Kickin' Off the Summer with a Giveaway!

Hi Everyone!! I feel like it has been way too long since I last connected with all of you in the blogosphere!  In order to reconnect with all of you and kick off a summer full of blogging tutorials and fun, I decided to start with a fun summer book giveaway.

Let me first introduce to you, my friend, 1st grade teacher, and Children's book author, Stacey Hill...and her family!!

Stacey Hill received a B.A. in Elementary Education at Ottowa University and an M.A. in Curriculum and Instruction through the University of Phoenix. She has taught elementary school for thirteen years and always dreamed of becoming an author and sharing her books with young children to foster a love for reading. She lives in Goodyear, Arizona, with her husband of twenty-six years, two incredible sons, and the cutest little dog, Lucky.

The Adventures of Goose and Moose is a well thought out and fun character building series that can easily be adapted for Pre-K to 2nd grade (possibly 3rd). Goose and Moose Visit the Beach is the first book in the series and focuses on friendship and helping others. The book includes questions every couple of pages that are perfect for read alouds in the classroom or circle time. The handy vocabulary page is perfect for teachers or parents to create a vocabulary/word wall.

I am completely in love with the friendship of Goose and Moose and the kindness they show to one another and to others. I believe that character building/training is such an important subject to teach young children and this is going to be an incredible series of books to build upon!

You can choose to order The Adventures of Goose and Moose now (links at the end of this post)....

OR...

You can follow the directions below for a chance to WIN a SIGNED COPY for your home or classroom library!  Entering the giveaway is super easy...

***This Giveaway is for U.S. Residents Only Please***

1. Like and follow The Adventures of Goose and Moose on Facebook (click the image below)

2. Leave a comment below and tell me why you would love to have this book! Make sure to include your email so that I can contact you if you are chosen. 

You will have until Tuesday,  June 13th, 2017 at midnight (MST) to enter the giveaway.  Each comment will be numbered and I will use a number generator to choose a winner.  The winner will be notified Thursday morning by email and I will make the announcement on my blog. 

Click the links below to purchase from each specific shop or attend the next  book signing in Arizona!! (**none of the following links are affiliate links)

     

Thank you so much for participating!! 

I look forward to sending out a signed copy to one lucky winner and adding to your 

summer reading list!! 

12 Days of Christmas FREEBIES Bundle is HERE!!

12 Days of Christmas Freebies...IS...BACK!!! That's right everyone!! If you missed my 

12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS FREEBIES EVENT, or if you weren't able to download each of the 12 sets a couple of years ago, I am now offering the entire 12 sets as ONE bundle starting TODAY!! 

The bundle will be available for FREE until December 25th {2016} at midnight.

You will get the coordinating borders, patterns, and accents in one easy bundle {see previews below}. Click the image above to visit my Teachers Pay Teachers shop and download the bundled set. 

Please share the link and remember to leave feedback. Remember... it pays to leave feedback on TpT! Earn points and use those points as credit to buy more stuff!! 

WHAT YOU WILL GET IN THE BUNDLE... 

Thank you everyone for stopping by and I hope you have a very Merry & Bright Christmas!!

Website in a Night with Weebly

Oh my Goodness!! Hi Everyone!!!

I have not written a post since April, but I wanted to pop in and share a really neat experience I had last night at the Weebly Headquarters in Scottsdale, Arizona.

I was invited to attend the Weebly, Website in a Night Event (#wein), and of course, I accepted! I have had my website through Weebly for about three years and I have now designed about 5 Custom Weebly sites for clients. You can say I am a bit of a fan.

This was me on the way to the event. We hit some traffic and I was worried that we might arrive a little late, but we were there 20 minutes early.

My biggest fear???  Seriously!! I really do not like arriving somewhere and having to go to the bathroom before I say hello to everyone...it's a real problem people.. haha 

As a pop in, my website was featured and I got an opportunity to share my site, my story, and a little bit of what I do. Sharing what I do is actually a challenge at times because I am bit of a creative everything...lol  My husband came along with me and was able to get a photo of me while I had my few minutes of fame. Totally RAD!

Although I love to share what I do, I especially love meeting new people and getting an opportunity to share my knowledge with other creative people.

The moment we arrived, we were greeted with smiles and an entire team of hard-working Weebly staff members ready to teach, connect, and offer help to those who registered to attend. By the way, the entire event was FREE!!

I had a blast sharing my story, but I was really looking forward to learning some SEO (Search Engine Optimization) while I was there. I arrived prepared to take plenty of notes and I filled a few pages before leaving (and I might have brought home a few free pens).


I tried to stay active on Instagram and Snapchat (@the3amteacher) as much as I could, but I found myself so immersed in great conversations that I mainly failed to share tips during the bulk of the event. Instead of trying to create bits and pieces of what I learned, I thought I would share some great takeaways I left with and include a few really helpful links that you all can check out below.

TAKEAWAYS ON SEO
1. Adding a content specific description to your website or blog can help boost traffic to your site. It is also good to add descriptions to blog posts, specific pages and product pages to help search engines find you.

2. Descriptions should be no more than 2-3 sentences and should be content specific.

3. Meta Keywords can help your site show up more frequently in search engines, like Google, if you choose words that are content specific to your site.

4. You should use no more than 15 to 30 content specific keywords separated by commas, but do not use adjectives or excessive repeated word combinations. Using too many repetitive words can actually cause more harm than good and you could potentially get flagged or penalized for doing it. For instance, if you are a plumber and you list the word, plumbing over and over in every place you can add Meta Keywords, you will most likely get penalized and not show up (so I was told).

5. I learned that I have a LOT of work to do on my Weebly website product pages. I have optimized my own site using the settings, which helps the home page and main information, but I have not taken advantage of the advanced options for SEO on my individual page links or my product pages. This is something I added to my list that I will be working on in the weeks and months to come.

Even though the SEO tips were designed for the Weebly site, this new knowledge can be applied to any site or blog to help your sites get seen. It is not just the amount of traffic that's important, but targeting the RIGHT traffic to your site.

A little peek into the SEO session

Click the images below to link to the amazing SEO Weebly help site. They have some great tips and directions to help get you started.

SEO was one area that I have really been needing to learn more about, so I was really happy to gain some knowledge in that area. I hope the links above are helpful to you as well. Weebly has provided incredible support and a wealth of knowledge to their customers and I feel really honored to have been a part of their event.

Everyone who attended had a story and a dream and I found myself so intrigued and inspired by those around me.

At one point during the event, the coordinator Dana Walsh, came up to me and told me that there was someone who wanted to meet me and had some questions.

To my surprise, the young man was a HIGH SCHOOL student who had created his own education company based on the needs of his teachers and we sat down and talked for nearly an hour! This young man was incredibly brilliant and I just want to give him a little shout out. He created a company called, Connected EDU and he built it as a way for educators to collaborate and share ideas (not resources) with one another. The concept is that new teachers can find a place to get help and support and seasoned teachers can be mentors to new teachers. The site is in it's beta form or testing phase, but this incredible young man has big ideas and I just know he is going to make such a huge impact. I feel so honored to have met him!! Below is his card (I cropped out his phone number, obviously), but feel free to check him out and follow him.. I have a feeling he is going to make some positive waves in the field of education through online collaboration and learning.

That pretty much wraps up the night with Weebly. If you are looking to create a website, I highly recommend that you, at least, take some time check out Weebly. They are an incredible company that continues to grow.  www.weebly.com

I will leave you now with a fun little snapchat photo I took this morning.. I just LoVe this app!! The image below is probably the closest thing to a white winter I will have here in Arizona.. so I am embracing the "idea" of winter... while it is still in the high 80's here!!

Thank you for visiting and I hope you learned a little, laughed a lot, and just enjoyed spending a little time reading my blog.