2 blog posts in about an hour -what in the world? But, I was nominated by Katie at Living The First Grade Dream for the Liebster award - an award for new bloggers who have less than 200 followers, but have great content and potential.
As part of being nominated, I have to answer the 11 questions below and then nominate 11 bloggers with less than 200 followers. Good thing 11 is my favorite number!
1. Why and how long ago did you start blogging?
I started my blog back in January of this year (2014). I actually had to do some blogging in college for a couple of my education classes, so I wasn't brand new to blogging, but now I was blogging for real people and not just for a grade from my professors! I started creating products for my TPT store last year about this time and that (selfishly) was my real reason for blogging. I wanted to get more traffic to my store. But now that I've been blogging for about 8 months, I am enjoying the other teacher bloggers I have virtually met and can't wait to go to Vegas next summer for the TPT conference and meet some of them!
2. What one word sums up the heart of your blog and why?
Sharing - ever since I began teaching, I would have other teachers come just walk around my room, staring at everything and then I would end up sharing ideas or even resources that I had found or created with them. So, I'm branching out beyond sharing with my co-workers and now I'm sharing with you all too!
3. Is there something you learned late in your blog journey you wished you knew before? I'm rather tech-savvy, but I wish I knew how to do more of the design aspects of creating and designing my blog. I'm all about cute and organized and want it all to be perfect. I'm satisfied with what I have done to this point, but would love to have a blog designer create me a design full of buttons for links and everything!
4. What is your favorite past time other than blogging?
I have lots of little things I like to do here and there, but at the moment, I'd have to say support NC State athletics - football, basketball are my biggest, but when we get a chance to go to another game, we go and pull for our Wolfpack, even when we lose.
5. How many hours per week do you dedicate to your blog?
Not enough! I usually end up blogging once a week and that is Five for Friday. I really need to blog more about things that I'm doing in my classroom -GoNoodle, Class Dojo, academics, etc!
6. What category of blog posts do you enjoy the most?
I love the holidays and doing fun stuff! So I usually end up looking for those seasonal and holiday ideas!
7. Where does your blog inspiration come from?
My classroom and my students - otherwise I wouldn't have anything to blog about!
8. Which post that you've written are you most proud of?
I would probably have to say THIS post about how I flipped my math classroom last year. Being able to utilize classroom practice to actually practice what I was teaching my students was a big deal to me!
9. Is there any post you've been planning to do but have been postponing it for awhile now?
Probably how I use Class Dojo in my classroom. I just haven't seemed to find the time to sit down and actually remember to do it!
10. What is your favorite aspect of blogging?
Connecting with other teachers and teacher bloggers to make connections beyond my small town.
11. Which recipe, project, or idea on my blog would you be most likely to try yourself?
I'm going to have to try Nonfiction Text Feature Sort with my reading groups! We were talking about text features during reading groups the other day and they about killed me not knowing what the caption was. I know they know it, but they just have to keep practicing it.
Now...onto the nominations! I don't have 11, which I hope is okay. I saw from other bloggers, that they only had to nominate 5 - 11, and all of the bloggers I follow have a lot more than 200, or have already been nominated/accepted.
To those who have been nominated, here are the "official" rules for accepting:
1. In your post, link back to the blogger who nominated you as a thank you and "shout out." (Follow their blog if you haven't already!)
2. Answer the 11 questions given to you (the ones I answered above).
3. Nominate 11 blogs of your choice that each have less than 200 followers. Provide them with 11 questions to answer or have them answer the questions above.
4. Let your nominees know that they've been nominated and provide them with a link to your post so that they can accept.
5. Send your nominator a link to your post so that s/he can learn more about you as well! (You can just put your post link in the comments below!)