Monday Made It, Outer Space Freebie & B2S Giveaway

My motto is 'Carpe Diem' and because of this I'm very ADHD because I try to get lots of stuff done and cram everything I can into every waking moment (when my 2 little ones are napping, occupied or sleeping).  While writing this post I'm literally bouncing back and forth between making baby food, blogging and texting with my brother-in-law about hooking up our built-in speakers.  I bite off way more than I can chew, but it seems to suit me :-)

Here we go:

Feels great to link up once again with

I made something for my classroom that I saw on a recent blog post.  

When I read it I laughed out loud, thought of my 5-year-old and then knew it would be cute on my desk.

Hee, hee, hee...

I also made something for our new home!  This marks the first thing I've made (that is not for my classroom) thanks to inspiration from Pinterest.  I had to convince my husband though, which was easy because we made a deal: he got to hang a painting his grandmother did (in a spot I wasn't a fan of) and I got to do whatever with our mudroom!

BEFORE

AFTER

You can use a dry erase marker to write on these frames
(which have scrapbook paper on the inside).

Our daughter starts Kindergarten in 2 weeks and our son still goes to daycare, so I wanted to do something with this room to make sure we're all on the same page about our days.  The artwork was something we had and was perfect because we're like a "herd of elephants" trying to get out of the house on time in the morning!  I LOVE PINTEREST!

Finally, I didn't time dinner well tonight because the baked potatoes were almost done and I had just put the chicken in so....my daughter and I made 'chocolate covered graham crackers' on a whim.  She is a bit obsessed with having them every time my husband takes her to a coffee place (and it seems like you can only find them at coffee places, WAY overpriced).  So we pulled out ingredients and I literally made up the super simple recipe.  I added peppermint extract to the chocolate just because we had it and it was delicious!  I stuck them in the freezer and they were ready in time for dessert :-)

This one is a 'person'.

My classroom has an Outer Space theme and I revamped our 'Classroom Rules' signs this past week and put them up in my classroom.  You can find them by clicking below

Now go over and check out all the other freebies at

I'm soooooooo excited and thankful to be doing my first blog collaboration!

I recently discovered Crystal's blog over at The Library Fox and am a fan of her cute clipart.  So we're doing a joint giveaway!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Spread the word! 

http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/share-code/NDBjNGQwZDU5ZWIwNjA5NDk5YTk2OWQyZDhmOTgzOjI=/

Thanks for hanging in there for that whole post...that's what I get for not blogging this weekend (which was dedicated, somewhat, to catching up on a year's worth of scrapbooking for 2 kids, yikes!)

Word Way Game

It's time for Monday Made It again!

I was grocery shopping this weekend and forgot something.  I pushed my heavy, overflowing cart towards the home section and passed by this:

I don't know what came over me but a sudden urge to buy it because "I could turn it into a game!" came over me.  As I then made my way to the check-out I was already planning my new game: Word Way.

I transformed this sink mat into a game board (short vowel word families) and then made spinners to go with it.

Click here to go to my website and get a PDF of the spinners.

Kids use bouncy balls (bottom cut off) as tokens and then spin and move their way across the board making real words.

I'm excited to introduce this game this week and I hope you like enough to make it too!

Made It Monday!

Made It Monday is now going to be on the first Monday of each month over at Tara's fantastic blog:

My blog has been as quiet as a sleeping infant lately because I gave birth to my son Max about 2 weeks ago, so life just got busier and I haven't found the time to blog...until now!  

So this project was completed prior to Max's arrival and is a spin-off of something I've seen from several people doing Monday Made It.

A Birthday Pot

First, I sprayed painted an old flower pot, filled it half way with polished rocks and put star stickers on the outside.

Made It Monday

I've been a busy bee this past week, keeping myself busy while watching the Olympics and waiting for my second child to arrive in less than 2 weeks!

This is my new job chart...I saw this on Pinterest and thought it was so cool!

So I used my Cricut, scrapbook paper, letter stickers and fadeless paper.  I put magnetic tape on the back so it stays on my filing cabinet and will make little magnetic names for my students, which will go on the chart itself.

Outer Space is my classroom theme once again....with accents of red/black/white & white polka dots.  So I went crazy with fabric!

Used magnetic tape, stapled to the back
to adhere it to my desk.

I write student's names on fat popsicle sticks and keep them in a jar to use when I need to randomly choose or call on students.  So I've jazzed up the sticks and the jar!

I also, finally, put my favorite Smart Board presentation up on TPT. 

I use my beloved Smart Board to manage my Daily 5 groups 

(students, noise, & behavior).  The file was on my Mac Mini at school and I finally brought it home.

Find it Here!

Go check out all the fantastic ideas that are going on at:

http://4thgradefrolics.blogspot.com/

Made It Monday!

I worked on 2 things last week:

#1

I found this short vowel practice idea on Pinterest and took it a bit further, turning it into a game.  I don't have a name for it yet, so I'd love some ideas.

 

I went to Lowe's and stocked up on paint samples to make it.

I would start by using this game in small reading groups and adding a vowel to it each week as our HM series progresses.  Blends & digraphs come in around January, so I'd add those then.

Made it Monday!

A friend of mine told me about a blog called 4th Grade Frolics that has a cool sharing forum on Mondays only. If you've made something recently, you can link from the blog to your blog or website (if you don't have either, it says you can e-mail the blogger). There are TONS of cool ideas and it's a great way to discover other teaching bloggers! My intention was to be up at the crack of dawn (AK time of course) to post a link to my Word Stretcher creation...but I ended up surfing, painting, getting ready, etc. and didn't do it until lunch time, so my contribution is #120.  I can't wait to check all these ideas out and you should too!