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My Best & Brightest from 2012

As 2012 prepares to come to a close, I am overwhelmed by how many blessings I have experienced this year. Many of those blessings are a direct result of this humble little blog, so when I saw that Christina from Bunting, Books, and Bainbridge was hosting a Best & Brightest of 2012 Linky (an opportunity to brag and share about blogging in 2012,) I knew I just HAD to link up!
2012's Blog Best & Brightest Link
The very BEST decision I made all year, was making the commitment to follow my heart and start a blog.  If you can believe it, Kinder-Craze has only been in existence for about 9 months, but WOW, what a wild ride the past nine months have been. But I’m getting ahead of myself…

Original Kinder-Craze banner header from March 2012
The original Kinder-Craze header from March 2012

 

My greatest Kinder-Craze accomplishment this year was having the INCREDIBLE honor of writing a guest post for the Pinterest blog in celebration of World Teacher Day on October 5. When I look back, I still can’t quite believe that happened to me.

Pinterest-Guest-Blog-pic
My top blog post for 2012 was Fancy Up Your Sterlite Drawers where I explained how to line Sterlite drawers with scrapbook paper. That single post has received nearly 200,000 page views.

polka-dot-sterlite-drawers
The runner-up was my follow-up post  that went a bit more in-depth and compared/contrasted using Mod Podge vs. clear tape. Apparently, people love themselves some fancy drawers.

Tape-or-Mod-Podge
The most suspenseful moment of 2012 was when my classroom was a finalist for The Schoolgirl Style Challenge. That week of watching the “online polls” was so intense but so much fun. As fate would have it, I didn’t win the Challenge, but I am so proud to have come within 11 votes of the winner!

Maria-Manore-Kindergarten-Classroom-pic-1
And my top product on Teachers Pay Teachers has been my Interactive Sight Word Readers. Teachers just LOVE that students unscramble letters to complete the missing word in each sentence. (I think they also love the affordable price of $1 each.)

Interactive-Reader-cover-Pic
here-is-st.-nicholas-sample-pic

And there you have it. What a year it has been!
I cannot wait to see what lies ahead in 2013!

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Maria Gavin

Maria is a former kindergarten and first grade teacher, with 13 years of teaching experience. Her love and passion for all things early childhood is now fulfilled as a mom to two amazing kids. She loves sharing practical and creative tips and ideas that are perfect for young learners – in the classroom or at home!

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17 Responses

  1. I love those interactive readers too! Well, it is obvious cause I purchased them all. 🙂

    Just stopping by to wish you a VERY Merry Christmas. Thanks for the inspiration.
    Melissa

  2. I too love the interactive readers.
    I am curious to know what Reading and math series you use in the classroom?
    I love your “style” and you have become my “go to” blog of choice.
    Glad you had a good year..you have earned it!
    You must be a wonderful teacher.
    Merry Christmas and continue into 2013:)

    1. Hi Barbara, I’m honored to be your “go to” blogger! We no longer use a reading or math series in Kindergarten at my school. I do the daily 5 (at this point in the year it’s still the daily 2), guided reading, and just follow the standards in the common core to guide instruction. It requires more planning and prep, but the activities are more meaningful to the students and we were always recycling SO many filler pages from our current math series. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you as well!

  3. Well done on such a successful year! Such great resources and ideas. I’ve added your interactive sight word readers to my TPT wish list for when I am back on kindergarten!

    Diana :)-(
    Le@rning Out Loud

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Hi, I'm Maria.

I’m a former kindergarten teacher turned work-from-home mom. I still love sharing ideas and resources to make teaching easier, so you can focus on what really matters in the classroom. When I’m not working on the blog, you’ll find me chasing kids around the house with a cold cup of coffee in my hand (some things never change even once you’re out of the classroom!)

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