Today I am linking up with a huge crowd!  It's a Back to School Blog Hoppin' linky party!!

Today Is:

I've done some meet the teacher link ups before so I'll try to vary my answers a little so it's not ALL repetitive. I say this because I actually think you actually REMEMBER anything I've ever said about me in the past... ;)

Let's do 10 random facts:

My name is Amna. I was born and raised in New York. I was born in Brooklyn but grew up in Long Island after 3rd grade. I sometimes wonder how much of a NY accent I would have if I had stayed in Brooklyn. Would I be cooler?

I lived in in a suburb near Chicago from my early to mid 20's. I hated living there for the first two years because I knew no one, had no family, and had two little babies to take care of. But after that, I LOVEDDD IT. I made my closest friends there. I miss living there but I am just as happy to be back in NY where my parents and siblings are.....because I get free babysitting... ;)

I had my first baby boy at age 20, my baby girl exactly 12 months later, and my last baby girl 11 years later in 2012. Boy have times changed with all the stuff there is out there for babies! And boy have I changed as a parent. I honestly think I was a better mom at 20 than now! I guess I'm just more relaxed now.

This will be my 8th year teaching 2nd grade. I also did my student teaching in 2nd grade. But each year, I do things so much differently or add on to enhance things that didn't work out the year before. When will I just GET IT?

I LOVEEEE CATS. Well I love all animals really but my obsession is with cats. I had some but had to give them away due to husband's allergies. I dream of the day when I can convince him to take allergy shots so I can get some again!! When I was a teenager, I ripped out all the pics of my cat calendar and hung them on my wall. I did that with like 3 calendars. There were a lot of cats on my walls. 

I am the oldest of 4 girls. Did your parents get more and more lenient with each subsequent kid? I was never allowed to go to the mall or out anywhere with friends...but my youngest sis...everything is game! I really wish I had some brothers. Remember the show, "Party of Five?" I really wanted a brother like Charlie. 

I love Sushi! And food. 

Sometimes I think I want to go and get an administration degree. Then I think about studying and writing papers. So I stop thinking. 

My parents are from Pakistan. I can speak our language, "urdu."  But my older kids hardly know how to speak it because I don't speak it on a regular basis. And now my baby knows a couple of words...and I regret it...but it's soooo hard to teach it if you don't speak it with other adults around in the house. 

I consider myself pretty trustworthy and dedicated. Those are two qualities I do believe I work hard to have and maintain. I like to believe that I can be trusted and that when I put my dedication into doing something, I will go out and achieve it. 

I am so glad you stopped by. I haven't gone back into my classroom this year yet so I don't know much about some of the other days for this linky party...since my older pictures STINK! But we'll see. 

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Amna

Yahoo, it's my turn to bring to you a great resource for back to school! I hope you've been following our Tips and Tools for Back to School blog hop all summer. All these ladies down below have shared tips and freebies on their blog each weekend all summer long! If you've missed any, make sure to visit their blogs and look for the Tips and Tools posts!

Open House/Back to School Night/Meet the Teacher Night-  whatever you want to call it, is an exciting time. You get to meet your students and their families. It can also be a hectic time, trying to talk to everyone at once, answering questions, remembering faces, and getting supplies and information organized. So if you have a bunch of parents coming in all at once, why not keep them busy AND get information out of them at the same time?

My tip for you is to have forms set up for parents to fill in right when they walk in the door or as they are mingling while you are talking to others. I've created this Back to School Open House Forms freebie. 

Inside you will find a bunch of forms! Depending on what you call your back to school night, I have made four different posters to hang near where you will put the other signs. The poster welcomes the parents and tells them to sign the other forms. 

I actually printed this sign in Adobe in poster size settings. I set the size to 150 percent and it came out on four different pages. Then I cut them apart, put them together with construction paper as backing so I could arrange them properly, and cut away the construction paper so you can't see it around the sides. 

There is a sign in sheet as well as a parent contact information sheet. 

And then there are two options for parent volunteer forms. One option is that you lay out individual volunteer job sheets and parents can pick and choose what they want to fill in. The jobs are for classroom assistant, copy helper, home helper, read aloud volunteer, and party/event helper. 

The other option is if you don't have space to put out all the forms and you want just a check mark sheet, you can put the following two forms out and have parents check mark what they can help with. Later, you can contact them and create a master list for yourself (also provided), that will help you remember what days and times they are available. 

I hope you LOVE these forms as much as I loved creating them!! Click HERE to take you to the product.

I hope your back to school night is phenomenal. And if you've already had it this early in August...I'm sorry....because right now it's 4:37 p.m. and I am sitting in my pajamas... :)

Ok wait don't leave yet. Since you're here, you mayyy just want to check out this giveaway below. You can win one of SIX $20 gift certificates to TpT. And you're going to want to do that because a one day sight wide sale is coming up Wednesday!! Enter below. 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Amna

I just LOVE it when I learn a new trick for creating on Power Point! Today I learned how to format and change the background FOR ANY FONT! You see the picture up there? That's a regular KG font (Melonheadz)...not bubble letters...just normal...that has been transformed into bubblish letter with digital paper filling in the background!

This is my first step by step tutorial. And my toddler is busy right now so I wanted to do this real quick. You won't see cute arrows pointing to spots on the screen you should look at. So...just look real hard.. :)

Step 1:

Open a blank document on Power Point. Go to Insert on the top and click on Word Art.

Step 2: 

You will see this box appear. Change it to any wording you want. 

Step 3:

Enlarge it to any size and change the font to anything you'd like. In this case I have used KG Melonheadz.

Step 4:

Highlight the text, right click, and select Format Text.

Step 5:

You will get this box. Click on TEXT FILL from the left sidebar.

Step 6:

Click on the Picture or Texture tab on the top. Next, click on CHOOSE PICTURE where it says "From File."

Step 7:

After you select "Choose Picture," you will get your pop up window to choose a file. I have gone into my Digital Paper files and will select a digital paper that I want to fill the background with.

So here is a background paper I worked with. Choose the one you want and click INSERT.

You will see the preview of the background you chose. You notice how the one below IS NOT a paw print one like I have above? That's not a mistake...that's because I used a different one after I screen shot the picture, and then was too lazy to re-do the shot. That's how I roll. So anyway, I went with this striped paper instead.

Click OK.

And there you go! Your text now has that digital paper as the background.

You can also add details to the text such as a highlight.

To do this you:

1) Select the text

2) Click on Text Effects on top (the A that looks highlighted with blue).

3) Select "Glow," from this menu.

4) Select "Glow Options."

5) Choose the color you want to highlight with. Below, it is on black. You can also adjust the width/intensity of the color by moving the "size," slider bar. And then you can adjust the transparency if you want. I haven't done that to the above example. 

And thanks to awesome people on Instagram - I got this new tip - you can enlarge each letter to make bulletin board sized ones - print, laminate, and cut. No more needing to buy letter cut outs from the store!

Alright!! Now go make your fonts cool!!

Thanks for stopping by. 

Let me know if you have any questions still. 

***Edited***

I had some questions as to where I get my digital paper files from. I get all of mine from Teachers Pay Teachers. If you are new to getting digital papers, the easiest way is to go to TpT and do a search for digital papers. There are tonsss of free papers out there if you are just wanting to get a feel for it. After you search for digital papers, go to the left hand side bar and click on free. They come in Zip files and once you have downloaded it, just click on that zipped folder to open up the files. Save them to wherever you want on the computer and use that to insert into your letters. 

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Amna

Stephanie from Falling Into First started this Meet the Teacher Blogger linky up today and I stopped, dropped, and rolled my way to my laptop so I could link up. However, it took entirely TOO long for me to find a picture of myself to put on the main pic up there. That's because of two things. First, I usually end up taking pics like this:

And this:

 And more beautiful faces right here:

And the second reason I couldn't find a picture is because I have no recent pics of myself. All my photos on my phone consist of classroom pics, kids pics, or screen shots of ideas I'll never remember. 

Anyway! I'm Amna. I'm 33. Does that age count if I don't act it? But I do feel old because I can't wear any footwear comfortably except my Dr. Scholl shoes with Dr. Scholl inserts. 

I've been teaching second grade for 8 years. I was born and raised in New York.

Ok fine, I'll give a normal picture of myself. Here is my family down below. I have three kiddos and two step kiddos who live with their mom and don't get pictured. We are going to a traditional wedding, hence the traditional looking clothes. 

Ok disclaimer - the formatting is coming out sooo weird down below. It has to do with the cutting and pasting the questions and going on a pink background. But I tried to undo and fix it and I can't. So I'm stopping. 

THESE ARE A FEW OF MY FAVORITE THINGS...

Reality T.V., babies, weird flavor food, ( if a brand comes out with any new type of flavor combo, I have to buy it), Glade scent plug ins, feta cheese, actually any type of cheese (I've been known to buy Cheez Wiz and eat it straight from the can), COFFEE (why didn't I put that first? I must need coffee right now, I can't think straight), food cooked by my mom, eating out, pumpkin flavored ANYTHING, Mario Brothers games, reading.

IF YOU WEREN'T A TEACHER, WHAT WOULD YOU WANT TO BE?

I would definitely want to be doing something in the animal field. I've dreamed of being a wildlife animal cuddler. Like I just want to go play with baby cubs all day. When I was little, I wanted to be a dolphin trainer too. I LOVE animals!!!!

THREE LITTLE WORDS THAT DESCRIBE YOU.

corny, trustworthy, determined

FINISH THE SENTENCE, "________,  SAID NO TEACHER EVER!!"

"I want to go on a field trip everyday.....said no teacher ever."

Q: IT'S YOUR BIRTHDAY AND YOU CAN INVITE ANYONE {DEAD OR ALIVE} TO THE PARTY. WHO ARE YOU INVITING?

Maroon 5 and Sandra Bullock

Q:YOU GET TO PICK ONE SUPERPOWER. WHAT IS IT?

The ability to figure out anything!

Q: IF YOU HAD TO SING ONE SONG ON AMERICAN IDOL, WHAT WOULD IT BE? 

Stay With Me by Sam Smith

Q: ARE YOU A MORNING PERSON OR A NIGHT OWL?

I am soooo not a morning person.

Q: WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE RESOURCE THAT YOU'VE CREATED IN YOUR TPT SHOP?

I love my Weather Unit. It's my favorite because it is full of fun crafts and activities to teach all things weather related. Check it out by clicking below. 

Q: SHARE SOMETHING WE MIGHT NOT KNOW ABOUT YOU!

As I've mentioned above, I am a reality T.V. junkie. How do I stop? I can't. I just love brain numbing T.V. at the end of a long, hard day. Name it, I've probably watched it.

Thanks for stopping by!! Now go to the linkup below and meet other amazing teacher bloggers!

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Amna