Featured Teacher

Grab your beverage of choice and settle in for another exciting round of Featured Teacher Tuesday!  

This week our featured teacher is Amber Unger, a first grade teacher who shares real estate with the Milwaukee Brewers, Green Bay Packers, lots of cows, and many beer breweries.  Yep!  You guessed it; Amber is a proud educator in Wisconsin.  She is in her 7th year of teaching: 4 years in Kindergarten, 2 years in ESL, and 1 year in first grade so far.  Amber never thought she would find a grade level that made her happier than Kindergarten, but she quickly learned this school year that first grade is the place to be!

Her “home” away from home looks like this:

And she shares her real home with these men:

Amber has been blogging since 2011.  You will definitely want to stop by her blog, Mrs. Unger's Unbelievable Elementary Experiences, for years worth of great teacher tips, student-centered ideas, and fun photos!

You will also want to swing by Amber’s Teachers Pay Teachers store, as all of her products are free!  Amber has a dream to find TIME to make products that she feels are worthy of selling, but until then - enjoy the freebies (currently 59) in her newly updated TPT store.  Here are a couple of examples:

Whole Brain Teaching - Super Improvers Wall

Community Worker Matching Cards

You can also follow Amber in these ways, too:

Instagram

Pinterest

Bloglovin'

Facebook

Be sure to stop by our Featured Teacher Tuesday linky party next week to learn about another fabulous first grade teacher: Misty!  (Can you believe next week is November already!?)

I know how my kids feel....

As teachers we keep on top of current trends so we can best meet the needs of our students. The past two days have been filled with lots of training and professional development. Our district this year has decided to pull us out of class and provide subs for us, which I'm not complaining, okay yes I am. Am I the only one who stresses over sub plans and then while I am out of the classroom it is hard for me to focus on the training because my mind is on information overload and what I need to be doing back at school with my kiddos. Having this kind of day makes me have empathy for my little ones who struggle and need information presented in a different way or in smaller segments. So I'm not so sure how much I actually got out of the training but I did come back with a new mind set of taking my time with those little learners and making sure I don't put them on overload.

So excited to introduce this week's featured teacher. Please keep reading to learn more about this awesome teacher/author:

Do you use songs in your classroom? If not, now’s the time to start! Introducing Jenny Kramer, also known as “Miss Jenny.” Her “Edutunes” make singing with children as simple as pressing “play”—No musical experience necessary!

Jenny began creating her “Edu-tunes” nineteen years ago, after learning about the research. According to study after study, children learn more, remember more, and ENJOY learning more with educational songs. Along with teaching full-time for almost two decades, “Miss Jenny” has piloted her songs with 80 teachers and 1500 students South Bay Union School District in San Diego, CA. She has also given professional development speeches across the U.S. for the Bureau of Education and Research, the Institute for Educational Development, and Staff Development for Educators. Her work inside the classroom, along with her work with other professionals, has helped her to make the songs truly teacher-friendly, fun for kids, and effective as learning tools.

Jenny just created a NEW “Halloween” song, along with lots of materials to promote literacy. Preview her new song here (https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Halloween-Song-2152494), or click here (https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Halloween-914890) for her giant DELUXE “Halloween Literacy Fun” package, including the song and dozens of additional materials—currently on sale for 50% off!

Miss Jenny’s “Edutunes” educational songs help children to learn every aspect of the curriculum. Common Core 1st Grade Math teaches EVERY SINGLE first grade standard in 38 songs. You can listen to song samples here: (https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Common-Core-1st-Grade-Math-38-Downloadable-Songs-Book-Covers-ALL-STANDARDS-508701)

Her Phonics Time CD-book set teaches everything from simple letters and sounds to advanced phonics concepts through 28 songs.

Ready for some FREEBIES?

Miss Jenny has posted the “Magic E” song from Phonics Time for FREE here: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Magic-E-Song-FREEBIE-667619

She is also giving away her “Butterfly” song and packet for a limited time here:

This fun song—complete with motions—makes high-level concepts comprehensible to young children.

***Miss Jenny has started giving MONTHLY $25 TpT Give-Aways. You can enter to win in 5 ways:

1. Follow her on TpT: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Miss-Jenny-And-Edutunes
2. “Like” Edutunes.com, Inc. on Facebook: www.facebook.com/edutunes
3. Follow her boards on Pinterest: www.pinterest.com/edutunes
4. Follow her on YouTube, where she has over 1,000,000 views!!! www.youtube.com/edutunes
5. Check out her BLOG here: http://edutunes.com/category/blog/

Finally, send a note in response to her blog, or to missjenny@edutunes.com, to let her know you want to enter 5 times.

Happy Singing!

The Primary Sisters: Featured Teacher TuesdayLiana Davis from Love Le...

The Primary Sisters: Featured Teacher Tuesday

Liana Davis from Love Le...: Featured Teacher Tuesday Liana Davis from Love Learning with Liana is living her dream as a first grade teacher. All her life, she has ...

Featured Teacher Tuesday

Liana Davis from Love Learning with Liana is living her dream as a first grade teacher. All her life, she has dreamt of teaching little kids to dream big and love learning, and her dream has been a reality for 4 years now! She teaches with the core concept of providing social justice to students that were just like her when she was a child. An immigrant, a non-native English speaker, and from a family that lived modestly.  She knows that every student has the capacity to learn, and she harnesses that ability to see her students shine. To read more about her teaching philosophy, you can read it here

Only two of her 4 years teaching have been in first grade, but she couldn’t imagine teaching anything else. She loves the unscripted feel of first grade.  Besides first, she has also taught Kindergarten, and high school English.

Liana is also a newlywed, and she got married in January 2015 to her college/bible study sweetheart.  If you would like to see pictures from her wedding, click  At that time, she was teaching high school English, and she didn’t spend quite as much time cutting, pasting, and creating fun activities for a primary classroom.  With so much free time on her hands, March 2015, she decided to sell on TPT. She was always creating products for her classroom, and she thought why not share them with the world!

If you know Liana, then you know that she never sits still, much like every other teacher who takes on the task of teaching full time, blogging about it, and creating products for Teachers Pay Teachers. To find Liana’s store, click here

Other than teaching, blogging, and TPT, she loves to spend time with her family in Los Angeles, and explore her new city with her new husband in San Diego.

Liana’s most popular product is the Book Report for Grades 1-3.

Her latest two products are Unit 2: Addition Math Printables and Fall Fluency, Phonics, and Writing Activities.

Getting in to the Groove!

WE have been in school for 35 days now and finally, finally, finally I feel like I am getting my groove back. I have a challenging class this year and it has been tough finding what works with this group. I told my sister I didn't know if they were really better or I have just gotten used to them! Either way I am happier now and feel less stressed. It's just been one of those years, plus add on starting our blog and TPT adventure and sending my oldest off to college has been enough stress but I feel like I am finally learning to balance things at school and home. Super excited about being the featured teacher last week with my first grade TPT peeps! I am looking forward to blogging about about some great first grade teachers and authors over the next weeks and grabbing some great freebies too!!