Thankful blogging linky party

Today I am linking up with Stephanie from Teaching in Room 6 for a linky party about my favorite thing.... being thankful.  What a great opportunity to share with others what you are thankful for.  Thanks you Stephanie for hosting this.  Make sure to check out her great blog as well.

1.  First of all I am very very thankful for this blogging community.  Although I am a newbie in every sense of the word (whether blogging or teaching), I have felt welcomed and encouraged in starting this new journey.  I am so blessed to learn from such amazing teachers and women.  I already feel a better teacher for being able to learn from the best!

2.  This might be cheating, but I am super thankful for TPT and Pinterest and all the goodies I have gotten from them.  My files are full because of these wonderful sites.  

3.  This year because of blogging I have begun using anchor charts.  I have been quite encouraged by everyone that uses them successfully.  Not only that but I have been able to see them and copy/recreate my own because of the awesomeness shared!  Here is my focus wall the first week we started using anchor charts.  The class made the Math chart and we wrote the writing chart together!

4.  Finally, I am thankful for the countless ideas and resources gained by being part of this community.  It is truly a pleasure to learn from everyone else's successes!

Check out what everyone else is thankful for and then make your own list.  Don't forget to link up here!

Tree of Thanks

Oh man I am on a roll with this blogging thing this week!  I hope to have an awesome post for you tomorrow too or the next day!

Sadly in Thailand Halloween is not celebrated, so little happened at school.  Some teachers did a few small things but nothing crazy.  We are having our official party next week called Harvest Party where kids dress up as things they are thankful for.... I will let you know how it goes next week.  This is the first year they are doing this so it will be interesting.

Anyway, since we are now in November (my favorite time of year!) we are beginning to focus on things we are thankful for.  I had an idea of making a tree that will grow as the month progresses.  So we started it today!  The kids seem excited about it so hopefully it will help us stay thinking positively.

I wanted the kids to have to think about thankfulness all month so each week they have to add at least 1 leaf to our tree.  They may add more than one but have to add one a week.  Each leaf needs to contain something they are thankful for.  I also wanted them to make their own leaves rather than having the sample ready for them so that they took a little more ownership.  Here is our tree from week 1.  Hopefully I can update you as the month progresses.  And of course I took some photos of the lovely things they are thankful for!

View of our tree.  We made sure to put it on the outside of our door so everyone could share in our thanksgiving!

Love the reason why she is thankful.

Awwwww! Aren't they cute :)

Of course we have to be thankful for food!

And finally a little something to make you smile.  We got a new puppy.  His name is Chico.  He does not really have a blue eyes.  He is a shih-tzu/poodle mix and just got cleaned at the groomers.  

Hope you all enjoyed your Halloween.  Can you believe it is November already!?!