Summer Flashback: Tell All Tuesday

We are very blessed to have been raised, where family time was a top priority.  Our families took lots of trips and experienced several exciting vacations throughout our childhoods.  Thinking about all of the "flashbacks" from our childhood summers was such fun!  

Ashley's family grew up going to her grandparents' house on the lake each weekend.  They enjoyed yearly family vacations to Gulf Shores, AL.  Brooklynn's family grew up going to her Nana's pool most summer days, and to the beach for a week each summer.  Her family grew up going to Destin, FL…and they still prefer it over any other beach.  Here is a funny picture of Brooklynn and some of her friends in the pool, waaaaaaaaay back in 1996!

Now that we are adults, we have been blessed with some of the best friends ever.  We never imagined the amazing friendships becoming mentor teachers would bring.  We now, enjoy spending our summers hanging out with our "teacher friends" and acting like "real humans" during the summer days.  Thank you, Lord, for your gift of girlfriends.  Cookouts, planning meetings, dinner dates…are just some of the fun things we enjoy doing together.

It was very late and we were sitting around a fire pit, so please excuse the blurriness and red eyes. HA!  These girlies are some of our most favorite peeps!  We love you, Linds, Mer, and Mo!    

Thank you to Jayme and Diana for hosting such a fun summer-long linky party!  We really love Tuesdays because of your "Tell All Tuesday" party!  

If you would like to link up with us, please do so by clicking on their names above to visit one of their blogs.  

Markdown Monday

We chose to link up with Kelly and Kim from Kelly and Kim's Kindergarten Kreations, for Markdown Monday.  

We decided to markdown one of our most popular units, Kitty's Colorful Centers!  As we have said a million times…our students love ALL things Pete.  This unit is our most "Wishlisted" unit, so we thought it might benefit many of you if we marked this one down first.  

Kitty's Colorful Centers will be on sale until Friday, July 3rd (at 11:59 PM CT).  Please take a look at our previous post, where we highlighted many of the centers and activities in the pack.  You can find it here!

If you'd like to download the preview or purchase this pack, please hop over to our TPT store, Markers and Mascara, to take a look!

We hope you all have a wonderful week and we look forward to marking down another product next Monday.  If you are interested in linking up with us, stop by Kelly and Kim's blog to find out how.

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Steppin out and trying something new!

DARE to Dream: #TPTSellersChallenge

We had such a fun time compiling our wildest dreams into one list.  We cracked up at how different even some of our "wildest dreams" are….yet, some were exactly the same.  

Without further ado….here are our greatest dreams!

First, and probably the most attainable one is to "Attend an Iron Bowl Together!"  We don't usually talk to each other that day…or about it any of the days after.  We don't trash-talk one another- we usually just pretend neither one of our teams lost/won…like it never happened!  We'd love to have the chance to experience such an intensely-crazy game together!

Next, we would love to "Start a Teacher-Friendly Clothing Line."  We have different tastes in how we choose to dress; however, we agree that no one company does a fabulous job of offering "teacher-friendly" options.  We'd love the opportunity to change that!

We realize this isn't necessarily appropriate…but, how fabulous to wear PJs everyday!?!? ;0)

This next dream may have you laughing a bit…but, we are all but kidding when we say we would love for our children to someday marry and make us "real" family!  (Side note: this is all with the big IF of, IF Ashley and Nick have a little boy.  They will find out in July.)  If not, we are fine to continue our lives as "Framily"…friends who you choose to be your family!  There's just something really exciting to us, about it being "official!"  

We would be oh, so honored to reach this next goal!  "Reaching 1,000 Followers on TPT" is going to be a huge bridge to cross- but we are up to the challenge of trying.  

Being honest…this is TOTALLY Ashley's goal.  Brooklynn is terrified of needles and has to "pep-talk" herself into allowing the nurses at the doctors office to prick her finger or draw her blood.  Ashley has a TON of convincing to do before this dream becomes a reality.

Another dream we have is to "Create AWESOME Kinder Apps."  There are millions of pretty great apps for our kinders to use, but we would love to be able to tailor apps specifically to what our kinders need.  

Lastly, our ULTIMATE goal is to: "Become Administrators of Our Own Pre-K School!"  How amazing would it be to hire the best of the best, and serve the greatest natural resource this Earth has?!?!  We would LOVE to be able to allow teachers to use their own judgement and best practices to educate students on a wide variety of skills….not just math and reading!  We would love to manage a school environment where all children are successful and feel loved.  

A BIG thanks to the ladies who put the TPT Seller Challenge together.  Who would've guessed how this challenge would have benefitted so many?!?  How exciting!  If you'd like to link up with us, stop by any of the blogs below to find out how.

We hope that you enjoyed reading a little more about us.  We are eager to spend some time getting to know you all, through your "DARE to Dream" posts!  Thank you for stopping by. 

Bucket List: Tell All Tuesday

 We are back again with another installment of "Tell All Tuesday!"

 

 

This week, we thought it would be easy to write, but when we sat down to make our list, it was a lot harder than we realized! However, we had a marvelous time coming up with crazy things to put on our Bucket List!  We chose to go with a few things that were actually attainable for us.

 

 

Sadly, we are not attending the Vegas Conference this year.  We had high hopes last year of being able to attend. However, since we both have a bun in the oven, we just won't be making it this year. There's always next year... haha

 

Maternity leave is a scary thing.  This is probably our biggest challenge.  One of the very few things we have in common is our Type A personalities.  So, the though of relinquishing control of our classrooms to a stranger is slightly terrifying.  Ok, lets be real, it's really terrifying! We both hope to survive this gracefully, and to NOT come to our classrooms until our leave is over.  Hold your breath on that one... (insert wicked laugh)

 

We are so blessed to work in a county who is beginning to see the value in developmentally appropriate practices.  We feel like we had, as a system, veered away from that...and are now excited that the pendulum is swinging back the other way. We are hoping that within the next few years, we have the opportunity to teach side by side in a "Co-Teaching" environment. We will keep you updated!

 

Thank you again to MyDayinK and TeachTalkInspire for putting together another fun "Tell All Tuesday!"

 

Summer Snapshot: Tell All Tuesday

Can we just say that we LOVE "Tell All Tuesdays?"  Last week was so much fun! We had such a ball reading through everyone's posts and guessing the lies!

 

This week is "Summer Snapshot."

We love the beach!  Who doesn't? Need we say more?

 

We do have a favorite spot a little closer to home...

Again, need we say more?  Haha

We thought this was too funny!!!!  Isn't this so true?

Hopefully, you are spending lots of time in your favorite summer spot!

We would love for you to link up with us this week!  Thanks again to MyDayinK and Teach.Talk.Inspire for putting this linky together!

An InLinkz Link-up

 

#tptsellerchallenge Week 1: Makeover Madness

This week, we are THRILLED to start the TPT Seller Challenge!

We have enjoyed getting our blog back on track!  The aches of early pregnancy, the pains of closing out the school year caused us to neglect our blog, Instagram, TPT, etc.. for a few months.  So, as the first trimester has passed for both of us, it is time to refocus our attentions back to this community of bloggers and friends we have met! All that said, we are excited to accept this TPT Seller Challenge and look forward to connecting with some new friends!

We recently made over an old unit that we HATED!  Haha  Being one of the first units we uploaded to TPT, it was definitely not our best work!  We had just learned how to use PowerPoint and did NOT know what we were doing!  (Why didn't someone say something? :) 

The original Weather Unit we posted was a Math mini pack.  Not only did we update the cover, fonts, clipart, and Math activities; we also added Reading centers to complete this unit.

This week, our NEW and IMPROVED Weather Unit is on sale for only $2.00. Click below to check it out on TPT. 

Go check out the AWESOME ladies who have put this challenge together!

Stay tuned for the second installment of "Tell All Tuesday" tomorrow!

 

Two Truths and A Lie: Tell All Tuesday

Updated Information is in TEAL!

We hope you are enjoying your summer thus far.  We have been enjoying taking a few weeks off (from working on school-related stuff) to refresh and breathe.

Today, we are super thrilled to be linking up with our friends at Teach.Talk.Inspire and A Day in K to bring you "Two Truths and A Lie: Tell All Tuesday."

We've met some really creative people through the blogging world and we are linking up to tell you about ourselves.

We are two teachers from Birmingham, AL.  We currently teach Kindergarten in a K-2 primary school.  We have 14 kindergarten units!  Can you imagine?!?!  We joined the blogging world a little over a year ago and have LOVED every minute of it.  We have met some of the sweetest people and have learned so much from so many inspiring educators.

Something else that you may not know about us is that we are POLAR OPPOSITES!  We love each other fiercely, but have only a few things in common.   We have different tastes in clothes, music, movies, outdoor activities…basically we bonded solely on our passion for education.  Over the years, we have become very fond of each others' differences and even celebrate them!  (Cue Paula Abdul's "Opposites Attract") HA!

Now, let's play a little game…

Below are three "facts" about ourselves.  Two are true statements and one is a lie.

If you are the FIRST person to comment with the correct lie, you will get to pick one of our products (under $5.00) for free!

Congrats to Tiffani Humphries for being the FIRST commenter to guess correctly!  If you also guessed that Number 1 was our lie, we'd like to give you a free product, as well!  To claim your "prize", please email us at markersandmascara@gmail.com and let us know which product you would like for FREE (under $5.00)!  And, thank you for stopping by!  Congratulations!

#1: Both, Ashley and Brooklynn, graduated from the same university. 
THIS IS THE LIE!  
Ashley graduated from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and Brooklynn graduated from Auburn University.  *We did graduate from the same high school….one year apart.  However, we did not know each other in high school.  Ashley is a die-hard University of Alabama fan and Brooklynn bleeds orange and blue.  In case you aren't aware, by living in the great state of Alabama- you are required to pick of the two universities: Auburn or Alabama!  You must devote yourself wholly to all things related to that university and you cannot waiver.  There is no in between…it's a FULL commitment!

#2: Both, Ashley and Brooklynn, are pregnant.
Surprise!  Yes, we both ARE pregnant!  The good Lord works in the most AMAZING ways!  Brooklynn and Chad's little girl is due in mid-August and Ashley and Nick's bundle of joy is due in early December.  We are incredibly excited about starting this new journey together.  We just know they will love each other as much as we do!  We've already found them matching shirts…

#3: Both, Ashley and Brooklynn, have only ever taught Kindergarten.
This, too, is true!  Ashley and Brooklynn both interned/student taught in several other grades, but have only had kindergarten classrooms of our own.  We fully believe that kindergarten is the place for us!  

Can you guess which "fact" is the lie???  Leave your guess in the comments.  We'd love for you to play along with us.  You can write your own "Two Truths and A Lie" with your guess and we will try to pick the lie.  

Come back on Friday to find out the lie!

We hope you all have a wonderful week.  Thank you for stopping by!

Again, thank you so much for coming back to read more about us! Thank you to Teach.Talk.Inspire and A Day in K for hosting such a fun linky party.  We can't wait to link up again next week.  If you are interested in linking up- stop by their blogs to find out how!

WINNER WEDNESDAY: Kitty's Colorful Centers

Winner, winner, chicken dinner!!!

Welcome to the second installment of Winner Wednesday! 
We are linking up with A Dab of Glue Will Do on the first Wednesday of each month to give something fun to one lucky winner!

It could be you!

 Our kiddos love, love, love Pete!!!! We are so excited to be giving this unit away!  It is full of great beginning of the year activities!

 Pete loves colors, and so do we!  Early in Kindergarten, we push students to use "resources" for everything!  Here, they are able to use a color word resource to decide what color Pete's shoes should be.

We spend a great amount of time at the beginning of the year, with visual discrimination of letters. These two activities give students opportunities to practice deciphering between, and tracing letters.

 Every mommy letter has a baby letter. (Ha)  Students pull a pair of Pete's sneakers and record the "baby" letter.  (We don't actually call them Mommy and Baby letters in our classrooms.  Our kids try, but we prefer Capital and Lowercase.)

 One of our absolute favorite activities are mirrored letters/words.  Early in the year, we practice with letters, but will eventually transition into sight words.

 Text is so vital to a Kindergarten classroom.  Our students receive an emergent reader or two each week.  They love taking ownership of these books and taking them home to read with their family.  These are seriously the highlight of each week with our Kinders! In this pack, students practice basic literacy skills such as tracking, fluency, sight words, and color words.

Sight words, sight words, sight words! (Marsha, Marsha, Marsha)

For Pete's sake, these words are SO important to emerging readers! Early in the year, we spend a lot of time practicing our sight words by spinning and tracing, rolling and tracing, pulling and tracing... a lot of tracing! You know as well as we do that Kinders need lots of letter formation practice and practice with their sight words to be successful readers and writers.

For whatever reason, this is the only Math activity we took!  I mean, we weren't preoccupied with a class of kids or anything. Haha!  This Pete unit has math activities that focus on numbers, one to one correspondence, and writing numerals.  To check out the entire pack, click below!

Enter to WIN Kitty's Colorful Centers! 



a Rafflecopter giveaway

Winner will be announced on Thursday morning!

Go visit A Dab of Glue Will Do to enter for your chance to win other amazing products!

Hope you are enjoying a GROOVY summer so far!