Thursday, March 14, 2013

Let's Get Acquainted Linky Party!


Alrighty! I have been trying to connect with fellow bloggers and TPTers so I am linking up with Latoya Reed over on her blog flying into first.
This link up is all about getting to know me better so buckle up... my full name is Nicole Christine Holmes... NCH.


N is for neurotic! Seriously, I am very self-aware so let me be the first person to tell you that I have quite the tendency to have tunnel vision and might obsess over non-important/trivial things...often. At times it can be hard for me to multi-task in two or more categories in my life. This is hard to explain because if the tasks are related/micro...I am great at doing things simultaneously. BUT! if you ask me to create a super cute unit and clean the house (or even do a single load of laundry) in the same day it will most likely not happen in the same waking time span.  Does anyone else suffer from this extra crazy form of time warp?

C is for crafty! I might be able to attribute this quality of mine to my particular taste and quirky style because for as long as I can remember it has been hard for me to find decorations, artwork, clothes, (the list goes on) that totally satisfied me, so I started creating certain things from scratch a long time ago. I like things that are just ugly enough to be whimsical and genius! 
When pinterest first launched I thought someone had hacked into my dreams or answered an unspoken prayer because I had been keeping clips, recipes, tutorials and magazine pages in binders for years.  The organization of them was horrendous and I rarely found what I was looking for when I needed it! 

H is for humorous! I love to laugh and I love to make other people laugh. The things I find especially funny are usually very inappropriate and not suitable for a teaching blog, but I can say that a good poop joke gets me every time.  The funniest people in my life are probably my sister and AJP...these lovely ladies totally get and feed into my inappropriate and usually uncalled for sense of humor.  



Glad we could link up! Make sure to check out the linky party! Happy Thursday!

Happy Teaching, Cole! 









Grammar Boot Camp: 8 Parts of Speech and 16 Language posters! Limited-time FREEBIE!

Well hello! It has been a while since I posted anything new...but its because I have good news!! Last week, I had an interview for a coaching job and I GOT IT! Like most teaching hires I was called on Tuesday, interviewed on Wednesday, fingerprinted on Thursday, and held tryouts for the 7th grade boys Volleyball team on Friday! whew...quite the whirlwind!

So needless to say, I have been super busy planning practices and re-shifting my brain into volleyball mode...but I couldn't be happier. (actually, if I were teaching full-time I guess I would be happier...but landing a job after December graduation is tough, right?!) But even with the cra-cra going on in my brain... I have managed to get these grammar boot camp posters done and am working on really fun games to accompany them. Y'all might have to wait til' after Mexico for those puppies...making fun/efficient games is super time-consuming!

Below you will find a link to these military/army-style grammar boot camp posters. There are 24 posters in all and cover the 8 parts of speech and 16 language and grammar topics: noun, verb, adverb, adjective, pronoun, preposition, conjunction, interjection, sentence, comma, colon, semi-colon, personification, hyperbole, homophones, simile, metaphor, onomatopoeia, suffix, prefix, alliteration, synonyms, antonyms,  and proper noun!
I have to give my coop. teacher credit for inspiring these posters...I remember her mentioning that she halts all mini-lessons for a week and gives the kids a review of all the parts of speech and language- crash-course style! Loved the idea...and it has been on my short list for a while.

IN ORDER TO GRAB THIS FREEBIE:  all you have to do is: follow my tpt store by clicking here, (this also gives you the chance to get a $25 TPT gift card every month), and then leave a comment at the end of this post with your email address and I will email you the pdf asap!

The first 25 commenters will get the entire bundle of camouflage/military/army themed grammar boot camp parts of speech posters for FREE!










Hope you enjoy these!

Happy Teaching, Cole


Monday, March 4, 2013

$25 TPT Giveaway!

Alright, so after my crazy little rant... I am here with good news! I would like to get a few more followers on TPT (because I only have 6), as we all do...so I am throwing a monthly giveaway for my TPT followers only.

All you have to do is follow me on TPT  by clicking here and then clicking on the star to follow me and that is it.  If you don't have a TPT store then you can start one here, Teachers Pay Teachers has some awesome free and paid resources for the busy teacher.
You will know you are following me when you see the star and "following" when you're on my page! 

Then around the 21st of each month I will send you an update via TPT which will ask you if you want to enroll in that month's giveaway. ( It will literally take you 5 seconds) Then at the end of each month I will randomly draw a name from one of my followers...probably using rafflecopter or some other fair random number sorter and the winner will be chosen! I will then get in contact with you and email you your gift certificate!
Your gift certificate will be a legit one from TPT...but you get the idea!!

It's that easy...and that simple! I will also be putting all of my units on sale for the first 24 hours they go live, so this will give you an in to a sale if you are interested in a new unit!

Hope I didn't scare everyone away with my rant! And I hope this giveaway starts a new circle of friends on TPT!

Have a great night everyone!!


Happy Teaching!

-Cole

Saturday, March 2, 2013

FREEBIES! St. Patrick's Day Literacy Centers and Candy Land inference game!!

Happy early St. Patrick's Day!  I love St. Patrick's Day because it means that spring weather is near and its an excuse to eat salty meat and drink green beer, but this year it means that our last-minute getaway will only be 4 days away! So with that in mind I am on a serious diet and have been staying in and working hard on some fun spring-time units :)

For this bundle I included activities covering homophones, the "big 4" parts of speech, simile + metaphor,  visualizing, dialogue and inferring!

I'll start with the freebies this time around... these simile and metaphor posters are yours to download and come in 8 1/2 x 11 and in mini versions that could be laminated or glued into an ELA journal etc for later reference.
Skip on over to TPT for this freebie!!


hop on over to TPT for this freebie!
St. Patrick's Day Candy Land inference game with 20 inference clues...Print and Play! 
St. Patrick's Day bundle: 6 Literacy Centers with Posters



St. Patrick's Day inference mini posters & full-size


St. Patrick's Day homophone activity 

St. Patrick's Day figurative language activity 

St. Patrick's Day Mad Libs
St. Patrick's Day Parts of Speech Activities
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/6-St-Patricks-themed-literacy-centers-w-Candy-Land-inference-game
St. Patricks Day Comic Strip teaching dialogue 

I hope you find some use for these! And keep checking back for weekly freebies & updates!

Follow me on TPT: teacherspayteachers.com/store/nicole-holmes

Happy St. Patrick's Day and Happy almost Spring!! 

Happy Teaching! 

-Cole