

This door is a"door"able!  The cute owl on the door is the teacher.  Then the VERY artistic mom in this room had the kids make those cute owls hanging on the wall.

Here's one up close.  I just LOVE these adorable owls.  I am going to save this craft idea for next year.  The owls, mountains, and other parts are made of foam.  The wood is paper.  LOVE these!  (I read my students Poppy and these can totally be a Mr. Ocax craft!)

This door is AWESOME!  I have to admit, it is mine! It is really awesome though!  My mom's worked really hard at it and it extends down the wall.  Each student has a picture on a pumpkin and the wall says, "Welcome to Our Patch!"  I just love it!   

So, there you have it!  5 Fall Door Decor that you can enjoy or try out! Don't forget to pin them to your Fall Pinning Boards to keep for later!  While you are there, feel free to follow me!  

https://www.pinterest.com/jsantello/

Why Every Teacher Should be Wearing LuLaRoe!

Hangin’ out today because I’m off due to Hurricane Matthew.  I figured today would be a great day for a 5 For Friday post.  I figured I would talk about IT!  Have you heard about IT yet?  Have you tried IT yet?  If you haven’t, this is your chance to win IT!!!  IT is LuLaRoe!  LuLaRoe is a clothing line developed by a woman who was raised in a household that valued self-sewn clothing.  A family who was looking for quality clothing that didn’t break the bank.  She was also looking for a way to help working  women who had too much to handle to constantly go shopping to look for those deals.  Within all of this, an idea grew to a business which grew into a brilliant ray of sunshine in many women’s  (and now men’s) lives!  Here we go with the 5 reasons you should be wearing LuLaRoe! 

                                                   QUALITY!  

As you may know, I sew.  Honestly, I don’t pay lots of money for clothing unless the quality is there.  I know what to look for after years of doing this myself.  The thing about LuLaRoe-this is TOP QUALITY for a very valuable price.  Let’s break this down.  Most really quality knit material runs about $12.99+ a YARD!  There are at least two yards in a pair of leggings, due to length.  That is $25.00 a pair if I were to try and make them myself.  Guess what you pay-$25.00 a pair!  Simply doing that math show’s the level of commitment to their price line.  Yes, they are making them for slightly less, but probably not a ton less! 

MATERIAL! 

It is like butter!  I am not kidding you!  The level of quality of the material allows it to be soft to the touch and   thick to cover! This is the real deal!  You don’t have to worry about skin showing through on leggings.  That’s the nicest part!  You are covered all the time!  And, like butter!  I’m not kidding!  They are the softest clothes I’ve every owned!

VARIETY!  

These are most of the leggings I own personally!  That's variety!  

LuLaRoe limits their items per material type!  I only have one pair of leggings that I’ve ever seen anyone else wearing.  That is because the company was still in the taking off stage and there were less people buying.  It is this pair of leggings. 

Notice my top, that is my PERFECT TEE!  The wind is blowing a bit, so it is swinging out.  Otherwise, I LOVE this top!  So, another way you can add variety is mixing patterns!  I’ve always been on the conservative side,  so mixing patterns was not easy for me!  But, I LOVE this variety!   And, that’s not all for variety!  There are so many wonderful styles and I haven’t even tried them all yet!   I haven’t even tried more than leggings, the tops, and my maxi’s (which I LOVE)!  Yet, the variety is there with dresses and skirts of all types!  And, with more variety choices, you can dress them up or dress them down!  Here’s an example of a dress-up leggings look. 

I have also worn my tiger ones with a red urma to football games at my son’s high school! My fun, swirly multi-colored leggings I’ve worn with my BB-8 t-shirt!  Anything goes! 

EASE OF SHOPPING!  

This is completely TRUE!  You can shop from the comfort of your own home, literally!  The consultants  post their products on their Facebook accounts.  There are many kinds of consultants, but I have to say, my main consultant, Emily Goodyear is the BEST!  Her site is super easy to use. You just enter her store, click on photos, got to albums, and there is all of the information you need!  She organizes her items in these albums by type-leggings, Nicole dresses, Sarah tunics, etc.   Once you are in the album, you can click on your size range and see what she has.  If you see something you LOVE, you type SOLD and your email.  She will send you an invoice to purchase and then send it right to your house!  AWESOME!  You can also host parties on your own personal Facebook or even at your house, if your consultant is close!  There are Open Houses where consultants open their homes so you can browse their stock!  This is all super exciting and super fun!  And, you look great too!

COMFORT!  

And I mean COMFORT!  Between the awesome fabric and the terrific style you might as well be wearing your pajamas to work!  I’m serious!  I look forward to Wednesday or Thursdays when I wear these outfits to school because I feel so relaxed and comfortable, like pajamas at home.  Yet, it doesn’t appear that way at all!  I look great!  Yet, totally comfortable! 

So, now you know about IT!  If you haven’t had a chance to experience LuLaRoe, here’s your chance!  Use the Rafflecopter below to enter the chance to win a FREE pair of leggings!  You need to use the sizing chart below to determine which size leggings you want to try for.  Then, enter the contest on that size!  Both sizes offer the same exact chance to win, so you don’t need to complete both Raffelcopters, only one!  I will then email the winner to get your address!   I will then send you your free pair of leggings!

**VERY IMPORTANT-YOU MUST LEAVE YOUR EMAIL ON MY FACEBOOK POST ABOUT THIS BLOG POST SO I CAN CONTACT YOU IF YOU WIN!**

a Rafflecopter giveaway a Rafflecopter giveaway

This contest is open to all.  These leggings are a random pair and will not be exchangeable for any reason.  If you do not provide your email address as directed in the blog post, there will be no way to contact you to mail you the prize.  Please be sure to do provide your email on The Best Days post on her Facebook account.  LuLaRoe Emily Goodyear VIP and The Best Days are not responsible for lost or damaged products in connection with this contest.   

A Little on The Littles

Great book deals!  I’m all about great book deals!  When my assistant principal shared last year that Scholastic was offering Dollar Deals I JUMPED on it!  One of the choices was The Littles.  I didn’t know much about the text, but I jumped right in.  For a $1 a book, why not!  Before I knew it, I had 20 hot off the press copies of The Littles in my hands.  I had every intention of reading it with my second graders, but, luckily, didn’t.  At the end of the year I found out I was teaching 3^rd grade. 

That is when my personal debate began.  Should I read this book with my 3^rd grade students?  Is the level of reading (J) appropriate for students at a much higher level?  This came down to a level of complexity.   Let’s take a look at why I decided to read this lower level book with my primarily M+ readers.  

This was the primary reason why I chose to start with this book.  Most of my students have never read a REAL book in their classrooms as a learning tool.  Readers are great, but the whole book experience is a totally different thing.  Students need to be trained across a text when using real literature.  Training requires time and focus.  If students are struggling with understanding the words and the events, then the training will be ineffective.  The reading level was perfect in this aspect. 

Let’s face it.  How in the WORLD are we supposed to teach some of these standards.  We have relied on the interpretations of  the book companies and other “experts” in the field.  Most of us don’t know these experts.  Plus, they are raising the Lexile levels to the point that students are struggling to understand the information.  I thought I would attack this in a different way.  I brought in the higher order thinking and paired it with the lower text level so that students can understand  what the standard is trying to teach.  With this text we focused on the structure of the novel, Standard 5.  We were able to track story events throughout the reading.  This would have been very difficult to do if I just handed them a plot diagram.  This would have been very difficult if we just read a single story from our text.  Instead,  we charted this “fever” with the use of a thermometer.  

We were able to discuss how “fevered” the chapter was, causing us to look deeply at how the text was building chapter by chapter.  We discovered when chapters were helping us to bridge or connect ideas instead of providing a dramatic plot event.  As a team, we worked through this process because a simpler texted provided us with the opportunity to examine complex standards. 

Here's how I used the chart to complete the plot diagram.  

This text also allowed for a quicker read, utilizing time to the positive.   Students could examine the text with depth and complexity, but also retain the information for comprehension reasons.  Honestly, I had some of the best written responses for examining a character across the scope of a book that I’ve ever had!  

These responses were well structured, covered the character changes, and were dead on!  This, I feel, was because time was used well.  Characters could be viewed clearly and in a time period that allowed students to understand who they were and how they changed. 

Overall, I’m very happy with how this study came out!  It was amazing to see students grab hold of this text and the skills and work through them in a way that will stay with them and allow them to grow even more as we examine more stories.  Yes, I have strugglers, but that is normal.  However, we now have a mentor text that I can refer to that all students understand and will remember!  After all, the all said, “NOOOOOOOO!” when we finished the story, together, as a class! 

What do you think?   Do you have any other ideas or suggestions to add to this idea?  I’d love to hear about them!