Of Educents?!

Seriously, I was in the dark for ages about this website.  They are like Groupon, or other sites like that but better!  They are all about the teachers.  Lots of AMAZING deals with resources and things just for teachers! Seriously go check them out.

Click on this photo to head to the website.

If you head there from this link here and sign up you will get a 10% discount on your very first purchase (Make sure you tell them I sent you to get this discount).  There are always amazing free deals going on, and some of the things you can find will already be discounted by sometimes up to 70%!!!!!

Wow.

Disclaimer - While I will earn some future discounts by referring you to this site, it in no way impacts on how awesome I think it is!! Seriously, check it out you won't be disappointed.

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Erin Taylor

Hey everyone!! Well it is well and truly Sunday in this part of the world, but that is okay by me!  It's been a busy weekend, with family and friends heading to the cold south of Taupo for my baby sister's 21st birthday party!

Last week Miss Nelson challenged us to look at perspective when taking our photos.  So I got outside with some of the kids at my school and had some fun on the playground.

Head over to Run Miss Nelson's got the camera! to see some more Saturday Snapshots from this week.

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Erin Taylor

As teachers we are already a wee bit crazy.
We spend a good chunk of our time, energy, and money on the children in our class each year.
We spend countless hours organising wonderful lessons so that the children we teach will all be motivated, excited, and interested in what we have to say.
We buy our own professional development materials, and complete these readings, workshops, and conferences in our own time.

And most of it goes thankless.

When does enough become enough?  When do you move from feeling like it will make a difference, to just pushing the proverbial up the hill?

This week was book week at my school.  I spent countless hours organising people to come in and read to our kids, creating competitions for classes to do, and planning activities for classes to work through this week.  And no one did anything.  It was a huge waste of my time and energy.  How much effort is too much?  When all this preparation and planning was for the kids, and motivating them to read and write, when do you just pack it all in?

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Erin Taylor

I don't like always going on about my TPT store, but I do love when people have sales/discounts on their awesome products.
So I'm torn...

Ok I'm over it!  I'm offering up a great deal for you wonderful people right now! Not only am I giving you two of my favourite products at 50% off, but I'm also having a sale too!!  So you will get a massive extra 20% off EVERYTHING in my entire store! (Sale runs 24-27th June)

These are the two items I'm offering up at 50%

Synonym Scrolls

And Blooms Reading Task Cards

Check them out, grab the bargain, and remember that wonderful feedback!  Also remember that you earn TPT credits towards future purchases when you leave feedback!

Happy shopping!!

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Erin Taylor

I'm quite an open book, so this link up post was actually quite hard to write!  I'm still trying to rack my brains trying to think of three things that I've not already put out there...

While I'm thinking, head over to the Teaching Tribune and see what others have told you for their Monday Meet up this week.

There are always a whole lot of awesome bloggers who link up and let us know what is going on in their world.  I love it because I can always find so many great ideas/people to follow.  It's wonderful!

1 - I can do about 9 different accents... and I can hold on to a couple of them for an entire conversation.

2 - I'm all about the chicken! Chicken classic subway, grilled chicken from pita pit, chicken korma if I'm having Indian, or Panang curry with chicken for Thai.

3 - The only time any one notices is if they take me to a party... Otherwise I've successfully faked it for long enough!  When I left home to go to university, my youth pastor told me that on my first day I should walk into the halls of residence dining room and announce my presence like this "Hello I'm Erin, and I'm here!"  Loudly mind you.  So I did... Little did I know that there were only three of us who moved in that day, and everyone else came the next day!  I got a reputation for being a loud, open, outgoing, confident person from that second onwards, and no one believed me when I was shy!  Since then it's kinda stuck, and now is almost my actual personality... Hence the name of my blog actually!!  I'm forever learning to be awesome.

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Erin Taylor

Oh boy am I excited that this linky is back! This is by far, my all time favourite linky, and I am SOOOOOO happy it's back.  Not only because I love taking photos and sharing them, but also because the photos that Miss Nelson takes are SPECTACULAR! Seriously, you should go through her whole blog, particularly those Saturday Snapshot ones, and take a look.  I really need to take some photography lessons, because mine are terrible in comparison!

Never the less, I'm linking up today!  (Although I left my camera at school because this weekend is crazy busy!  Big mistake... Ah well)

Ok, so this has been a crazy busy week.  I've got a leadership role at my school where I take all the student leadership groups.  This includes student council, sports leaders, and a few other things.  One of the major things that falls under my role is Book Week. Someone asked what that is, well it's a week we celebrate everything about books.  Reading, writing, authors, characters etc.
I've sent probably 200 emails in the past two weeks inviting, booking, and confirming people from the community to come into school and read to our kids.  Here's to that going off without a hitch!!  We have 20 classes in our school, and I have enough readers for every class (except mine) to have two readers each. Some people are reading to more than one class though.

And now on to my photos of the week... Well just the ones that are on my phone.  I will be better for next week, that is for sure!

Totally proud of my sister.  All American, and she's not even American!! haha

And she's pretty good looking too

And then there's my other sister who turned 21 yesterday.  She's pretty good looking too.

Our school gets given trees when we recycle.  We've earned 10 trees so far this year.

So Thursday morning some of the classes went out in the cold rain to plant them.

Where we live the weather never gets all that cold.  Most of our kids are Pasifika (From the Pasific Islands).  So our Principal shipped in 8 tonnes of "snow" for the kids to play in and experience the coldness!! 

Here are our 11-13 year olds waiting for their turn (in shorts, tshirts, and jandals for some of them! (flipflops)

It was very much like brown slush by the time we got there, but they still had a blast!

And then they got silly, so us teachers had a turn

While the kids watched, we threw snow at each other (and them!!)

And tried not to break our necks!

I was the only teacher who had seen real snow before!!

So it was exciting for us too!!

And then today I spent the day with some of my favourite girls from church and we got our nails done.

Here are mine!!

Now I was supposed to draw this yesterday, but I got home at 5 and was asleep by 520pm last night!  So here is the winner of my Synonym scrolls based on a random number draw - Well done Katie!! I will be emailing you shortly!!
For those that missed out, head over to my store and check them out!  In honour of my two sisters being pretty darn awesome I've put my whole store at 20% off for the next 2 days.

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Erin Taylor

I really can't contain my excitement much longer... Soooo much cool and exciting stuff is happening over the next couple of weeks.
I'm just going to list them to start off with

• My sister, who has been living/studying in Oregon for the past 4 years gets back to New Zealand on Sunday. I haven't seen her since January 2nd, 2013
• My other sister turns 21 in the morning!! Happy birthday Baby Bear!!
• All five of us (me, two brothers, two sisters) will be together again for the first time in about 4 years next weekend
• Tomorrow I'm taking 30 kids to a combined schools choir rehearsal
• THEN IT'S GOING TO SNOW!!!!  More about that tomorrow... Trust me you wanna come back
• Next week is Book Week - I've organised it this year and it's all coming together nicely!
• It's nearly the weekend!

Oh my gosh that is a lot to celebrate!! And chances are I've forgotten something!!

Come back tomorrow to find out the AWESOME thing my principal did (well, is going to do!!)

And find out who won a copy of my synonym scrolls.  Check out this post here for a bit of a giveaway!!

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Erin Taylor

So my kids really struggle to use a thesaurus effectively.  They take forever to even find the word they want to change, and then waste time choosing the one they want to swap out.  Yes it's important to teach them how to use a dictionary and a thesaurus, but sometimes, their ideas are squashed when they can't find the right word to use quickly.

Several years ago I made this resource that uses some of the most commonly overused words in children's writing, and found some synonyms that could be swapped out.  Along came the synonym scrolls.  I'm adding it to the Monday Made it list!  Make sure to check out everyone else's "Made its" over at Fourth Grade Frolics. (I will add some photos of the scrolls in action tomorrow!)

My kids LOVE these fans.  They are colourful, easy to use, and durable if you laminate them!  The version I'm using has lasted me about 5 years now!
I've updated the graphics and colours, and they are now on sale in my TPT store for a bargain at only $1.50. Grab them now.  I will be updating them as I get time, and find other well overused words!!

To use,
1. Print, laminate, and cut out.  It come in colour or B/W, so you can choose how to print.
2. Combine in ANY order by pushing a split pin through the black dots
3. Use at your writing centre, or during independent writing time.  You could even use them during your writers workshop!

Click the picture to head to the product listing on Teachers Pay Teachers

This is what each scroll looks like

Once you print and laminate, simple push a split pin through the black dot and you are ready to go!

Comes in Black and White also for those who have printing restrictions

And now you can win a free copy!  Tell me below what some of the words that your students over use are. I will choose a winner at random on Friday!  You can also earn an entry by sharing the product on pinterest, or instagram.  Just tag me (@learningtobeawesome) or comment below with your link.

And now it's 11:10 on a Monday night and I have a busy day of school ahead of me... Better get to bed now!

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Erin Taylor