Linky party fun!

So after I received a sweet comment today from Kelley over at Teacher Idea Factory, I spent HOURS on her blog... reading, snagging some SUPER cute ideas and freebies! I think the fact that her name is Kelley is a HUGE plus! :)

While I was there I decided to link up for her *first ever* linky party.  It's a great one too:

 Click HERE to head to the party

So after a LOT of thinking I have narrowed my "must haves" to the following:

Without these two amazing websites I would not be able to implement the AMAZINGLY creative thematic units and centers that not only help to reinforce concepts taught daily in my class, but keep my sweet kiddos fully engaged!  Because of the amazing world of blogging and these two websites I have been able to become a better teacher! :)

The other thing that I absolutely LOVE in my classroom is this bad boy:

{I am blessed...a family friend bought this cart for me from Lakeshore}

This little cart is amazing and holds all the items I need during "carpet" time!  

Then there are these baskets from the Dollar Store.  In my classroom, however, they are not called baskets, they are "book luggage."  Each student has their own book luggage which holds just right books {teacher selected}, a reading strategy bookmark, an eyelighter {another MUST have}, and a student selected just right book.  These are HUGE for storing all their reading goodies, helps keep them and me on track with what they are working on (reading strategy-wise) and what types of texts are interesting them, etc... This upcoming year I am adding a small notebook in each book luggage {small as in the size of my hand or smaller}.  I will use the notebooks to record informal/formal observations of each student as they read.  Keeping this little notebook in their book luggage will help me to better keep track! :)

There are SO many things that I could not live without in my classroom and so many wonderful resources available.  Through this little linky party I've seen a whole bunch of other fabulous resources that I will now be checking out.  

If you haven't been to Kelley's blog yet, get there NOW!  I'm so glad you led me to your site Kelley, it's amazing! {I think I've used that word too much in this post!}