A New School Year and Monday Made It!

Hello all of my bloggy friends out there (yes, that's not a real word...but I like it!)  I am so excited today.  Today is the first day out kiddos come back to school.  I am so looking forward to learning about my students today.  I am going to be borrowing a few things from my friends in the blog world, but I also have a few tricks up my sleeve.  I can't wait to come back and share with all of you later.  But today I wanted to share my Monday Made Its!  It has been a while since I linked up with Tara over at 4th Grade Frolics.  Her Monday Made Its have been so helpful this summer.  And imagine my surprise when she used the Math It Up Game as one of her Made Its!  I was so happy and floored.  I rushed to tell my boyfriend (with me being a new blogger, this was great), of course he didn't really understand as he is not a blogger.  But he made me feel great anyway.  And I have to thank him for all of his help preparing for the school year.  He has cut, paste, moved things, put up things so much ans I couldn't have done most of it without him.  Love you babe.  Okay enough rambling..on to the Made Its.

My 1st Made It:
This is my snack pouch.  Our school has a snack time provided in all grade levels.  Last year, I had a problem with students sneaking snack during instruction.  Talk about an issue.  So I stated to make them put their snacks a basket with their name.  The problem with that is the time it took to get their names on it.  So this was the new alternative and I love it.

 This is just a shoe pouch that hangs on a door, I numbered each pouch and students will place their snacks in their pouches.

My 2nd Monday Made It:
This is my writing utensils in my Writing Center.  I love this so much.  I purchased the tin buckets from Target Dollar Spot and they were worth every penny.  I just placed a label on the bucket.  I saw on one of these fantastic blogs that they placed duct tape around their writing utensils and loved it so I did it as well.  I know that items are going to come up missing, but hopefully this will cut that down a bit.

My 3rd Monday Made It:
This is probably my favorite made it this year.  I had a cork board that I use last year.  The sad thing is that it didn't match this year's theme (No, you are no the only ones that are anal about color schemes.  So I set out to redecorate it for my room.

I actually used left over sheet that I used to cover my bulletin boards to cover the cork board.  Then I added ribbon and buttons.  I used binder clips and ribbon to hang my board.  And that's it.

I am loving my room and promise to post pictures soon.  Hope you all enjoy your day and good luck to those just starting the school, the ones that are already there, and those that are still enjoying your summer vava.

First Day Jitters Blog Hop!....and an Awesome Giveaway!

Hello all!  I am so excited about the school year... Yea, I know that means summer is over, but I have learned so much this summer and have grown, so I am excited to to get into my classroom and rock this year.  Are you?

Anyway, I am linking up with Ashley over at Fierce in Fourth for First Day Jitters Blog Hop!  I know that I am just learning how to be a teacher ( a great one), and even though this is my second year, I am jittery again.

1.  I am teaching with a new co teacher.  I loved my last co teacher and she made me feel so awesome.  We worked well together and we learned from each other.  Well, my co teacher moved to another grade.  I am not so worried about the person, but just us being teacher together.  I am all for collaboration, but I don't want to feel that I have to do what you do in your classroom.  And that is my jittery fear number 1.

2.  Implementing 7 Habits.  My school system is implementing 7 Habits as a system wide.  I am excited about implementing the habits as I think they are great for students to learn and grow with, but I am a little nervous about ensuring that I am using them throughout the year and making sure my students know that I am expecting them to as well.

3.  Teaching with the new ideas, curriculum, and all the things in between.  Let's face it, teaching is jittery in itself.  And at times, there are so many ideas that we can't get to, add in new curriculum and the itty bitty things that become large, it's a wonder how we can do it all.  I am a litter jittery about the stress of the first few weeks and the ittly bitty things that follow.

What are you worried about? Don't forget to head over to Fierce in Fourth to check out her blog.

Also guys, check out Katie over at Dirty Hands and Lesson Plans.  She is having a great 500 followers giveaway.  I am hoping to win, but love to share more.  Go over and check her out.

Another Hard Day and Monday Made It...

Hello all!  I am so excited to be linking back up with Tara over at 4th Grade Frolics for her Monday Made It!  It has been some weeks since I linked up, but happy to be back!  There was so much to post on this Monday Made It.  Let's just say that I have not only been making, cutting and laminating like crazy this past week, but I have been finishing up my eLearning courses. (Is it wrong to be elated about almost being finished with these course?  Great information, time consuming) And I am still not finished.  I am drained, but know that my hard work is going to be so worth it!  Okay, so I am going to post two Made Its.  I remember seeing a Made it Post by Tara and she had functional and Cutesy.  So I will share my functional first.

My school has adopted the Envision Common Core for our math series this year.  I am so excited about using this textbook... I am not sure how the other Envisions were, but I love this one.  It has so much and I love it so much (I think I already said that).  So I am really working towards making my boards interactive.  We can thank Daily 5 and CRAFT (check out Ladybug Teacher Files for her rendition of CAFE)!  So I set out to make some interactive boards for my students.  I wanted some catchy vocab terms and thought that I could make that on my own....and I did, so here is a view of a few of my Vocab words that coincide with envision.

I will putting this up on TPT store soon.  I am not finished with them yet and the entire pack includes the common core standards, domains, clusters, and vocabulary for fourth grade math.

My next Monday Made It is my Cutesy one.  Okay, so I purchased these fantastic blue bins from Lakeshore.  I loved my bins and I use them to house my different teacher editions that I am currently using.  (Come on teachers, you know that our teacher editions are plentiful...which is another reason I love Envision, folder like teacher editions.)  I love my bins and couldn't part with them just because they didn't match my color scheme this year....  Take a look:

I didn't take a picture of my bins before hand, but found the ones I purchased on Lakeshore websites.

So I set out to transform the blab blue bins to fantastic black and white them bins.  The materials I used: a glue gun, patterned duck tape (black and white zebra stripe), and black paper.  Yes, that is all!  Here are my steps:

1. I lined the edges of the bins with the pattern duck tape (front, back, and sides)
2. I measured and cut the paper to fit the bins
3. hot glued the paper to the bins (inside and out)
4. And Viola...DONE!

And the finished product:

               

                                              

Sorry the pictures are a little dark....Hope you can see the creations.

The task was fairly simple and I love how they turned out...and they look great. I didn't line the bottom of the storage bins because I didn't see the purpose and the materials in the bins will cover them up.

After all the training, I am excited to share some of the things I created for 7 Habits for free.  I will discuss and share on a later post.  Probably after I finish up this eLearning.  LOL! Be sure to stop by 4th Grade Frolics to check out the other wonderful Monday Made Its!   Happy Creating!

Newbie Blog Hop...and Where Has the Time Gone?!!!

Hello fellow bloggers and followers.  It has been a while since my last blog.  Let's just say that I have been swamped  busy with school work.  Needless to say I am tired beyond my own thoughts.  While I was away from my blog world, I have been to 7 Habits Training, AMSTI (Alabama Mathematice, Science, and Technology Initiative) training, eLearning courses, blog stalking for ideas, looking up all the information I can on Whole Brain Teaching, and in my classroom trying to get some things up and ready for the school year.  I am so tired I cannot even think!  But I am enjoying the progress my classroom is making and I can't wait to reveal my classroom to you guys.  It is going to be wonderful and I am too excited.

I decided to link up with Janis Leach over at Grade Three is the Place Me for her Newbie Blog Linky Party.  I think this is a great way to link up and meet fellow newbies out there like me.  So here it is.

    1.  what state you are in
          ALABAMA

    2.  your current teaching position

         FOURTH GRADE

      

    3.  your teaching experience

         SECOND YEAR TEACHING FOURTH, PRE-K

         TEACHER, STUDENT TEACHING IN 

         KINDERGARTEN

    4.  when you started blogging

         LAST MONTH

    5.  share a blogging tip / blogging resource

         I KEEP TRACK OF ALL MY WEBSITES AND BLOGS

         I STALK ON A HOST SITE CALLED "LIVE BINDERS"

         THIS SITE ALLOWS ME TO FIND ALL OF MY 

         WONDERFUL SITES AT ONE PLACE, WHETHER AT

         HOME, WORK, OR ANYWHERE.  LOVE IT!

I will be linking up with Tara at 4th Grade Frolics tomorrow for Monday Made It.  And I have made a lot so I am super excited to share.  Be sure to check it out.  And come back for the reveal of my classroom!

Okay... I also wanted to share a fantastic giveaway for you awesome bloggers out there.  Amanda Madden over at Teaching Maddeness is having a great giveaway for her 500 blog followers (Oh, I can't wait to get there to share more ideas with more people).  Anyway, she is giving away some awesome things and you should really check it out.  I am hoping to win, but though it would be great to share with others.  LOL!  Good luck!

Monday Made It: Cereal Box Containers.

I am so excited to be linking up with 4th Grade Frolics for Monday Made It!  I have stalked her Made Its and new I had to share soon.  I love the great ideas.  This is my first Made It (new blogger), but super ready to share.  I have always heard people say cereal boxes are great for this and that, well I just never thought to try it out for myself until yesterday.  I wanted some containers to match my classroom color scheme this year, but didn't want to break the bank to buy some (let's just say I can be a frugal teacher)  So I set out to use somethings at home.  When I started saving my cereal boxes, I would find them near the trash can... my boyfriend has  a touch of OCD and hates clutter and mess!  LOL!  So I had to hide them in the bottom cabinet in the pantry.   Well anyway, I used the following materials to create my cereal box containers.

Scrapbook Paper, cereal box, scissors, and rubber cement... That's all!

First I cut the boxes to my desired sizes.  I played around with the sizes and shapes.  After cutting the scrapbook paper to match the boxes, I glued it on using rubber cement.  LOVE THIS STUFF!  The last steps were pretty easy, just smooth and glue.  I love my boxes and hope you guys enjoy them too.  I am not sure what I will use them for, but the are great for my room decor this year and to keep things organized.

Check out the feet in the back.  My little man was there to help the entire time.! ;-)

 Just a note, if you wish to store papers in your cereal containers, be sure to use the family size boxes.  The normal cereal box is too small to hold regular sheets of paper.   As I said, I am a new blogger, so please check out my blog and follow me.  I have a two freebies below to kick off my new blog.  Hope you enjoy.  The cereal box can be used with so many different things in your classroom, but I love mine.  What are your ideas with cereal box containers?