Monday Made It and a Freebie

Well I've been very busy getting my things back in order in my room this past week and it seems crazy to say that next week I will be back at work.  The students don't come back until later in August but we teachers start August 1.  I sometimes think our summers are on warp speed while the school year itself is on super slo-mo.  Do you ever feel that way?

Today I'm linking up with Tara from Fourth Grade Frolics for Monday Made It!  As you may remember I've been working on my sewing room for a while now.  Although the walls and floor are finished, I haven't found the perfect affordable furniture for it yet. 

First up, a look at the before......

I could not take that puke orange peachy orange any longer!!  

And the after......so far......

Excuse the leg....my poor father in law was working so hard to get that floor in.  I'm sure he cursed me for buying the cheapest floor possible! 

I would really like to build something like this to go in there.

It's a bookshelf screwed to the top of a small table.  I think I would like a wider table for my sewing machine but it looks neat.  Still looking for the pieces....

I did find this tall drawer set at a local resale.  I plan to refinish it pure white with no distressing to match my walls.

Enough of my sewing room and dreaming, so what did I make this week???  

Well, I made one of these.....

It's an itty bitty baby onesie for a sweet preemie!  Isn't it adorable? 

We also made a tent for my youngest's bed.  It was DH's idea and he built the setup but needed me to sew the fabric.  I just used a queen sheet and made a new seam in it.  Definitely NOT perfect but DS loves it and that's all that matters!!

This last one is my Pinterest FAIL of the week!!  Ever try something that will be "soooo cute" and have it turn out awful?!?!?!  lol....I had this "brilliant" idea that I would paint Mickey heads on the walls of my boys' bathroom since it's done in a Mickey theme.  How hard can that be right?!?!? WRONG!!! 

So after that failure, I ordered some wallpaper border and we are covering those little guys up! 

My one school related made it is for my job board.  Since my room is a circus theme, my job board is a clown juggling balls with the jobs written on them.  The title is "Juggling Jobs".  Well I made each of the balls this year all pretty and colored in but then I got to thinking about my current ink situation (Read that to mean little to no ink left) and I came up with a different idea. 

 I simply made a black circle outline with each job printed in black inside.  This way you can put ANY kind of paper behind it to print out on and it doesn't use colored ink.  If your room is chevron, print on chevron paper.  If you want solids, print on solids.  You can usually get the regular sized paper cheap at Michael's or Hobby Lobby or any local craft store.  

Pick it up here in my TPT store!!  Thanks for reading along!!

 

Working in my room, Planning for the year and a FREEBIE!!!!

So I've been working in my room this week and let met tell you it needs LOTS of work!!!

I spent most of Monday just cleaning out manipulatives and sorting them.  You see,

our math manipulatives did not come in until about five weeks into the year so even though 

I used them every day I never really had a good storage place 

other than the cardboard box that they had come in last year.  

I also got another bookshelf this summer for a total of four sets!!  This makes me super

excited because I can spread out my classroom library.  Our school doesn't have a 

school library.  Different huh?  Yes, no school library at all because they believe that books should be in the classrooms where they are accessible to kids every day.  SO.....

I have LOTS of books on a variety of levels in order to accommodate all of my students.

Well that was way more information than you needed to know wasn't it?  On with 

the pictures.......

YAY!!! A schedule!!! I was so excited today when our principal gave me the times for enrichment, recess, and lunch.  My schedule is finished now and no, that isn't a typo for two different times for reading.  I teach two different types of reading so we have it at two different times during the day.  The first section is strictly to teach HOW to read and the second reading time is for reading comprehension skills, language, and spelling as well as center time.

My calendar is all set for August!  Geez that seems so far away but it's only 2 weeks from tomorrow.  The purple paper is for the school's monthly calendar and the orange 

paper is for the lunch menu for the month.  Another project finished!!!

I've debated all summer about my alphabet train and where to put it/how to use it.  I've seen all the cute ideas on pinterest where they place the alphabet side by side with ribbons hanging down to make a word wall.  Well, ribbons don't look right hanging from the bottom of a train.  BUT....my poor train doesn't fit across the front of my room right over my white board because my room is narrow so..... I've decided to put it on a side wall and use it as my word wall header without the ribbons.

That's all the room pics I have for now.  The only reason you can't see the ground in any of my pics is because you can't see the ground in my room just yet.  lol....it's definitely a work in progress but it's getting there.  

While at home, I'm busy planning what to teach each month and how to cover all of the standards that need to be covered as well as adding in some rigor to my lessons.  I also want to be able to chart what each student has mastered as we go through the year.  I need to know where every student is at in their journey to second grade and I would like for each parent to know where their child is as well.  Therefore, I created a document listing all of the common core standards for first grade with a box on the side named "Date Mastered".  This will help me keep track of each skill that a student has mastered and it will be a great addition to send home with their report cards for parents to see. 

You can grab my checklist for free at my TPT store until tomorrow night.  If you download it please leave feedback!  THANKS!

Favorite Pins Friday and a flash FREEBIE!!!!

I know it's late and it's almost not even Friday anymore

 but I wanted to link up with First Grade Parade 

to share my favorite pins of the week!!

My Five Favorite Pins of the Week - 

1.  A recipe which is kinda funny because I CAN'T cook.....like not at all......

Click on the picture to go to the site. 

This is for Bourbon Chicken.  We LOVE Bourbon Chicken from the little restaurant at the mall.  I am just not sure we would love it if I cooked it.  Besides it has about 20 ingredients so this is probably a "pin and never do".  Do you have any of those?

2.  For my classroom decor - 

You can click on it to go to the site but it doesn't go to the how to, just to a main page.

I have two old TV stands like the top and I hope to be able to redo them before school starts to look cute and stylish like the bottom although I may leave the wheels on it.

3.  For my home decor -

Sadly, this link is for a session at a store on how to make it and not instructions.  

I need to find instructions on how to make this and make myself one for my front door.  This is perfect for fall!!  I would change the green ribbon at the top to more green mesh stuff though.  

4.  For my classroom lessons - 

Oh my goodness!!!  This is the cutest game ever!!  Mrs. Prince tells you all about it on her blog if you click the picture.  I can't wait to play this game with my kiddos this fall!

5.  For my classroom lessons during the first week - 

Oh isn't this the greatest thing ever!?!??!?!?   I want to make one and leave it up on my wall YEAR ROUND to remind my students of how a great classmate acts!  

Thanks for hanging out with me tonight as I looked through my pins this week!  

As promised, your flash freebie is my Apple Alphabet Bingo!  It will only be a freebie until tomorrow night around this time so hurry over to TPT and grab it. 

This game comes with 26 alphabet bingo cards for the students to use as well as 26 apple cards with each letter of the alphabet on them to use when calling.

If you do download my Apple Alphabet Bingo, please leave me feedback!  THANKS!!! 

Have a great weekend!

July Currently, What I Won, and Giveaway Reminder

What?!?!?  It's already July?!?!  I know...I can't believe it either!  I just couldn't bring myself to link up with Farley at Oh Boy! Fourth Grade early on this Currently linky.  I had to wait until it was actually July because I am certainly NOT wishing my summer away!  I'm enjoying it way too much!

LISTENING:  We were listening to Tom and Jerry the cartoon as my kiddos ate their gourmet lunch of sandwiches and cheetos.  They love summer as much as I do - lazy days of TV, DS's, and board games - which is good since we are hitting 100 degrees most days here and it's brutally hot!  

LOVING: I won!! I won!!  I was so excited to win!  My goal for next year (which you have heard me say a thousand times and which you will get tired of hearing about) is to create better writers in my students.  I don't feel I did enough writing activities this past year.  Therefore, I've been working on writing centers in great detail all summer long.  Also, I've been looking for ideas to use each day for writing journals.  That's when I came across Smiling in Second Grade's blogpost this past Thursday!  Her throwback Thursday post was about writing journals and boy, did her work look amazing!  You can check it out in her TPT store here.  

I plan to use them a little differently than she did.  I am going to have the prompt (which I will pick) ready to go after we return from lunch.  This will help my kiddos readjust to being back in the room after our adventures in the lunch room lunch period.  I'm so excited about using her kit this year!

THINKING:  I need printer ink.  Can you relate?  I always find amazing things on TPT that I need to print, print, print and those little cartridges definitely do NOT last long enough!

WANTING:  I want to go work in my classroom because decorating is the "fun" part but I need to focus and get all of my work that can be done at home finished first.  It's boring but it has to be done.  I'm going to try to wait a couple more weeks before I head off to school.

NEEDING:  So I've finished a few of my writing centers but I have SOOOOO many left to go.  I really need to settle in and work on those.  It's repetitive and semi-boring but it will be such a big help once I'm completely finished!

TIPS,TRICKS, and GIVEAWAYS:  Well I'm fairly new to routinely blogging but the biggest help so far to me has been to participate in giveaways and linky parties.  This seems to draw the most people to your blog.  

I hope you all have a great Monday!  I'm off to finish another writing center and hopefully get some printing done!

OH YEAH, don't forget about the giveaway here on my blog.  My boys will pick a number Wednesday!

New Blog Look and Wonders FREEBIE

I've been looking at my blog and thinking that it really need a new look.  So this 

morning, I started changing things.  I was smart enough to save my

template before I made any changes because I somehow

deleted the WHOLE header element....yep just GONE....no not 

just the picture....like the WHOLE THING.  

So.....I started over again and had to redo EVERYTHING I had just 

finished doing but I LOVE it!!!!  I am still in the process of customizing it and 

making it completely me but this is a great start!

Our school is changing over to Wonders reading curriculum next year.  It looks

great online and I'm pretty excited that it teaches common core but I 

wanted to get other's opinions.  Do you use Wonders?  Is your school 

switching to it?  What do you like most about it?  What is its biggest downfall?

I've started creating theme and essential question posters for my 

essential question/objective wall so I thought I would share!

This can be found in my shop for FREE this weekend only!!!  

Enjoy and have a great weekend!!!  

Bloglovin linky GIVEAWAY

I've decided to link up with Collaboration Cuties for the bloglovin giveaway.

You know the details already but you have searched through LOTS of blogs to get here!  I have never ever used Rafflecopter to do a giveaway so I'm hoping that this thing does what it is supposed to do.  It looks like mumbo jumbo to me!  

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Thanks for reading!!!

Back to School Products and Flash Freebie!

This weekend flew by so quickly and now I sit staring at a full week of training sessions.  I really don't mind the training at all but it's so hard to come out of  "summer mode" for a week.  We are used to sleeping late, going to the movies, making crafts, playing with our pets and now it's get up early, prepare for the sitter, FIND a sitter (my boys run off so many.....), and sit in class all day.  Besides I was just beginning to fill up my TPT store with new items and I don't want to lose the momentum!  But hopefully I'll come home and have things to share!

Last week I worked on a Back to School clip art set which I put in my TPT store Friday night.  

The kit comes with every graphic you see here in both color and b/w.  For this week only, you can get it here for only $2.  After this week, it will be $2.50 in my store.

After finishing my clip art set, I began working on my Back to School writing center.  This center kit should be in my store sometime this week once I finish packaging it up.  I'll explain my plans for a personal word wall for each student when I share about my writing center.

Just for the next 24 hours, I have a flash freebie in my store.  

This math center game works well with high pre-k, all kinders, and beginning first graders.  It consists of cards labeled with the numbers 1-20 and dots representing the numbers 1-20.  Students will play a game of Memory with the cards.  Even numbers are on green apples and odd numbers are on the red ones for another easy lesson.  

Go quickly and grab my Apple Number Match game in my TPT store for free!  This time tomorrow it will be $1.50.  

Thank you for stopping by!!  Please leave a comment to let me know that you were here!