Five For Sunterday? And A Giveaway!!

I have been so involved in watching the Olympics that I kind of forgot about anything else (grooming, eating).  So, I'm a little late in doing this week's Five for Friday, but I have a lot of fun things coming up.

1.  This weekend I spent about an hour and a half loading up Girl Scout Cookies for our local division.  This was my first experience with this, and it is amazing how the leaders have this fine-tuned!  So, there are about 45-50 troops in our division who took part in cookie selling.  Troops come in 15 minutes intervals.  They check in and then drive up to the first stop:  Thin Mints.  They are first because they are the most popular so it is easier to fit them into the cars.  Some troops needed 3 cars to pick up all of their cookies!  When our volunteering was done, we picked up our cookies.  Here is our troop leader, our cookie mom, and me (brown coat, gray boots) with our haul.

2.  Yesterday was our park district's annual Daddy Daughter Dance.  The hubs took both of our little ladies out for the evening.  Dinner, dancing, and fun with friends.  The girls came home exhausted, but had a great time (the hubs too)!

I know I'm biased, but seriously, how cute are they?

This one has me concerned about what she will be like in college!

Little does anyone know that she has on her bright orange and gray tennis shoes on (no joke)!

3.  I am in the process of updating some of my products.  I know that I don't have that many yet, and not a lot of variety in them yet.  However, after having used them with students, there are some changes I have felt that they needed.  If it is anything major, I am letting all my followers know.  I am also trying to update graphics.  I mean, come on, those Melonheadz graphics just make everything cuter (especially the ones with the missing front teeth)!

Old Cover ........

New Cover!

4.  We are in the process of Benchmarking (using the Fountas and Pinnell Benchmark Systems) every student in our building.  I know what you are thinking, "Yeah, big deal, we do that too!"  The big deal for us is that teachers are doing most of the testing themselves.  They received training from our district and now they are trying it in their rooms.  Each grade level has a week to test and I "shadow" them the first day to make sure that they have the hang of it.  It is a big change for some of our teachers, and I have to say, they are taking it on and doing fabulous.  Not only that, but many have said that they are very intrigued by the results that they are getting.  I love that they are seeing the value of it, but I am drowning in data!!

5.  Today (February 9th) is my forty something mumble, mumble, grumble birthday.  As much as a I hate getting a year older, I love being a year wiser.  The experiences from this past year, have taught me a lot.  So, in celebration, I am having a giveaway for all of my new and old (just like me) followers.  Enter the raffle below for your chance to win a $25.00 Teachers Pay Teachers Gift Certificate.  Raffle will end at midnight on Friday, February 14th.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Because I fully believe that a birthday should be a week (if not longer) celebration, I am continuing the celebration all week long.  Everyday will be something different, from Flash Freebies to Comment Winners.  It will help if you follow me on TPT, Bloglovin', and Facebook!

                      

Well, time to get ready to tackle the work week!