Hi everyone! I'm linking up with the Elementary Entourage and sharing a little bit about my very first TPT Conference!

Let me first begin by saying that I LOVED every minute of my Vegas TPT conference experience! It was so inspiring and rejuvenating to be around so many educators who love teaching, teachers, and helping students learn in new and exciting ways! It really hit home when Paul (founder of TPT) said that we truly are changing the face of education through our products, blog posts, and collaborations with each other! I have to say that I am honored to be a part of this influential and passionate community. I wanted to give a quick recap of my experience!

I scored both of these dresses from the J Crew outlet about a month ago! With their sale combined with their 15% teacher discount, I couldn't say no! I work the one on the left to the Blogger Meetup on Wednesday night (which was amazingly insane!), and the striped one to the Primary Pack Friday evening. I loved both of them, and the best part was that they both had POCKETS! Gotta love that!

I was very excited to meet Paul on Friday! How do you thank someone who has given you such an amazing and life changing opportunity? TPT has inspired my creativity and pushed me to become a better teacher, and never accept less than the best from myself. I can't wait to see what this coming school year has in store for me, and am already counting the days until next year's TPT conference! Hopefully Greg will join me, and both sides of The Class Couple will be represented!

Greg here. I know that my better-half loves Instagram. For Becky, it's a quick way to share updates about classroom and personal life, as well as to see what is going on in the lives of all the other #teachersofinstagram. 
I was recently doing some research on Instagram desktop schedulers and stumbled upon a new site: Wisel.it! A young start-up out of Venezuela, Wisel.it seems to be the real deal! 

I thought I'd quickly share how I used Wisel.It the first time and explain some of it's features. You can create your own login via Wisel.It, but I opted to sign-in with Instagram to streamline my accounts. 

Once you link your account to Wisel.It, the process is rather simply. Simply click "Schedule New Post" to get started.

Once your image is uploaded, you simply frame the sliding box around the portion of the image you want to appear. If you shoot the image in square before exporting it to your desktop, simply select the entire image. They have several filters, and a flip option, but I suggest doing all of your edits prior to the
upload to Wisel.

One of the cool things about this site is that you can sign in to multiple accounts (3 total). When you select the account and caption it (just like you would on your mobile device), you'll see a convenient preview on the right. Select the date and time you want to post and you're set!

Once scheduled, you will receive a notification in Instagram asking for verification because your account is being accessed elsewhere (our notification came from Finland). I was a bit skeptical at this point, but I trusted the system! It worked without flaw - it posted at the time scheduled!

If you would like to read more about Wisel.It, you can check out this blog post, which what led me to this new scheduler. So, how might this help you manage your Instagram account? Let me know what you think!

This week's challenge came just as I was finishing up my latest product...perfect timing! Like most things I create, I don't usually have them planned ahead, and make my products as I need them for my classroom. When I began my Journeys Challenge Word products (from the Houghton Mifflin Harcourt reading series), I began them last fall, and started with Unit 2. Their creation began because I had some students who were amazing spellers and had already grasped the phonics pattern we were working on for that week. I needed a way to differentiate the lists for my students, challenging those that need it, while still practicing and pushing the phonics pattern at a different level. For example, while they may breeze through CVC words, they needed practice with blends in short vowel words. Once I started the challenge words, my kiddos immediately pushed themselves harder. Every pre-test we took, they strived to earn the challenge words. Seeing that Unit 2 had been such a success, I continued making them for units 3-6 as the rest of the school year progressed. Since I had not started with Unit 1, I went back and created it a few weeks ago, and realized that I needed to bundle all of my units together! (Who doesn't love when all pages are in one spot?!) So I am not happy to say that all 6 Journeys Challenge Spelling Word units are now bundled! Woohoo!!

The bundle has challenge words and practice pages for all Journeys lessons (1-30). Below is an example of what you will find in this product. These are all of the pages for Lesson 5, which focuses on short U words. Every lesson has the same type of pages, with different words to fit the lesson focus. I found that the similar structure worked out well when students practiced spelling words during center time, because after learning it once, they knew what they were expected to do. 

My favorite part about giving my kiddos challenge words is that the students vary from week to week. I do not designate students to get challenge words all year long, instead it is based off of the pre-test. Students have to get all of the words correct on the pre-test to earn challenge words. Once the lists become longer, I do give the students challenge words if they only missed one word on the pre-test. I love when one of my students who may struggle more with learning really understands a phonics pattern, rocks the pretest, and is so proud of them-self when they earn their challenge words!

Do you use the Journeys series? These lists would also work well for teachers who don't have the reading series, but do spelling lists based off of phonics patterns. Be sure to check out this product here in our TPT store! It is on sale through Sunday!