Nightmares and Notebooks

Shhhh...I am supposed to be on vacation with my family and not blogging but I just had to jump on and tell you I had my first school anxiety dream last night. Have you had one yet? I am not the only wacko who gets these, right?

It wasn't the showing up to school naked kind, more of the wide awake at 2 AM with lists of things that still need doing rolling through my head kind. It was probably triggered by the email I read from my principal yesterday listing the zillions of meetings and trainings I will be required to attend rather than work in my room next week. Less than a week left of summer for me :-(

I am a planner and like to get things ready early. One of the jobs that always drives me crazy is labeling anything with student names because it has to be done as close to the first day as you dare. Do I go ahead and start labeling and hope there aren't too many name changes?  I used to type the names on the labels but it was inconvenient when I got a student change at the last minute to go in retype since I would have to print out a whole sheet of labels. So, I switched to making cute labels and doing all the sticking on the notebooks and folders ahead of time. Then I write the names in when I am feeling daring desperate.  If I was less Type A, I would have the kids write their own names on everything the first day but I'll be honest, I'm not there yet. What can I say, I am a work in progress.

I uploaded the labels I use for folders and notebooks and made a few more trying to anticipate what others might need and uploaded them to TpT. They are formatted for Avery 2x4 labels. Click {HERE} to save yourself some time and grab yourself a set.

I had a few requests to change the wording on my Decoding Strategies for Parents letter to make it gender neutral. In the letter I refer to the parents' student and saying he or she every time was WAY too wordy so I reverted to the old-fashioned he. My gut instinct was to use they but I was afraid other teachers might not like it since it really is a plural. After doing some research, it seems this continues to be a problem since there is no appropriate pronoun and my gut was right and using they is deemed acceptable. So, to make a long story longer, I edited the letter using they and hope those that didn't appreciate the he will be happy.  Click {HERE} if you missed my Decoding Strategies post and have no idea what I am talking about. Click the picture below to go download the revision if you already bought it (THANK YOU!)

 If you have not entered my MEGA GIVEAWAY you still have time! Click {HERE} to enter. You could be one of 24 lucky winners!!

I'm off to the beach but I'd like to giveaway a copy of my labels to a lucky follower so enter below and I will sneak on again later to announce a winner.

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