What a month

I'm not sure about this new year.

One teammate found out she had an incomplete miscarriage and another found out her mom has cancer. Again. For the third time.

My extremely visually impared student has lost his glasses. And will not be getting a new pair.

BUT...
I designed party invitations for my niece who is turning 7 and she called to say she loved them because they were so pretty.

My Muse tablet showed up after only 2 business days (additional software will be here by Thursday).

My January sales almost match my sales for all of last year.

It's hard to believe that things I design and use are in classrooms out there. It's like I'm helping to teach an extra couple of hundred kids long distance. Pretty cool.

This year might turn out okay. Maybe it will even snow.

Yeah!!!

I was drawing clipart, and wishing I had more control, so I started looking at drawing tablets with a stylus. I found a combo pack on amazon that included drawing software and cartooning software. And then I remembered my email for 1000  thankyou points off a $100 gift card for amazon. And then I bought it.

My 7 year old is an amazing pencil and colored pencil comic book artist. He has created four "A Man" comic books, and he wants me to post them online for him. How cool would it be if he became comfortable with digital art at 7? What a future. He has a great sense of humor, and it's not always just 7 year old body humor.

So in about a week I will be trying something else new. I'll keep you posted.

P.S. Congratulations to the 28 people who snagged my freebie yesterday. Enjoy!

Freebie Friday TODAY

"Winter Ending Blends" is up on my TpT store for free today. Please visit and leave feedback! http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Tamara-Barbour

I started to play with making my own clipart last night. I am very excited. I made a star, two flowers, and a chocolate bar. I was thinking about trying some story clip art, like Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, or Stellaluna. It's going to take a while, but it would be fun.

Freebie Friday

On Friday, from about 6:30am-8:30 pm EST, I will have "Winter Ending Blends" on TpT for FREE. I've updated my "Autumn Blends" to include more vowel combinations, silent letters, and multisyllable words. My little guys are moving along!  I told you first!

Hello Home School Parents!

I've decided that there must be some homeschool community that likes my soil activities.  They are my best sellers, and people are buying them in clumps. It makes me feel bad for my other products:(

There was an oil leak in our intermediate buiilding yesterday, so we had off school again. MLKJ, oil spill, and all 2 hour early dismissals because of high school exams. One of my students really didn't believe me when I told him that tomorrow was already Thursday. Not being in school on regular planning days makes the next week harder.  Two of my teammates were out, so that left only two of us for the planning. I think we did pretty good staying focused for a change.

Earlier this week I posted some secret freebies for the first 10 downloaders on TpT and TN. I forgot to mention it here. Sorry! Next time I'll remember.



"A Trip to the Emergency Room" is a sequencing game with three events at a time, and "New Beginnings" works on prefixes for higher second grade-third grade students.  I hadn't made an answer key up for my parent volunteer, and he had a hard time!

I also posted the rainforest and desert alphabetizing that I mentioned a while ago.

Getting Ready for Spring!

I've posted a St. Patrick's Day repeated addition/beginning subtraction game, and am working on sentences for a set of 5 grammar games with a circus theme. Linking verbs, helping verbs, irregular verbs, and then contractions. They are turning out pretty well.

Our technology at home increased exponentially. Laptops and Kindle, I skyped upstairs with my 7 year old downstairs. Why write a thank-you note when you can tell them to their (screen) face? After homegrouping, all files belong to everyone on whichever device we're on. Amazing.
I brought home my next teacher's guide to start working on skills for Unit 4 of Treasures. I want to get a little ahead so I can enjoy winter.