Hello Mrs Sykes

As a classroom teacher, I hate to throw stuff away.  The only exception is if I've accidentally watched a few minutes of the show Hoarders.   It has helped me to move in and out of my classroom this year - I've been able to let a lot go.  In my house, I now have a crazy insane amount of plastic eggs, and I need to get them out of here.  Here are a few useful ways to repurpose the eggs: 1.   Christina Bainbridge's Comprehension Eggs - I love, love, love these!  I actually send the list of questions home with my kiddos to use at home when discussing books. 2. Eggs Full of Sound - I put a variety of household objects in plastic eggs, and they have to find the egg with the matching sound.  Some great examples are: rice, screws, uncooked pasta, and toothpicks that have been cut in half to fit.  In NC, 2nd graders learn a lot about pitch, volume, and vibrations in science.  I give a basket of numbered eggs to each table and ask them to find the match and then describ

Whoo-hoo!!  I'm celebrating a few milestones with y'all today...  I reached a milestone in followers on this blog and in my TpT store , so I made a paid item free, just for y'all.  :)  Visit to download these for free! While you are at my TPT store , do a bit of fun Spring Cleaning - clean out your wish list!! I'm throwing a sale for 15% off everything at my TPT and TN stores on Saturday and Sunday. Enjoy!  Thanks for the a-dor-a-ble button, Krista !

I'm joining up with Latoya at Flying into First Grade for a super cute linky.   This week we are doing.......   The NOUN Game  (name your favorite person, place, thing, and animal.) Here are mine.....     PERSON My hubby.  We met 17 years ago, and got married 13 years ago.  My favorite thing about him?  He makes me laugh every day!  For me, that is huge!!  We also have 2 amazing kiddos. PLACE My favorite place is the beach.  I love to visit the beaches in North Carolina anytime during the year - not just summertime.  My favorite thing to do at the beach is sit on the sand, watch my kiddos play, and do absolutely nothing.  It is so relaxing, and helps feed my soul.  THING My favorite thing is also my favorite food - pizza!  If left to my own devices (and a closet of elastic-waist pants!) I would have pizza every day.  Well, I would shake it up every so often with a calzone, but I would  definitely  need to learn to love exercising if I wanted to sta

Today is the third day in my series to empower teachers, Supporting Struggling Readers in Grades 3-5.  If you are new to the series, or want to see what the hype is about, click on the button below to visit the other posts in this series . So far, you've created an Assessment Binder, made your list of struggling readers , and assessed Fluency . Our focus today is Comprehension!! Whoo-hoo!  Y'all know how much I enjoy Literacy, particularly helping teachers help their students...  Let's get started!!   Just a reminder from the other day:  We are going to engage in a bit of "Digging Deeper" with each student on your list.  We want to use this time to be a detective and find out why they are struggling readers. There are 3 main reasons the majority of struggling readers in upper elementary have difficulty reading: 1. Fluency - they take a long time to read and don't have the stamina to read for very long. 2. Comprehension -  they don't under

Today is the second day in my series to empower teachers, Supporting Struggling Readers in Grades 3-5.  If you are new to the series, or want to see what the hype is about, click to visit the other posts in this series . You've got your Assessment Binder, right?  That was your homework from Part 1.  If not, no biggie - you can get it together as we go.  The main part now is that you have your list of struggling readers .  This is truly important, because you are going to go through that list in a quick, methodical process to pinpoint an area of need. Our focus today is Fluency!! Can you tell I'm a Literacy geek?  Can you feel the excitement?  That's because it's time to get started!! Without giving you information overload, we are going to engage in a bit of "Digging Deeper" with each student on your list.  We want to use this time to be a detective and find out why they are struggling readers. There are 3 main reasons the majority of struggling rea

One of the most rewarding experiences I've ever had professionally was to work as a Literacy Coach in the upper elementary grades.  The main reason for this is that I was able to work side by side with teachers using an "I do.., We do..., You do..." approach.  First, a bit of background as to why this is important for professional educators: While literacy interventions are sometimes available for teachers in grades 3-5, they are often underfunded or eliminated due to budgets.  This leaves the classroom teacher in a difficult position.  Mainly, upper elementary teachers are given a "band-aid" approach (do these lessons with your struggling readers from the reading basal, send them to a specialist for 20 minutes a day, or haphazardly pull from different resources, all while progress monitoring them), but without giving the teachers the knowledge and tools to effectively help their struggling readers.  The assumption is made that they really should have learned

I've been pulling out my old files, stuff I made when I was working with grades K-5 as a Literacy Specialist, and I made some of them cute enough to share with y'all! Here's a Working on Words set meant for grades 3-5.  It's 18 classroom tested activities for students to use with any text you choose (their personal reading, fiction, non-fiction, or content-area passages) and practice many skills.  I went ahead and made this cute since I had such amazing feedback from my original  Working on Words packet for grades 1-2 , and I know how hard it is to find great activities for the upper grades!  Here's a quick look: Click here to view in  TPT   Want a freebie?  Click on the button below to download a freebie from TPT (Click on the Preview) : My next project should be finished within the week...  Since it's Monday, I feel like that's pretty attainable.  ;)    Happy Monday, y'all!  Here's a bit of inspiration I shared earlier today on my

I'm enjoying a bit of time away from school - it's one of my guilty pleasures that I have time off in strange spots of the calendar since I'm at a year-round school .  My daughter is on the same schedule I am, and we've been having girl time, painting nails: Check out the SPARKLES!  We'll see how long this lasts...  ;) watching movies: Love it!!  :) and taking naps: Source Also, I've been trying to tackle the dreaded To-Do list.  Really.  Not a whole lot has been accomplished from that list, but I'm making headway.  Here are links to a couple of TPT  projects that have been sitting in my "To Be Continued" folder for a lo-o-o-ng time...  Feels good to check something off the list.  Enjoy!! If you like the the Shades of Grey Chevron Papers I used, you can get your own here : And a quick confession for y'all... Source

Phew!  Am I the only one who felt that February just would. not. end?  I've got a ton of excuses for you as to why I've been MIA lately, but first I wanted to share what I am doing CuRrEnTly : If you haven't visited Farley yet, you should.  Fo sho.   I love, love, love a quiet house.  The kind of quiet where I can sleep as much as I want without mommy guilt, laundry, groceries, etc.  I can rest, read, and relax.  With everything that's been going on lately, my hubby and parents have treated me with this weekend of decadent quiet. The support I have gotten from my family and my friends has been amazing.  I had a recent health issue that required lots of doctors' visits, lots of tests (*not multiple choice!*), lots of stress, and lots of pain, all within the span of 3 weeks.  Tests are done, results are in, everything is treatable, and I feel much better!  My amazing hubby took over everything so I could mommy from bed or the couch.  We played tons of