How do you keep your data?

Laura at Kinder Kraziness is having a linky party about how everyone keeps all of the great ideas found here in blog land saved.

I think this is a great topic and if you are keeping all of your data files saved on just your computer I can say from experiance you must save this information on some type of storage device other than just the computer .

I still save things on my computer at home and at school but I keep a copy of everything on a flashdrive. The one I am using now is a 1g and it is full. I am planning on buying a new flashdrive that is at least an 8g soon. I am hoping some will go on sale with the back to school sales.
Oh and to just share for a moment the reason I say that I know from experiance to keep your data backed up and I just need to say make sure that you are saving it correctly and that you aren't just clicking save. The reason I say this is because I was, I kept the books for a school before I became a teacher. I was the school secratary / nurse / attendance / etc. (you get the picture). Anywho I had been using a computer system and each day I pressed save and thought that I was saving all of this information I had put in that day. Well in April of the school year my computer CRASHED! So I lost all of the data I had put in from July until April (the fiscal school year is July - June of the following year) I was lucky that I had paper copies I could use but I had to re-enter all of the information for almost the entire school year:o( It was a very sad and stressful time). Long story short no one had correctly shown me how to back up the information and to save it on an external hard drive. You can be sure I found out real fast how to put this informaiton in and save it correctly.
If you are not sure how to do this ask someone it can save you a lot of heart aches.
So share how you keep up wiht the great ideas you have found onthe internet.

Best of Luck
Penny

Freebie

I guess it's time to get back to my blogging! I love teaching but I work during the summer and don't have much extra time, but it's getting close to time for school to start back and I am on the look out for some great, inexpensive / free ideas to use this year.

Donna over at Peace, Love and Learning has a really great FREEBIE!!! So go check her out.

I try to do one big party for my class near the end of the school year to celebrate all of the birthdays. This way we are celebrating those summer birthdays.

How do you celebrate birthdays in your classroom, I would love some great ideas.

I have some great finds from Target Dollar Spot (love) that I will post about later. 

Exciting Find! !

Well many of you may already know this but I just found out that Dr. Jean has a blog! Just click on her name and it will take you to her page. I haven't had a chance to check it out yet but I am sure it will have some wonderful information!


I hope everyone is enjoying their summer break. I have been out for about two weeks and my brain is on break for now :0)

TPT - Update

I was finally able to get a few things last night before I went to bed.
It was after 10:30 but then it only took a few minutes. 

I hope everyone else was able to find some things. Lucky for us several of the sellers extended their sales.

TPT

Ok I have been trying to make some great purchases on TPT and uggggg is all I can say! I really wanted to get in on the great deals and just now the screen says TPT is doing scheduled maintenance double ugggg. Just wondering why they would schedule maintenance on a day like today?????  Did anyone else have problems?

Teacher Appreciation Week

There are some great things going on this week!!! Just wanted to share a post I saw on facebook from Kim Adsit, I copied this from the post but be sure to look Kim up and Like her on facebook.

The Picnic Pals

Tuesday is Teacher Appreciation Day and I hope that you guys know how much I appreciate you! Deanna Jump and I have joined together to offer FREEBIES and to have a great sale in our teachers pay teachers stores. On Tuesday be sure to check in for lots of free downloads to help you get ready for the next school year and for free games to play with your kiddos! 

 Here is what the next post said:

The Picnic Pals

These free downloads will be available for one day only! We will also have a great one day sale in our teachers pay teachers stores! Teachers pay teachers is also giving an additional 20% off so it will be HUGE! Be sure and use their Promo Code TAD11 to get the additional percentage off of the price! It is good all day Tuesday from midnight to midnight Central Standard Time.

I love Kim and Deanna and can't wait to pick up some things for next year. Hope you can find some great things!

Classroom Management Linky Party

I am joining Mrs. Randall's Classroom Management Linky Party. I have tried a couple of different types of classroom managements over the last few years. 
The first year I taught I used cards that were different colors. Each day students stared out on green, if I had given a student several warnings they had to move their green card to the back and the card that was showing was blue, next was yellow, red, and the last card was black which was a phone call to the parent. I had a small poster with each color card on it and a smiley face clip art or frown to emphasize what each color and consequence was. This worked ok but I had a student that was diagnosed OD / ADHD and pulling a card caused a major melt down with this student, and to be honest any type of consequence was a battle, thankfully our school has what is called a 'behavior lab' and after having to carry the student down the hall screaming more times than I want to remember the student was allowed to be taken here (oh my sometimes I wonder how my poor students learned anything that year). This worked pretty good with the rest of my class and the next morning before everyone was put back on green the students who had stayed on green the day before were given a ticket that they could turn in on a special day for a prize or some type of reward. I did have one student who would act like he moved his card, move someone's card other than his own, or move his green back to the front before he left. (you know the ones) So the next year I thought I would try something new.

I purchased the stop light behavior chart and have tried to use it the past two years but I just have not had great success with this behavior system and have ended up taking it down and using something different the past two years. 
I am currently using the old fashion name on the board. We start out on Monday with a clean board and names are not erased until the next Monday. If a student gets into trouble more than once they get a check mark by their name. I also write a word at the top of the board such as Easter, if this word stays on the board until we leave on Thursday the class receives a treat on Friday, if they have lost letters then their is no treat. I also give them check marks if they already have all of the letters and they are doing a great job following directions, they get a compliment from someone in the hall or the cafeteria, etc.
Next year I plan on using a different type of classroom management I want to use the clip chart by Rick Morris. although I have saw some ideas that I really like on this link party sooooo.... we shall see. Sometimes the class changes what you thought would work.
Make sure you check out everyone's ideas and join in I love getting inspiration from others and sometimes we all need a new idea when it comes to classroom management.