***Jackpot Y'all***

Ok, let me start this by saying I didn't literally WIN the jackpot at Vegas or the lottery... but boy, oh boy do I feel like I won the TEACHER JACKPOT!!  Monday I had professional development & it was one of the most rewarding ones I've had the opportunity to go to....... not in the sense of what I've learned, but in what I've received before leaving!  So.... what is this that I received?!?!?

No!  It is not JUST a lunch box..... It is what's on the inside of the box that is exciting!

The PD I went to was called iLearn.  I left the training with 2 new ipad minis for my classroom, earphone splitters, 2 stylus crayons, a dongle to hook it up to my computer/document camera, and a cleaning cloth!  Not to mention the ipads came with the cases too!! Ekkkkkk I spent hours exploring and learning about new apps yesterday! I'm thinking of sharing some of these fun apps soon!! :)  Can't wait to get these bad boys into my kids hands to help aid their learning!!!

In addition to this..... Did you know that Staples & Office Max have already started their BTS sales?!?!? Seriously?!?  I took FULL advantage of Office Max's sale during my lunch break Monday!!

So I left with 20 red braded folders, 20 bottles of glue, 9 packs of papermate mechanical pencils (MY ALL TIME GO TO PENCIL that are usually $5-7 a pack!!!!), 2 boxes of sharpies (because I have a weird obsession with sharp tips & don't want to wear out the supply in our workroom), 3 packages of expo markers, oh & some new stickies for my pop-up apple sticky holder!  I was able to get ALL of this for a whopping $20 bucks!!!  My plan is to hit up Staples today and try to get some penny erasers because I swear my kids eat those things!!!

Today I'm going to share something that has been a staple in my writer's workshop! 

Drumroll........

What is this you ask?  Well it's a little something we call editing crayons!  Genius idea, it was shared at a special professional development group that I was asked to be a part of this past year!  It is a group made up of 2nd grade teachers from all over our district that come together to discuss balanced literacy and how to effectively and appropriately implement it within our classroom.  Apparently, there were still MANY people not implementing the approach of balanced literacy at all...... EKKKKKKK.... nails on the chalkboard.

Anyways.... Let me tell you a little about these editing crayons!  They are magic...simply MAGIC!  I implemented them mid year & can't wait to start the year off using them!  Basically each crayon stands for a different step of the editing process.  As you can see from the picture above, each crayon is labeled.  When you introduce editing crayons you DO NOT introduce all of them at once.  I would teach about one crayon for probably a good two weeks during my mini lesson in writer's workshop.  Keep in mind that I would initially do one or two mini lessons on it and then just refer to the specific color during the lessons of the next two or so weeks.  I would also periodically review the color in future lessons as students needed reminders.

 Here is picture of one of my pieces of writing after introducing & using the editing crayons!  Please excuse my inventive spelling.  It was a teaching point when I initially wrote this little diddy. 

With this idea, the editing tool {pictured below} came to creation when one of my co-workers, Diana, and I put our heads together! 

This tool is just to help reinforce and guide students as they begin using the editing crayons.  My kids LOVED this!  My plan is to make it to our media center at some time and make a GIGANTIC one to use with my chart paper!

I've put together a little packet with all this info.... a little more in depth with 5 mini lesson suggestions, the management of the system, the editing crayons, the editing tool, and an editable version of the crayons!  You can grab the pack here!