100 Follower Giveaway: Get ANY Item from our TPT Stores FREE!!

   100 Followers!! Yay!!!!! We just want to thank all of our loyal followers for being so fabulous!  You have all been so sweet and supportive and always have great things to say about all of our teaching ideas and resources.  So we want to reward you by giving you things for FREE! 

     THE FIRST 15 PEOPLE TO DO THE FOLLOWING WILL   
         GET ANY  1 ITEM FROM EITHER ONE OF OUR 
          TEACHERS PAY TEACHERS STORES FREE!!

 1) Follow our blog

 2) LIKE our Facebook Fan Page

 3) Visit both of our Teachers Pay Teachers Stores and pick 1 item you want for FREE!
4) Comment on this blog, tell us what you want for free, and leave your email!

Here are some of our best sellers on TPT! Click on the TPT buttons below to visit our TPT stores.

 

 

                                    Beth's TPT Store                           Katie's TPT Store

 

One Lovely Blog Award and 100 FOLLOWERS!!

    So...there are pretty much no words to describe our excitement!!  We've literally been blog stalking our own blog for the last 3 days (pathetic I know...) because we were at like 90 followers and now, the time has come.  We finally have 100 FOLLOWERS!! Yay!! And...to top it off, we just received another award from Mrs. G at Ms. G in Grade 3.  She so graciously awarded us with the One Lovely Blog Award.  So go check her out at her fabulous blog. But seriously..two awards in one week! Wow! We are so blessed and grateful to all our fellow bloggers for these honors.  And we have something great coming up for all our readers in celebration of100 followers, so stay tuned! Thank you for supporting us over the last few months as we have begun our journey through the teacher blog world! We have enjoyed every minute of it and learned so much from all of you.  God Bless!

     Our Nominations for the One Lovely Blog Award......

We will get to this ASAP! :) We promise...

Carolina Bloggy Meet Up in My HomeTown??! What?!

  Calling all Blogger GRITS (aka Girls Raised in the South)!!  This is the best news since McDonald's made Large Sweet Teas $1...we're having a blogger meet-up in my good ole hometown of Columbia, SC!!!  I have to say, when I read this post on 2nd Grade Shenanigans I almost peed my pants.....like really.....I'm not kidding.  Katie and I always read these posts about all of these big time bloggers (and when I say "big time" I mean the ones with like 3,000 followers) meeting up in Vegas or New Jersey, etc.  And I always feel so left out.. :(  We kept saying, "Geez!! Why are there no bloggy meet-ups around here in the South??"  But alas...there is!  I'm smiling inside right now as I write this.  Anyway, if you're a blogger from SC, NC, GA, etc. come out to (unknown location TBA) and meet up with us on Saturday, September 15th in Columbia.  More details to come from 2nd Grade Shenanigans!  Yay!
   - Beth (Very Excited SC Blogger!!)

Newbie Blog Hop

   Can I admit that I'm kind of addicted to Linky Parties now?!?!  At first....I have to say.... I thought they were ST*PID (first grade teachers aren't allowed to say that word, you know?). But....now that I've kind of seen the usefulness of them, they really do help you to find out about new bloggers and collaborate on important topics to teachers.  So here I go with another one!!  Katie and I started blogging just 6 months ago and are still technically "newbies," so I thought we'd link up with Janis at Grade Three is the Place for Me and share a little about us!!

     1. What state you are in
            Beth - Columbia, South Carolina
                  Katie - Augusta, Georgia

We are proud GRITS (Girls Raised In The South)!!   

    2.  Your current teaching position

            Beth - 1st Grade (This coming year will be my 2nd year at the school I'm at.  I've been to 3 different schools in 3 different districts in 5 years, so I've truly seen it all!  Whew! I hated moving so much, but I've gotten to meet great teachers and have learned A LOT about different curriculum and different styles of teaching from district to district. Hopefully I'm here to stay...)

                  Katie - 1st Grade (The school I'm at is the 2nd school I've ever taught at.  I moved to the school I'm at now when it first opened, so it was really neat getting to start up a whole new school and be involved in decisions made about how it would be run.)

    3.  Your teaching experience

            Beth - This coming school year will be my 5th year

                 Katie - Ditto (we graduated from college together, remember) :)

    4.  When you started blogging

           Beth & Katie - We started getting addicted to the teaching blog world at the end of   last year around November/December and then started talking about maybe starting out own blog. (I have to admit...we kind of idolized Cara Carol from The First Grade Parade...We STILL just don't know how she does it all! Basically...we're just a little jealous of her mad crazy awesome teaching ideas and super mom abilities! haha).  We made a goal to have our blog up and running by the first of this year, but we didn't really know what we were doing at first....so it took a little longer.  But basically in January 2012 was when we started.  Boy have we come a long way since then....whew!!

    5.  Share a blogging tip / blogging resource

          Beth & Katie - Basically, if we don't think it would be useful to others and beneficial to others' teaching, we don't post it. That's generally our rule of thumb.  Of course, we post SOME "fun" personal things every now and again, but overall we like to post tried and true teaching ideas and resources that we actually use in our own classrooms, post pictures of things we have made, do giveaways of our new units, etc.  If you've read our blog mission statement, you know that we're not into "fluff."  While we love a good craft every now and again around the holidays, we make it our goal to thoroughly teach the standards in an engaging and creative way!

We got a Blog Trophy....kind of!! :)

  

    The Versatile Blogger Award is finally ours......muahahahaha!  Just kidding....but we are pretty darn excited about it!  What an honor!!  Thank you so much to Tangled With Teaching for giving us this wonderful award. (Go check her out by the way...she's got a great blog and is quite the world traveler!!).  
     Now comes the best part...our nominations for other bloggers who deserve The Versatile Blogger award too!!  Drum roll please......and the WINNERS ARE....

1) Lizzie at A First Grade Fairy Tale

2) Independence in Learning: I Do, We Do, You Do

3) Brittany at A Day in First Grade

4) April at Wolfelicious

5) Nicole at Kinder Confections

6) Randi at Teach It With Class

7) Lauren at The First Grade Diaries

8) Hope at 2nd Grade Shenanigans

9)  Primary Practice

10) Heather & Juli at Simple in Second

11) Taylor at Baking Crafting & Teaching Oh My!!

12) Mrs. Tabb at Another Day in First Grade

To these lovely ladies who we've nominated, click the picture above to grab your 

Versatile Blogger Award Button!!  Congratulations!!

As we nominated each of you, we have followed all of your blogs too, 

so we'd love for you to follow us as well and each other!  

Blessings to you all and keep up the great work! 

Love, Katie & Beth

  

Top 5 Teacher Must-Haves Linky Party!!

 I just came across Rachelle over at Life is Sweet..in Kindergarten and just had to join her Top 5 Teacher Must Haves Linky Party!  I love sharing my favorite teacher tools, gadgets, and goodies!!  Here are mine. :)  Feel free to join in. I love hearing about other things I need to deplete the joint checking account for add to my teacher wish list.  Blessings!!

Teacher Must Have Item #1:  Mr. Sketch markers for making colorful charts

Teacher Must Have Item #2:  Rotating Utensil Holder A.K.A. Pampered Chef Tool Turn About

(It's supposed to be for kitchen tools, but it works great to hold markers, pencils, glue, scissors, etc!! It's got 3 tiers so it holds a TON of stuff!  I am a Pampered Chef Consultant, so if you want one, feel free to order one from my website.  It's really easy and Pampered Chef will ship one right to you!) www.pamperedchef.biz/bethbanco
 Just click "Shop Online" 

Teacher Must Have Item #3:  Plastic Book Bins from Target

(I use these for organizing my student library, as you can see.  But I also use these to organize my teacher read-aloud library. I love them because they are the PERFECT size for books....not very wide, but deep.  I organize my books by which comprehension strategy I use them to teach, so when I'm doing my unit on "Inference" I can just go to the Inference basket and all my books are there!)

Teacher Must Have Item #4:  Student Mailboxes for Filing Papers

(PS...if you're in the market for one of these, DON'T get the kind with cardboard inserts.  I know the wooden ones are more expensive, but trust me...you'll get your money's worth out of them. The cardboard ones are cheap and flimsy and fall apart with the least bit of paper weight.)

 

Teacher Must Have Item #5:  REALLY USEFUL BOXES from Office Depot 

(I use the smaller size of these to store the kids crayons in.  For my first two years of teaching I about pulled my hair out with the whole crayon thing.  Those flimsy paper boxes aren't worth a flip, they fall apart, crayons fall out the bottom, the tops come off, and first graders just can't handle keeping them tidy.  And because I'm an OCD freak, I decided to spend the $2 apiece to buy them these boxes and it is the BEST THING I HAVE EVER DONE!!  As soon as they bring in their crayons at the beginning of the year, I dump each kid's box into the Really Useful Box.  The handles just flip over on both sides and I have yet to have a kid spill crayons on the floor!  Crayons last 10X longer now! Yay!!

 Best investment ever.... They also make skinnier longer ones you could use for markers too since Crayola makes those in flimsy paper boxes too.... :(