So the last few days I've been busy working to get my children's book, b and d are buddies, available on amazon for the kindle.  I have previously made a version of the book and had it available on Teachers pay Teachers it has been so far my best selling item.  Since it has been 3 years since making this version my computer arts skill have improved "a lot," and I mean a lot, a lot.  Take a gander at the difference of the pages below and you'll see what I mean.  

So since I've improved so much I wanted to redo all of the images for the book, and I'm so happy with how it has turned out.  

Oh and let me tell you getting the book into the correct format that Amazon wanted for the book was no simple task.  I mean seriously it shouldn't take longer to format the book then to write it and do the illustrations, right?

Here is a short list of what had to be done to get it ready, and this really is only part of the process.

• Each page of the book needed to be formatted into a web page.  
  
• I needed a separate styling page or css that contained all of the picture files and font placement for the book.
  
• I then needed to create another file called and opf file which had a completely new computer language. 
  
• Don't even get me started about the cover page.
  

So the result is that after a lot of frustration and headaches it's finally completed and I've accomplished a goal that has been knocking around in my head for the last few years.   

I have my fingers crossed that there won't be any problems when Amazon reviews the book.  When it's made available I'll post a link to the book on Amazon.  

And one more thing,  since I'm enrolling the book in KDP select which we'll make the book available for free for Amazon Prime members I'm not going to be selling the book anymore on Teachers pay Teachers.  

Here are three of my Pinterest finds today.  If you want to see more great pins check out my Pinterest boards.

Chapter 5 is entitled Walking the Walk, meaning you shouldn't be a hypocrite with your students.  If your teaching them to read you should actually read yourself.  Now I do walk the walk.  I love to read and I read a lot.  I'm what I call a binge reader.  I will stay up all night reading a great book and then not pick up another book for a week or two.  So some of the suggestions in this chapter like committing to a certain amount of reading per day,  I don't know how well that would work for me.  Setting a certain amount of time to read each day would make it seem more like a chore or something to check off my do to list,  (and I love my to do lists) than reading for the enjoyment of it.  But when I was reading this chapter and thought about my response I started to wonder if that's part of the reason why reading is seen as work than as enjoyable.

Now I am a big fan of having reading time set aside in the classroom.  I only began to like to read during my later elementary school years.  Before then I really disliked the time spent reading.  Of course after I started to like to read I loved the time.  The reason why I think that having Sustained Silent Reading or whatever you want to call it is because unless kids are given time they might never make that discovery.  

One of the suggestions in this chapter is that you also create your own readers notebook each year to have a record of what you read.  One year instead of having a notebook I used a new bookmark for each book I read and wrote the title on the back.  By the end of the year I was absolutely amazed at how many bookmarks I had collected.  

Reading this chapter has introduced me to a great blog about Children's Books.  Jen Robinson's Book Page looks like a great place to find out some great new children's reads.  You can also check out her 10 reasons why you should read children's books as an adult list.  

I've got a new collection of pig themed name plates for your students desks.  There are 4 name plates in this collection.  The pig characters I created a while ago when I was making a set of Spy Pig sight word games.  They turned out so cute that I wanted to use them again.  Since I've been making name plates recently I realized that they Spy Pigs would make a great collection of name plates so here they are.  

Each name plate has the months, days of the week, a number line and the alphabet.  

You can get them for free today by going to my student name plates page.  You can also check out my spy pigs sight word games.

I'm torn between the right to skip pages,  or the right to escapism.  The first I do all the time,  or rather I skip paragraphs instead of whole pages.  The second right is why I think reading is enjoyable in the first place.  

Please share what your favorite reading right is by answering the poll question above.  Finally I'll leave your with my favorite quote from this chapter.

If you liked my collection of President Student Name Plates you might want to get my set of President Clipart.  When you purchase the set you can use the images for personal or commercial use.  

So if you can use the images for your own teaching products.  All of the images are in png format.  If you want them in a different format you can contact me or leave a comment below.

The digital download is in a zip format so you will need to extract the files to use them.

I've got a new collection of name plates that would be perfect for your monster themed classroom.   In this digital download their are 6 different name plates for you to choose from.  

Each name plate has the alphabet, a number line, the months and days of the week.

You can get these for free for the next two days.  So on Thursday,  July 11 2013,  I will start charging for them.  You can get them in my shop or by going to my student name plates page.  

In other news I now have a teachers notebook store open.  You can go to the store by clicking on the Teachers notebook widget to the right.   - - - - >

I don't have all of my products loaded onto the store yet but most of them are.  You can also shop at my Teachers pay teachers shop,  right here on this website or on my Facebook store.  

Happy, Forth of July everyone.  I've been working very hard on a new project, and coincidentally I was able to finish it just yesterday.  So seems fitting that I release my President student name plates on the 4th of July.

Each of these name plates has a motivational quote from a President of the US.  They will be great for motivating your students not only to learn about the presidents but to build character and work hard in school.  

All 43 of the presidents are included.  There are only 43 because one president, Grover  Cleveland was the 22 and the 24 president of the United States.  

I've also created a new page on this website to showcase all of the name plates that I will be creating.  You can learn more about the President name plates and see more examples of them on that page.  Student name plates.

I'm cruising right along in my study of the Book Whisperer by Donalyn Miller.   This chapter was all about finding time to read in the classroom and creating a great reading environment.  

Donalyn's focus is on 6th grade and middle school.  Those of us who work with the younger ones know just how difficult it is to have them stay focused for such long periods of time.  If your included in that group I recommend that you take up time to build up their reading endurance.  A great way to do this is to start off, at the beginning of the school year, with just a few minutes a day and then gradually increase the time spend reading as the year goes along.  

I loved the authors suggestions about ways to find time for reading in the classroom,  even when your school district doesn't have time allocated for silent reading.  One of the times she mentioned that students could steal some time to read is during picture day.  Although that's just one day out of the school year, and I don't see how an activity on only one day will make that much difference in the reading outcomes of your students, I can testify that its great for classroom management on those days. 

I remember that back when I was a student teacher and it was about time for my kids to go and wait for their pictures, that I dreaded trying to find a way to keep them quiet in the halls for however long they would have had to wait.  As it turns out they had to wait about 20 mins because they had fallen behind from previous classes.  Luckily my classroom wasn't so far away from where they were taking the pictures so I had a chance to take my class back and start a read aloud.  When is was time to go out in the hall and wait again.  I had the students sit next to the wall and walked up and down the hall showing my students the rest of the pictures of the story. (We hadn't finished the book yet.)  I also asked them to try and figure out how the story was going to end only by looking at the pictures of the story.  

This technique worked perfectly and my class was so good in the hall that we even got compliments that they where the best behaved class that had gone through yet.  

Well, I guess that's all I had to say about the chapter.  I highly recommend that you read the book yourselves.