Teaching With a Touch of Pixie Dust: April 2014

Friday, April 25, 2014

Perfectly Posh Review

A little while ago I was asked to review some products from Perfectly Posh. Perfectly Posh is a direct sales company (hooray for helping out a small business owner) that sells all natural beauty products. Everything is under $25 and buy 5 get the 6th free. I LOVE incentives like that. Because any girl that loves to shop knows they are going to buy more than one thing.

Shannon (who you can find here and here) sent me a few different samples to try.

Shannon was great and only sent me things that I would use. I don't use face washes or anything like that, so she really made sure to send what I could benefit from. I think the Brazilian Bombshell Body Butter may be my favorite because it was so smooth.

Of course I couldn't just stop at the samples. After looking through this super cute catalog (seriously friends, it looks like a newspaper and I just love that), I just had to go browse her site.

And when I was browsing, I found plenty of things that sounded like I needed to have. (Like I said, a girl that loves to shop...)

Here are some things that I found: (you will see below I am a lotion and lips girl)

I couldn't decide which lip scrub sounded better, so why not add them all right?!

Let's talk about too how cute the names of these products are. I love how NOT boring they are! When your friend says oooh I love that lotion, what is it... wouldn't it be fun to just say "Shameless flirt" or "Lil Snarky"?! I admit, at first I was a little worried about the names. Not knowing what the products smelled like, how could I order. But, when you look on the product page, you can scroll down and it will give you a description which includes the scent. (You can see it listed last below.)

Do you want a chance to win a hand creme of your choice? Simply enter the rafflecopter below. And be sure to browse Shannon's site for more amazing goodies that might be perfect for you! One of the rafflecopter entries is to leave a comment letting us know which creme you would choose. Hop over and "like" Shannon's Facebook Page for specials and promotions!

Thanks Shannon for the samples and allowing me to review them!

These samples were provided to me in exchange for my honest opinion. All opinions expressed about these products are my own.

Saturday, April 12, 2014

It's time for another Bright Ideas Blog Hop! Are you as excited as I am?! The idea I am sharing today is one that I have been using since I started teaching and will NEVER change. It works out so effortlessly for me that changing it would be the complete opposite of bright!

Scenario: Johnny is absent for a couple days... and his work is piling up. In the shuffle, papers fall off the desk or get misplaced. Or.. Johnny doesn't go into your stash of papers from the week to get what he missed. Or sometimes it wasn't a sheet to complete, but instead an assignment on blank paper. He wouldn't know he missed that paper.

Another scenario: Susie leaves early for the day or Sammy goes to ESL. Sarah didn't finish her work on time. Now they have papers that they need to finish that get stuffed in some random place in the abyss we call a desk, never to be seen again.

Solution: Incomplete Work folder. Sounds like "great, another folder to handle and manage", but I promise you this is easy. And, my incomplete folders have been the same folders for SIX years. And I don't even need to replace them yet!

Here's how it works. All of my students are assigned a class number. Each folder is numbered and hangs in this pocket chart. This is where the folders stay unless they are needed.

When students are absent, their neighbor (the person who sits next to or across from them depending on my seating arrangement at the time) will get their folder out of the pocket chart and place it on the absent student's desk. Any time I pass something out, the responsible friend, puts the paper in the incomplete folder. The folder stays here until the absent child returns to school. When the child returns to school, they look for any papers that have to go home (spelling lists, newsletters, etc) and place the folder in this "incomplete work" bucket. (This bucket is shelved right next to my turn in work buckets that I shared about last time.) Any time the child has free time, they know to get their folder and get to work.

The same thing goes for when a child doesn't finish work. They simply grab their own folder, put the work in it, and stick it in the bucket.

When students finish an assignment, they check my turn in drawers to see if the assignment is still in there. If it is, they simply turn their assignment in with the rest of them. IF the assignment is really late or I have already taken the papers out to grade, students turn the assignment into the late work bucket, which is just below the late work bucket.

This has saved me SO MUCH time and aggravation. Students are responsible for their own work and I don't have to worry about me losing or throwing away extra copies. My buckets aren't the fanciest around, but they serve the purpose and save me sanity, and for that, I am super thankful for this bright idea!

If you enjoyed this bright idea, consider liking my facebook page! And be sure to check out the link up below for 150 bright ideas!