Monday Made It

I am so sad. This was my last care-free weekend... AND I took total advantage of it. 

The husband and I spent a lot of time together. We spent so much time together, he'll be happy that I am back to school this week!

I really hope this isn't my last Monday Made It for a while, but I am afraid it might be.

I've been hearing some nasty rumors about new curriculum requirements this year.

Requirements that will likely eat-up most of my free time. Boo!

Venting Alert--->WHY do we pay money hand over fist to publishing companies, if I have to spend my hours supplementing???<---Sorry, I needed to let that out.

Anyway, I'm just a little nervous about the expectations that are surrounded by Common Core. I've been to two workshops regarding Common Core already, and they were NOT helpful at all. They just reminded me of how much more work I'm going to have to do.

We shall see...

Enough of that boring stuff and on to my "Made It's"

1) First, I found a bunch of really cool stuff to spruce up my classroom. I spent a lot of time printing, cutting, laminating, and cutting again, but it was well worth it!

My pile of laminating to cut.

After about three hours, all of it was cut and organized. Ya!

 Here's a list of what is what:

*Binder Covers from the WONDERFUL Rachelle at What the Teacher Wants. They are editable, so I was able to make covers for everything! Yee-haw

*Welcome Pennant from Vickie at Mrs. Plant's Press. It's free and totally cute! Love it!

*CAFE headers for my bulletin board from Rachel at The Tattooed Teacher. I don't have a Wizard of Oz theme but these are so darlin' I couldn't pass them up. Plus, The Wizard of Oz is on the list of Exemplar Texts, that makes it totally relevant. :)

*Visual Directions cue cards for my little guys from Tiffani at Time 4 Kindergarten. These will be good to refer to while they are working.

*Fabulous Firsties Mega Word Work cards - Mrs. Mabe has created a fantastic set of Word Work cards. These will be great for myself and my part-time aid (if I actually get one - Lord help me!) who will be working with my inclusion students. Thanks!

*Abby's Ready to Read unit is fabulous for beginning of the year activities that will carry over throughout the year.

*Writing Station Starter Kit from Teri at A Cupcake For the Teacher. I was so happy to pick this up. It is perfect for independent writing time.

I put together my Writing Station board, and I am so pleased with how it turned out.

I hope my kiddos like it as much as I do!

I hung my Welcome Pennant above my Daily 5 I-Charts.

I've redone my I-Charts so they will be ready for me to fill in with my students responses.

We will complete the   I-charts on large chart paper, and then I'll convert the responses over to these smaller charts. We'll refer to these charts throughout the year. {Especially around the holidays!}

My new CAFE headers

The Visual Directions Cue Cards

Since I will be the reading teacher for a class of Kinders and Firsties, I will need two sets of Daily 5 pocket charts for our three daily rounds. When I first started the Daily 5 about six years ago, I had purchased the Target Dollar Spot pocket charts and used these choice cards. This system works really well for me, so I went out to Target and got some more charts. I hung them under my first set of charts and learned that they are made much smaller then my old charts! Oh no, my cards won't fit. Nothing is easy!

I had to make a new set of smaller cards.

First three rows are the smaller set for my Kinders and the last three rows are the normal sized cards for my Firsties. Click on the picture to pick up the smaller set of cards. 

Also, I had a request for a smaller sized 'Brainstorm Vocabulary' poster printable to fit on a file folder and here it is...

Click on the picture to get the document.

The first part is the large poster board version and the second part is the file folder version.

You'll need to use wittle Post-its.

My sister, Jill, has been very busy, too. She redid her classroom theme and has been working hard at hunting down anything in teal and brown.

She made an adorable frame for pictures.

(Please excuse the cell phone pictures, I had to steal these from her texts to me!)

interchangeable labels for our special days

our wonderful SEVENTH grade model, Molly

She made me a frame, too. I'm so lucky :)

We have also added Kristin's Quiet Creature. I think he looks like a llama.

Can I tell you how much I'm loving TPT's sale? 

I love it this much <------------------------------------------------------------------------>!

My wishlist has gotten a lot smaller with my new purchases. Yippers!

I may not have my own TPT store to promote for the sale, but Jill does. :)

She has some awesome science fair projects available for super cheap.

Here's a link to her store. Click {HERE}

Please go and check out everyone else's Made It"s while you still have time!

Thanks again, Tara!

Y'all have a great week!

Cricut Newb!

I don't know if I've mentioned it before on my blog, but I DO NOT have the crafty gene. My sister has the gene. Then it skipped my brother and me and went straight to my little brother. I try to be crafty. My mother sent me to art camps during summer breaks. I loved it, but my work was not very good. When I was in middle school, all of my electives were some sort of art class. I couldn't understand why I would get C's. Art is supposed to be subjective, right? I had a sculpture class in high school and I sculpted an elephant. I thought it looked pretty good but I could feel something was off. I turned it over, spun it around, and I couldn't figure out what was wrong. I could hear my friends laughing at me, and I begged them to tell me what was wrong with my elephant. 

They yelled out, "It has eight legs!" Oh...yeah... that's why it looked weird.

I found this awesome picture on Pinterest that really sums me up.

Source: Facebook (so who know's?)

I'm very hesitant to do anything crafty and I am well aware of my limitations. So, when I started seeing the super cute vinyl Cricut creations on Ashley's blog, The Polka Dot Patch. I knew it was probably something I could never do. Recently, Ashley posted some information about her Cricut designs and how to make them for the classroom. It must have been kismet because Michaels just put the little Cricut on sale. The forces of nature were telling me to be crafty! I just had to give it a try!

Result:

New Pencil Baskets! Note to self: I need to get better ribbon for them.

Little trays I got at Target ages ago.  Home to my choice cards for the Daily Five.

Verdict:

Not as cute as Ashley's designs but I am stoked that I did it. I'm hooked!! Now, I'm hunting around my classroom and home for baskets, trays, carts, whatever I can find to vinylize. Also, I need to come up with titles for everything. "STUFF" just won't do. (Except, that's what keeps popping up in my head.) I need new fonts, too.

Maybe, 2% of me is a little crafty!

*Also: I feel bad about this, but when I read the EXTREMELY talented Babbling Abby's last post title I totally thought she was decorating her ceiling tiles. I said to myself, "MAN! She's even decorating the ceiling. I really need to step up my game!" Thank goodness I was wrong. I wish I had her skills!