I made some multiplication manipulatives for my classroom and my friend's. It took me maybe 20 minutes and I just know it is going to help so much when I introduce the concept of multiplication. 

My poor TPT store has been sitting neglected for months as I struggled to survive my first year as a third grade teacher. The past two days I have uploaded two things! One free, one paid. Sadly I don't have pictures because I can't print them. I went to Walmart to buy ink this morning and ended up ordering it on Amazon as I stood in their ink aisle. Yikes it was so expensive! So now I just have some newly purchased AstroBright paper patiently waiting. Sigh.

This game came to me in the shower like most good thoughts of mine. It's for fact fluency and I named it Fact Fight. I made my husband and son play it with me on these barely visible copies I'd printed. It was pathetic. 

I can't wait until I get actual, useful pictures! 

So I bought this organizer on clearance at Target. 

I've seen some people using it as a close reading toolkit and thought that was really cool. Then I had the idea to use them as a Literature Circle kits and then wouldn't let it go. So I decided to make cards with each of the jobs we use in lit circles. And I used GLITTER and uploaded them as a freebie. I'll make the whole kit soon and upload. 

Last, I've been updating my blog here! I was craving a simple layout and found this one at ThemeXpose. If you can install it yourself, they have tons of free templates. It was super easy to customize. I made my new header using a free program and it was done! (No picture necessary here, right?)

Now I'm off to link up and read some blogs!