Five for Friday: June 17

I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday.

Beach days, shopping, tutoring, and more! This has been a really great week to really start summer vacation.

This is my first full week of summer vacation! YAY!

I spent some quality reading time at the beach this week. I am not usually a beach person; I really dislike the feeling of sand and I am not a huge fan of being out in the sun, but I am trying to get out a bit more.

It turned out to be a good beach day (for me), as it wasn't too sunny. I was able to get through the first few chapters of the Morning Meeting Book. Our school is moving towards a responsive classroom system for next year, so I figured I would get a head start on the reading this summer. Still not too sure how I feel about getting rid of my color chart for behavior management, but I guess we'll see how it goes...

I love going to Michael's. I love seeing all of the new stuff and getting inspired by all of the awesome crafting supplies. I worked there for 10 years, so I love going in to see the people who still work there that I have known since high school and college.

This week, I came across this:

If you are on Instagram, you have probably seen these Heidi Swapp lightboxes all over the place. They seem to be the big teacher trend this summer! I tried to resist, but at 40% off with an extra 15% off for the teacher discount... I gave in!

I am so excited about this purchase! I even talked my pod-mate into getting one! She came up with the brilliant idea of having Dot (our classroom elf) use it when she comes to visit us in December. I can see Dot having a lot of fun with it. :)

This purchase actually inspired me to work on an unplanned Monday Made it for next week. Stay tuned to see how I organize the lightbox inserts!

This is the first summer that I have offered tutoring services. I just started with a child who will be going into first grade next year. She knows all of her letters and sounds, but is having a hard time with blending.

(I wasn't going to spend our time taking pictures, so you will need to pretend that they are at a picnic table by the pool and not from my classroom.) :)

After assessing her strengths and areas where she needs extra help, we started with some word-building activities.

I had her pick a puzzle that she wanted to build, then we said the letter sounds as we added the letters, and blended the word when we finished.

She needed a lot of short activities to help keep her focused, so we also tried blending with these linking cards.

I am working on getting some new activities ready for when we work together again next week. I am thinking we are going to add some sight word practice in as well.

I am really pleased with what I have accomplished since school let out last week. A few months ago, I started writing differentiated nonfiction units about animals to use with my kiddos who needed enrichment in reading.

(naturally I had to start with flamingos!)

They had a lot of fun this year picking the animals they wanted to learn about.

Then I was thinking that I want them to have the opportunity to work on topics other than animals, so I started to write some units about seasonal topics.

I was able to finish the fall bundle this week. It includes the topics: apples, pumpkins, corn, sunflowers, and bats.

Now that I finished the fall bundle, I am ready to jump into winter! :)

This has been a very busy week for Maggie too!

One of the perks of being a teacher's cat is an unlimited supply of laminating scraps! This silly cat LOVES to play with laminating scraps while I am cutting things out.

Unfortunately for me, that was not the end of Maggie's adventures. I may sound like a proud kitty mama here, but my Maggie is very clever! Normally, this is not a problem. However, this week she really upped her game.

She has always been able to get into the bathroom and kitchen cupboards. If I can't find her under the covers on the bed, in her house, or on the sofa, I know that she is in a cupboard. The one cupboard that was always safe was the one in my dresser where I keep my sweaters. I can't say that anymore!

Maggie now knows how to open the sweater cupboard! It's official: nowhere in my apartment is safe from the beast!

Well, that's it for this Five for Friday. Thanks for stopping by!

Monday Made It- Calendar, Notebooks, and More Labels!

July is just flying by! I go back to school on August 10th, so I am down to four weeks of Summer left! I don't think I will be able to get into my classroom until the first week of August, so I am getting a bit antsy!

 

As much as I love my summers, I always feel a little bit uncomfortable knowing how much work it is going to take to get my classroom ready again!

 

 

I have three made-its this week, so here we go!

 

 

 

 

My first made-it this week is my new calendar. I found this magnetic chalkboard calendar at Walmart for $8 last week and couldn't resist!

 

 

I have been wanting a new calendar for my classroom for a few years, but all of the classroom ones are so big. This one is pretty small and will fit nicely on the board by my desk.

 

 

 

I added the turquoise ribbon and made an extra set of the number magnets from last week's made-it to be the calendar numbers. I like how they are like polka dots!

 

I used hot glue, but the frame is very smooth, so the ribbon has popped off a couple of times. I am going to go back and add a bit of my favorite adhesive, E6000. I actually used it for the first time when I was working at Michael's. We used to use it to attach styrofoam to glass pots/vases where hot glue wouldn't hold. We would have to prep the containers the day before, but once the E6000 had dried, the styrofoam held up really well for floral arrangements.

 

 

Next up I have my guided reading notebooks. I haven't made any of my notebook/folder labels yet, so they aren't much to look at yet, but they work wonders!

 

 

 

I started making my own notebooks for guided reading a few years ago when I realized that we just weren't using enough of a notebook to make it worth buying a class set. Our extension activities aren't always something written, so I wanted a notebook that had fewer pages for less waste.

 

To make these, I counted out about 45 pieces of notebook paper, put them in a file folder, stuck a couple of brads in, and voila! Notebook!

 

One of the things I like best about these is that I can take extra pages out at the end of the year, so no paper gets wasted.

 

 

My last made-it this week is a continuation of my labels from a couple of weeks ago.

 

 

I have been working on materials for my word work center, which I would like to focus more on this year.

 

 

I made these letter cubes with foam counting cubes from the dollar store. They came in packs of 4 colors, so I split them up into four boxes. It took a while to write all the letters and my fingers were stained black for a few days, but it was well worth it!

 

 

Well, that's it for my made-its this week!

 

 

 

 

Make sure you check out the great projects on the Monday Made-it linky at 4th grade frolics!

 



Dollar Store Confessions

I have a confession. I have tried to deny it, but it just won't stay hidden any longer. I am a dollar store addict!

 

 

I go in for one thing, and come out with 20. Every. Single. Time.

 

This morning I went over to get some pool noodles so that I can make some card holders for my word work center. I ended up leaving with all of this-

 

 

and forgot the pool noodles! Sigh. I am going to have to go back in.

 

 

Jokes aside, I can always find lots of goodies for my classroom. I am going to make letter cubes for word work with these:

 

 

 

 

I have always wanted the unifix cubes with the letters on, but at about $16 a set, I think I will stick to these! They don't connect, but I like that they came in 4 colors so that I can make 4 sets and have different letters on each side of the cubes. I plan to store them in my new green tubs.

 

 

 

 

 

I also found these sentence strips in bright pink, green, and blue. How perfect! We use the Reading Street series, and I plan to make cards to go with our spelling words each week. They will go very nicely with the (forgotten) pool noodles that I plan to make!

 

 

 

I saw these cut-outs and I thought they would work well for some kind of matching activity, maybe contractions or place value.

 

 

 

 

I've seen a lot of pins about cool down cubes and have always wanted to make them. I think that these bright cubes will look nice and be good for giving kids options for when they need to cool down.

 

As for the rest of my purchases, I am still thinking about how to use them! I will have to make another trip to the dollar store this week to get those noodles... maybe I will make it out without buying anything else this time!

Monday Made-it: Lots of Labels!

 

 

It has been a busy week here! I have been working on the finishing touches of my lanai redecoration project in addition to my classroom projects. I hope to have the final lanai pictures up for my Monday made it next week!

 

Here is a little sneak peak...

 

 

Maggie is enjoying it already!

 

 

 

I am linking up with Fourth Grade Frolics for another Monday Made It.

 

 

 

 

 

First up, my new desk nameplates! I am using the same format as last year, but I updated them to use my new colors.

 

 

 

I had them printed at Staples and laminated at the classroom store for durability. They are all ready to go!

 

 

 

 

I figured that I might as well make new cubby numbers while I was at it, so I put these together.

 

 

 

 

Ever since I discovered the glow effect in Publisher, I can't seem to stop using it! I think that the white glow really makes the numbers pop!

 

 

Now for my favorite made-it this week, my magnetic letter labels!

 

I found these magnetic letters in the dollar spot at Target last week and had to have them! I have a set of bigger letters at school, but they don't fit in any kind of storage box with compartments that I can find, so they are all mixed up in a plastic box. I have always wanted a more organized system for magnetic letters and now I have done it!

 

Ta-da!

 

 

 I am so pleased with these labels! It took a long time to make the, get them all cut out, then get them taped into the compartments, but I was so determined to have labeled letters that I didn't even care!

 

Here is the most exciting part of this whole project, I didn't just make one box... I made three! Woohoo!

 

 

It may be a bit odd to be this excited about storage, but I just can't help it! The magnetic letter part of my word work center is going to be so much more efficient this year!

 

 

I may have gone slightly overboard in labeling the outside of the boxes, but I wasn't sure which way they would fit on the shelf, so I labeled two sides and the tops.

 

 

Maggie thinks they look pretty good!

 

That's it for this week, I'm off to enjoy my (nearly finished) lanai with Maggie.

 

Thanks for stopping by!