6th Blogiversary

Wow 6 years of blogging! Time sure flies by when you're having fun right? Today, December 28th and tomorrow December 29th you can get anything in my stores for 20% off!!! Head to TPT here, Teacher's Notebook here, or Teacher's Dojo here.

I have now hover 835,000 blog views, 2,569 Facebook followers, 14,851 followers on Pinterest, 270 on Instagram, 1,467 on TPT (and over 10,000 sold! WOW!!!), 239 follows on Teacher's Notebook, and 12 followers in my new Teacher's Dojo store! If you have an idea for a product or like something specific I have but want a specific skill or theme for it just let me know and I'd be happy to try to create it for you!

Thanks for hoppin' by Hopkins' Hoppin' Happenings! Keep on smiling!

Cyber Monday Sale plus Tuesday

I hope my United States friends and teachers had a marvelous Thanksgiving Day with your loved ones and had some mighty yummy food to eat. I am happy to announce two site wide sales!

The first big sale is the Teachers Pay Teachers sale which will run Monday, November 27th to Tuesday, November 28th, 2017. Hop on over to my store where everything will be 25% with the code Cyber17 at checkout. The rest of the stores will be up to 25% off as they may not mark their things for the full 20% off like I do and the code gives you 5%. Even my bundles are on sale, which already were an excellent deal.

The second big sale is the Teacher's Dojo site wide sale. My store is currently on sale today through Tuesday, November 28th. I put everything on sale for 25% (even better than TPT) and have the majority of my products on this site! On November 28th and 29th only Teacher's Dojo will throw in another 10% off so you will get 35% off my products on those 2 days. Amazing deal! Check out my store and as yes even already highly discounted bundles are on sale!

Thanks for hoppin' by Hopkins' Hoppin' Happenings! Keep on smiling!

1,000 Follower Celebration Giveaway

I am pleased to announce that I have shot past 1,000 followers on Teachers Pay Teachers!  Yahoooooooooooo!!!  How exciting!  I started my journey back in January 2012 so it's been a long time coming, but I got there and I thank each and everyone of you faithful followers whether you've download one of my 50 + freebies or purchased something from me, you rock!

If you are a follower and have been following since the last weekend in September check your INBOX on TPT before Friday at 7pm as you get to select 1 of 4 paid products for FREE!

To continue my celebration, I am giving away a $10 Gift Certificate on Teachers Pay Teachers.  I wish I could afford more, but right now this is my full time job and I'm not making enough to pay the bills.  I hope the $10 Gift Certificate comes in handy for one lucky winner.  All you have to do is follow my store and enter on Rafflecopter.  The Giveaway will end on Monday, October 5th at midnight eastern.  Make sure you are using an e-mail address that you check or you may be a winner and never see the gift card.  There's also a little bit more time to enter to win a great Classroom Management book HERE.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Thank you for hoppin' by Hopkins' Hoppin' Happenings.  Keep on smiling!

Back To School Sale!

Happy Friday to my amazing fans, friends, fellow teachers, students, parents, and administrators!  As school is just beginning I have yet to be needed to sub so my Positive Fridays will hopefully start again next week.  I did find out this week (2nd week of August) is National Smile week!  How awesome is that?  I hope that you have done a lot of smiling and got the children to smile as well!  In the spirit of smile week I found this really awesome quote that I would like to share with you.  There is no author for it.

"Always set your mood positively each morning.  Because the best way to do everything is to start something with smiling."  

That quote is the attitude that I take going into teacher and subbing every day!  It sets me apart from other teachers and the children feed off of it!

Now for the big announcement!  I am so excited to share that there will be a big TPT sale going on this Sunday and Monday, August 12th and 13th.  I will have my store set to 20% off and if you enter the code that you will see on the picture you can get another 10% off that.  The 10% is taken off after the 20% so you get 28% savings.  Clicking the link will take you to my store.  Again, teachers who I have worked with or subbed for, students I have taught or subbed for and their parents may always have anything for free.  Just let me know what you want at tigermagic@bellsouth.net  I'm here to help you!!!

I hope the first week of school has gone well for Brevard County students and I wish the Kindergarten children and their teachers much success when they go back on Monday!  I have already picked up one day of subbing in late August in Kindergarten.  I can't wait!!!

Thanks again for hoppin' by Hopkins' Hoppin' Happenings.  Keep on smiling!!!

Teaching Tip Active Engagement

It's our job as teachers to try our best to keep all of our students engaged in lessons.  If students are engaged they will learn right?

Well this summer I've been looking for new ways to keep students engaged.  I came across Whole Brain Teaching's great website!  These website has great engaging lessons and also a great way to keep student's attention!

My favorite is class-yes!  What you do is any time you want your classes attention you say class and your class responds yes.  You can change your voice or the way you say class and they  have to mimick you by saying yes in the same way that you say class.  If you say class, class.  They say yes, yes.  If you say classity, classity, class!  They say yessity, yessity, yes!  If you change the way your voice sounds, they change the way their voice sounds.  Yes, they will giggle and think you are hillarious and that is okay!  It will get their attention, which is what we want, right?

I hope to find a job for this upcoming school year because I am dying to try that engagement idea out.  Have you tried it?  If so tell me how it worked for you!

Thanks for hoppin' by Hopkins' Hoppin' Happenings!  Keep on smiling!

Scavenger Hunt

*** Saturday at 3:30pm Eastern update! Only 2 winners  so far!  3 more of you can win, enter today to win!!!

I just met another big milestone, well actually two!  My dedicted fans have bought $200 of my teaching materials this quarter and counting!  2nd of all I have reached 500 fans on FB.  Thank you so much for your dedicated support!!!

Everyone will win something for playing, but 5 of you will win your choice of a Draw and Write pack.  The huge bundle is not a choice, but any of the others are up for grabs.  How do you win?  You must be one of the first 5 to complete my scavenger hunt and e-mail me at tigermagic@bellsouth.net to claim your prize!  You must have all correct answers to win and anyone in any country may play!!!

1. What is the name and date of my first ever blog post?
2. What is the name of the first ever product that I made?
3. What is the name of the Friday posts that I did for much of the 2nd semester of school and give me the date of the one where I gave my top 10 favorite things from the school year.
4. What is the name of the book I reviewed about Farm Animals?
5. What is the name of the book that I reviewed that was made into a song and video by The Learning Station?
6. I recently had my first guest author.  What is her name and what activity did she share?
7. I took part in a special teacher appreciation freebie event.  What was the name of it?
8. What is the name of the post I made about a widget that has become my most viewed blog post?
9. What is the name of my favorite singer?
10. Name the 3 grade levels that I have taught?  Be sure to go to the page that has this information to pick up your freebie!  You have one week to get it free and then it will disappear!

Good luck and I look forward to your answers!

Review for Tests

Many of you are still in school and probably still have District tests to give even if the state tests are complete.  If you are out of school these will be great for next year!  How about some fun ideas to help review skills? 

Buzz - This is a great game to practice multiples.  Gather your students in a circle or you could even do it in line when waiting for lunch or to get into activity.  Say the number you want to use is 3.  The first child says 1, 2nd child says 2, but the third child says BUZZ!  The 4th child then says 4, 5th child 5, 6th child says BUZZ, 7th child says 7, 8th child says 8, and 9th child BUZZ.  You get the picture.  Start off with a small number like 3 or 4 and then try higher numbers to challenge them.  You could also start off in the middle and have the first child start off say with the number 9 and go from there.

Hot Potatoe - After watching a video on a topic, reading a chapter, or even for a mixed review have the children pass a ball.  Say Hot Potatoe and whoever has the ball has to answer a question on the topic.  If they get it right they get some sort of reward.  This particular school used links, which are like tickets and the kids could turn them in for rewards later.  If the child gets the question wrote they start passing the ball around again until the teacher calls Hot Potatoe and then that child gets a shot at the question.  Play resumes with the next question.  Another variation I thought of is to play music and stop the music and whoever has the ball must answer the question.

What games do you play for review?  Please post your game ideas in the comment section, but please no teaching products.

It's Newsletter Time!!!

I am pleased to announce that I will finally be putting out a newsletter.  I will have my first edition out this summer and you don't want to miss out!  Please sign up below.  It is recommended to use your home e-mail address as it is less likely to end up in a spam folder or being blocked.  My newsletter will be titled Hopkins' Hoppin' Happenings!  You can sign up below!

Please also vote on the poll on the right side of the page so I can better meet the needs of my loyal fans, teachers, parents, and students.

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As always thanks for being loyal and thanks for hoppin' by Hopkins' Hoppin' Happenings!

Easter Addition Common Core Games

I have been hard at work today making some new games for everyone. These games are geared toward the primary children. First up is a free 20 page game using Common Core Standards. The strategies focus on Adding +0 and +1. You can play match, go fish, or instead of Old Maid how about Hoppin' Hopkins! haha

Next up is a game that I am very proud of and I can't wait to get your feedback on it.  This game uses Common Core Standards also.  It is for Addition Strategies Doubles, Doubles +1 (also called Near Doubles), and Making 10.  Children turn a card over and answer the question if everyone agrees the answer is correct, they get to flip an egg.  If the egg is a number other than 0 they get that many points.  If it is 0 their total score is 0 and it is the next person's turn.  If it is not 0 they can decide to go again and again and again and keep adding the points to their total, but if they get a 0 they lose everything even from other rounds.

Example: Joe gets a 2, then a 3.  He now has 5 points.  He goes again and gets a 4.  Now he has 9 points.  Joe decides to stop.  On Joe's next turn he gets a 3.  He now has 12 total points.  Joe decides to try again and gets a 0.  He now has 0 total points.

Feel free in the comments to request other skills, I'd be thrilled to make games to meet your needs!!!  Click the pictures to go check out the game!

Thanks for hoppin' over to  Hopkins' Hoppin' Happenings!  I appreciate every single of your support!  Love to you all!

Brian :-)

Hands On - Letter Recognition!

Today I thought I would share a hands-on letter recognition activity that I used to do when I taught Kindergarten and I actually tried this with pretzels in a Kindergarten class when subbing a few months ago. 1. Give each child card stock (looks even better if it is colored) or cheaper for your pocketbook colored construction paper. 2. Next write the letter they are working on using a Sharpie really big on the paper. 3. Either you or the child trace the letter with glue. My students for the most part could do this themselves so I was able to have it be a center after awhile! 4. Give them something that starts with that letter. The child puts it right on the glue to trace the letter. Example - C - Cheerios, D - Dots (the ones that are stickers), P - Pretzels or popcorn or pom poms, Y - Yarn and I'm sure you can come up with a bunch more! See the picture for a finished product for the letter P - Pretzels

This is a perfect lesson for Pre-K, Kindergarten, or 1st graders who have not mastered their alphabet or really any child no matter the grade that hasn't.  I have had 2nd graders who don't know all their letters.  The children have fun with it and I have seen them master the alphabet so much quicker this way!!!

 Brian :-)

Pinterest

There is a lot of talk going around the internet about the legal part of Pinterest.  Pinterest basically owns whatever you pin or repin and if you end up in a legal fight you have to pay their attorney fees as well as your own.  Crazy if you if ask me as it is all in the fine print.  Laura Candler wrote an amazing post on this subject on her blog, which explains it a whole lot better.  Click on the Permission to Pin button for more from Laura.



I am granting you permission to pin any of my pictures.  I own 99% of the pictures that I post on my website and will not sue you so no worries there.  Shoot I don't even have enough money to sue anyone!  I will not be deleting any of my pins unless the owner themselves asks me to do so.

Next, I want to tell you about a fun group on Facebook that you may want to come be a part of.  It is called Pinning for Bloggers!  You can post any of your blogs or teaching products (free or for sale) in this group and the members there will repin it for you!  We just ask if you post things to pin, please pin the things that other members post as well.  The majority of people coming to my page are from Pinterest and this small group fromt he Facebook group is a large part of it.  What are you waiting on?  It is a fun positive group.  We stay away from negativity!  Come be a part of the fun by clicking on the picture below!

As always if you like what you read please head over to the right side and join my blog through networked blogs and/or google connect.  I'm getting so close to 100 fans!  Can we do it before Friday's Positive Friday post?

Keep on hoppin' with me on Hopkins' Hoppin' Blog.

Brian :-)

200 FB Fan Giveaway/Contest

First off thank you all so much for helping me reach my goal of 200 FB fans!  I also have over 6,000 views right here on Hopkins' Hoppin' Happenings, 88 google connect followers, 24 networked blog followers, over 200 followers on pinterest, and over a 100 followers on twitter.  Wow that is amazing as I just started this journey on Dec. 28th thanks to so many blogging buddies.

In order to celebrate it is time for a giveaway and contest!  First off you can click the picture to go to my google docs and get your FREE behavior coupons for things like no shoes, free treat, etc.  These are free for those on my blog only and may later be put in my TPT store for sale.  Be sure to scroll down to enter the contest and see all the wonderful prizes you can win!!!  If you don't see Rafflecopter click "read more."

Would you like to win some fun free items?  Here's how you can do it!  Go to the Rafflecopter entry form at the bottom of this post and for each thing you do you will get an entry to win one of many great prizes.  Be sure to click the buttons on Rafflecopter that say you did it or it will not count.  I will be selecting a winner for each prize!  For each one that you do please leave your name and e-mail address and tell me what you did in the comment section.  Comment one time for each entry.  It would also be helpful to enter your grade level.  In order to win anything you must follow my blog by google connect or networked blogs.  Let me know that you followed me in the comments!

Without further ado, the prizes that can be won are:

Saint Patrick's Day Task Cards from myself, Brian.  Follow my blog on the right side of the screen.  

Leaping Into Leap Year 2nd/3rd grade from Arlene.  Visit her TPT store at: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Arlene-Sandberg

Cat and the Hat Printable Themed Games from Kelly.  Visit her blog by clicking the picture:

Alphabet Letter Sort from Heather.  Visit her blog by clicking the picture

Homophone Hijkinks Unit 2nd and up and All-Star Noun or Verb Scoot from Jennifer.

Hershey's Fraction Unit 4th and up from Tracey.  Visit her blog by clicking the picture below:






9 Easter/Spring Addition games from Fern.

8 Eastern/Spring Subtraction games also from Fern.  Visit her blog by clicking the picture below:

G.L.O.W. Geography Learning of the World from Heidi.

Check out her blog by clicking on the picture:


Busy Teacher Forms from Michelle!

Check out her blog by clicking on the picture:

Thank you so much to these amazing friends of mine for sharing their items for my contest!  Please go to their website and follow their blogs as a huge thank you.  They would also love it if you would click their Teacher Pay Teacher buttons on their website and follow their stores.  They have so many great products!!!

Again, click below to enter the contest and don't forget to leave a comment per entry, your e-mail address, and grade level is preferred!  

St. Patrick's Day Games

I just got done making a long file for the younger students for Saint Patrick's Day.  It is currently being offered for an introductory price of just $4.00.  That may go up in price when it gets closer to the holiday so grab it now!!!  The games include Capital and Lowercase Concentration or Go Fish, Calendar Numbers, Number and Number Word Concentration or Go Fish, St. Patrick's Day Themed Words that can be used for writing, Pre-Primer Dolch Words for your word wall.  Any of these can also be used as flash cards for assessment!  Click on any of the pictures to go the store to make your purchase!  Click on the cookies for a free St. Patrick's Day Holiday Words product!

For the older students I just made a FREE St. Patrick's Day Themed "Who Has I Have Multiplication" game.  I hope you will head on over and download your freebie from my store by clicking the picture.  Please be sure to give me a positive rating and a comment while you are there!  That means a lot to us sellers and only takes you a minute to do so!

As always don't forget to follow my blog by clicking the blue google connect button or networked blog button the right of the screen.  Also, come on over to my FB page by clicking on the FB button on the right of the page.  Big contest and giveaway is slated tomorrow.  You will need to be a member of my blog for a chance to win!!!

Thanks for hoppin by Hopkins' Hoppin' Happenings!

Brian :-)