Fall Time

First, since I'm behind, here's my October Currently, thanks to Farley from Oh' Boy 4th Grade.  Click the pic below to join the linky.

Listening - had a busy morning, so just sitting blogging while my computer fan goes off, no other noise.  

Loving - spent the morning with my parents at a craft fair and am getting ready to busy circus tix to go with some siblings and nieces/nephew.  

Thinking -  about everything I have to do for school: conference goal sheets, art of the week project, grading...

Wanting - So conferences start this week and the only goal sheet I have done is for the conference I had early, this past Thursday.  The other 24 are waiting for me...

Needing - to get off the computer and get everything mentioned above done!  

Trick or Treat - A freebie is down below if you would like it!  :)

This is my favorite time of year.  I just love it!  I love the leaves turning colors.  I love that it's apple picking and pumpkin patch time.  I love the cooler weather.  I love that fun holidays are coming up: Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas.  It's just the best.
We have been busy in my classroom with fall.  We have done the projects that I do pretty much every year: the build your own ice cream cone (for the first ice cream cone patent on September 22nd),

This pic is from last year, but it's the same idea.  Students build ice cream cones and then have to write about them.  

and also our fall tree craft with tissue paper.  

Students write about what they love about fall and make a fall tree (this pic is also from last year).  

We also did a great Johnny Appleseed activity from Mandy Gregory (Johnny Appleseed Common Core ELA Lesson and Craft).  

I read the students different books about Johnny Appleseed and then they watched the Disney Legends short about Johnny Appleseed.  I told them that they were going to be writing about Johnny before we did this, so they were going to need to pay attention so they would be able to think of things to write.  Then I gave them the great brainstorming web that's in her pack.  They wrote the main idea and then a fact in each apple.  Then they wrote up their little biographies and made Johnny Appleseed holding their paper.  The pics above show the wide range of abilities in my classroom.  I loved that it was a fun activity and it was very common core with having to write about what they learned.  

All of these are hanging up in the room for parents to see this week for conferences.  We do goal setting conferences so we always have them the week before Columbus Day, so we can have a 4-day weekend to recuperate.  The first 2 projects were part of the Art of the Week I do as one of the choices for Work on Writing for Daily 5.  They were optional.  This week I am going to have them do their first Have-To Art of the Week and we are going to do a Jack-o-lantern glyph.  I found a ton online and I liked components from a few of them so I made my own using the great ideas.  

I'm going to draw in the mouths before I copy it.  

Since the Art of the Week is part of Work on Writing, there is always a writing component with it.  This writing component is going to be a PUMPKIN acrostic poem that I do every year with my class.  I thought they would look good next to each other.  You can find tons of those online too.  I added the pictures for my class because I have a lot of LOW readers this year and I am hoping that it will help them.  I have to make my example today so they can see it.  My plan is to give each of them a copy of the direction paper and have them circle what is true for them.  Normally I wouldn't do this, I would just hang it up, but with this class, I think this will be better.  I'm also going to have them fill out the Pumpkin acrostic poem as we think of ideas for each letter too.  Again, normally I don't do that, we just brainstorm some ideas and when it's their turn for the art of the week, they write things down, but with this class, I'm going to help them along.  lol  

I'm joining up with Classroom Freebies Manic Monday to give the above to you for free if you would like it.  

Have a wonderful week!  :)

I "heart" Columbus Day! lol

I made it through conference week last week!  All of my conferences went really well.  No problems at all and I have really nice families.  I was just wiped out from all of the planning of them and everything else going on.  It just seemed like it was one thing after another when it came to school stuff that I was trying to catch up, with no success.  Then came the blessed 4-day weekend after conferences!  I got all of my papers graded Friday.  I got some more of my math games laminated and cut Saturday and Sunday I finished up another unit for TPT and TN.  Not to mention I caught up on all of my tv I was so completely behind on too and my sleep!!!  Today the plan is to update my class webpage and make another unit or 2 for TPT and TN (I hope I can do it!).  I even had time to come on here and update!  I love long weekends!!!
This week will be busy (of course) because my teammate who I share my wall with and myself, will be opening the wall for the first time to get our classes used to it.  We do Daily 5 and guided reading book clubs together so this week we will get them used to it.  We are on a review week in our LA series so we won't be meeting with book clubs.  We will start them next week.  We have used these past 6 weeks to introduce and practice Daily 5 and get that routine going.  Now this week the wall will be open they will start learning how the Daily 5 structure will work and we'll be available to help out where needed and see where there is a need for re-practicing before starting book clubs next week.  It should be fun.  We're also starting this week differentiated math groups.  The same teammate and I along with 1 of our other teammates, got together to plan out how to split our classes up to better meet the needs of our students in math.  We're new to this so it's not perfect.  Any suggestions you have are always appreciated.  We're going to teach the whole group lesson to our class first for the first 20 minutes of math and then for the remaining 40 minutes, the students were divided up into approaching, on-level, and beyond groups and they will go to one of us to get instruction and games tailored to where they're at.  I got the on-level group, which is the biggest at 28 kiddos.  We wanted to keep the approaching group little so they could really get the assistance they needed.  That meant that the other 2 groups were bigger (the beyond has 24 kiddos).  My plan as of right now is to make groups out of the 28 and meet with some of them during our time together while the rest play games to practice the skills we're working on.  For this unit it's simple because it's fact power.  I have tons of games for that.  So I'm excited to see how this works.  Telling you about this made me remember some other things I have to add to my to-do list today to get ready for the week.  I'm just so glad that I have the time to think about and work on it!!
So to share my happiness and wish you a Happy Columbus Day I'm linking up with Manic Monday by Classroom Freebies (which I haven't been able to do in a while).
This week's freebie is one that I made as part of the review unit I posted Sunday.  If you click on the picture below it will take you to my TPT store where you can click the download preview button and get my Long Vowel Go Fish game for free!  Have a Marvelous Monday!!  :)

New Treasures Unit :)

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, I have gotten such great feedback on my Treasures units I have made.  It's so great and makes me feel good that I'm helping out a lot of people.  It blows my mind!  I have another unit now ready to go.  This one goes with Unit 2, Week 5 (Staying Fit - There's Nothing Like Baseball).  If you're interested you can go to either my tpt or teacher's notebook shops to get any of my past unit packets.  For Manic Monday, I am letting you know about a game that I have that goes with this unit.  If you click on the picture below, it will take you to my tpt shop for this packet.  If you click on the download preview button, you will get a Long O uno type card game.  It goes with the spelling pattern for that week (o, oa, oe, ow).  You can have it for free!  Maybe it will work for your word work centers.  Happy Monday!  :)

Manic Monday and Back to School

     So today is my first official day back at school.  Starting today we have 2 days of inservice and then the kiddos start on Wed.  It was very sad to turn that alarm back on let me tell you.  I've been trying to do better with waking up earlier so the 6AM wake up wouldn't be a shock.  I'm linking up again with Monday Made it.  :)  (I'll let you in on a secret.  I always write these posts the night before and then schedule them to post when it's actually Monday.  Then whenever I wake up I link up.)

     So this past week I worked at school every day getting my room ready (don't have any pics yet, they'll be coming).  I did all sorts of little projects, but nothing I took pictures of.  Also, this week was my niece Josie's birthday.  She was having a Little Mermaid party Sunday.  So the first thing I did was make mermaid tails for the 3 4-year olds that would be at the party (Josie, my other niece Brynn, and another little girl).  I got the idea from pinterest of course.  It's a no-sew.  Click here to go to the link that gives directions on how to make them along with photos.  My niece Brynn was my model for sizing to make the 3 of them.  She helped me with that after she helped me in my classroom last Monday.  Here's how they turned out.

Brynn's, the first one I made.  

The girls modeling for me.  

I told them to look at the balloons so you could see the back.  

Brynn was very excited that I was making these, as she loves to dress-up and loves Disney princesses.  Josie loved it too, but ended up taking it off half-way through the party.  Brynn kept hers on the whole way home.  lol  

     Now I love to bake and always make the desserts for my family's parties.  The last few years I've gone all out with making the girls' cakes.  I made a Disney princess castle cake for Brynn's 3rd birthday, a Rapunzel tower cake for Josie's 3rd birthday, a Fancy Nancy cake for Brynn's 4th birthday, and Josie requested a Little Mermaid cake for this birthday (Brynn has already put in her request, 6 months early, for a Barbie cake for her 5th, lol).  So I looked for inspiration through google images and found one that I liked that I thought I could do something similar to.  Here's mine.  

The bottom layer is a dark chocolate cake (box mix) and the rock she's sitting "on" (in, lol) is cherry chip cake (again box mix).  I always get super nervous during transport time.  I really need an assistant like on the cake shows, to hold the cake steady for me while I'm driving.  Let me tell you I notice every bump when transporting cakes.  lol  Luckily this one and the Fancy Nancy cakes were no problem to transport, for the castle and tower cakes, they were leaning by the time I got to the party and had to have some fixing done.  This is why I always take a picture of the cake before I leave my house.  lol  So that's what the above picture is.

This picture was taken after we made it to the party and added the other little figurines that my brother had for it (fish, Ursula, Tritan, Flounder, and candle).  The snowflake tray is the only tray I own that would fit the cake.  lol  

     So those are my made-its for this week.  We'll see what (if anything) I get done this week (besides my classroom) with school starting.  

     I'm also linking up with I'm Blog Hoppin for Teacher Week.  Today is Must Have Monday.  

My must haves:

*computer & printer

*laminator

*my silhouette

*my iPod stereo & music

*crafting supplies

Also, since I'm typing this up early, I don't know if it's only supposed to be school related, since it's teacher week.  Non-school related must haves:

*family

*my tv & dvr

Hope everyone has a great day!  Thanks for stopping by!  :)  

1 week left

     In 1 week I will officially be back to my normal school routine, waking up early, no more being lazy and lounging around in PJ's on the computer and doing what I want.  I need to make the most of this week, but I have to finish setting up my classroom!  Today is the first official day we can go in to work on our rooms (I already went in last Monday and got a lot done).  My sister Jodie and 4 year old niece Brynn are going to be coming in to help me like they have the last couple of years.  Jodie always cleans out and organizes my desk after I've trashed it the previous year and with throwing things in it to clear off my desk for the summer.  lol  Now at least she'll have my teacher toolbox to use to help organize it some more.  Now let me get on to my Made-its with 4th Grade Frolics!

     So again I printed out a whole bunch of stuff and laminated it so it's ready for school.  I made my classroom job cards, which you can get for free here.  I couldn't find any cards that were in the rainforest theme and were jobs I use in my classroom.  I have board cleaners, mail helpers, lunch helper, librarians, clean-up crew, sub, supply managers (fix up supplies in writing center and community baskets), coin counter (counts to make sure a student has 10 caught being good coins to turn in for a prize), prize patrol (makes sure they don't take too long at the prizes and that they only take 1 prize), and cubby helpers (makes sure the cubbies look nice throughout the day, and especially at the end of the day).  I have a helper of the day who gets to be the line leader, paper passer outer, and anything else I need done during the day.
     I also made my birthday straws from Once Upon a First Grade.  I still need a container to put them in though because nothing I have is big enough.
     I also made the ruler holder that has popped up everywhere from a Pringles can (as I've been saving them for a while for various projects) and what I'm calling my Spelling Sticks.  They come from Growing Kinders and are called Sight Word Chants.  I'm going to put them in word work though and let the kids practice their spelling words with them as one of their choices.  I made the can out of a Pringles can again, just cut down to size.

     Another thing I made was a desktop blotter from Classroom DIY.  I used paper that matched my toolbox that will be on my desk and my leftover green duck tape from my boggle board.  I usually get a free desktop calendar from one of the teacher stores I go to, but I didn't end up needing to go there this year, so I thought, hey I'll make this and use it for the same thing, and it's also free (pretty much, I mean I had everything already).  The calendar I printed out to put on top is from Fun in First Grade.  I loved that I could personalize it and that it will be right there on my desk to easily see (hopefully, lol).  

     Saturday my friend Tina and I hit some teacher appreciation sales and then I helped her make one of those great first day of school frames that so many others have made.  It turned out really cute.  I don't want to post a picture without asking first (as she's in the picture), but she did a great job and it was fun crafting together!  

     Also, don't forget that today is the last day for the teacherspayteachers Back-to-School sale.  I still have to get the stuff I want!  All of the stuff in both of my stores is 20% off through today.  

     Now hopefully I'll have time to look at the rest of the made-its this week, as I didn't have a chance last week, no time!  

     Happy Monday!!  :)

I Made-it! again :)

     Woohoo!  It's time to post another entry for Monday Made-it with 4th Grade Frolics.  :)  I haven't been on my blog posting that much this week because I've been doing things to enjoy my summer before it's gone and working on school stuff too.  Last Monday I went into school to drop off my welcome letter and while I was there I picked up some things from my classroom that I needed to finish up some projects.  I didn't take pictures of them, but I got my 2 containers for the prize coupons that I will be doing this year instead of actual toy like prizes.  I got all the coupons printed, laminated, cut, sorted, and put into their section of the tackle box like container.  Previously the containers had been used to store my fun foam alphabet letters so I could easily grab the letters I needed, but last year I made letter bags for my word work station so those containers were sitting in my cabinet empty.  Yay for not having to buy something new!  I also brought home my craft sticks so I could make my brain break sticks to go in the container I had previously shown you guys.  So those were printed and taped and are now in the container as well.  

     I bought a basket for all of my stuffed animals for the kids to use as book buddies and I made a sign for it.  

Most of my stuffed animals are at school already (as I brought them back when I went in last Monday), so there were just a couple to put in the basket.  Here's my sign if you'd like.  I just used DJ Inkers clipart and the Howser font.  Last year if a kiddo picked Read to Someone and they couldn't find a buddy I used to give them a big Mickey to read to.  Then near the end I was thinking about all of the stuffed animals I have and I thought I could make the basket for them to choose from (it also works for one of my prize coupons "keep a stuffed animal on your desk for the day").  I know I have seen others of you who are doing the same thing as well.  

     Then for my other made it, I was inspired by Erica Bohrer and her Mr. Moo mascot pack.  Now since my classroom theme is the rainforest, the cow really wouldn't work for me, so I went to Build-A-Bear and got a monkey.  Then I used a canvas bag (from Michaels) and an iron on transfer and a binder to make the rest.  

I'm excited to try this this year.  The last 2 years I did themed family literacy bags, where I put in 4 or 5 books of a certain theme and games, activities, and other things to go with it in a canvas bag and families could check it out for some fun family literacy time.  However, this year I'm not doing it because I've had problems with them not coming back on time and then things being missing or damaged.  I just didn't want to deal with that this year, even though the kids loved them.  I thought this might be better to try.  You can go here to get the iron on transfer for the bag and here to get all of the items for the binder.  I left them in Word so you could edit them to fit you if you wanted them.  So just like Erica suggested, the students get to take Morty home for the weekend, they can read the 2 books I will put in there to him and do other fun things with him and write about it in the binder.  

     I also got another packet done for my tpt and teacher's notebook stores.  Click on the picture to go to my tpt store.  If you click on "download preview" you get a free uno type game for the spelling pattern ai/ay.  

     So today my lovely niece Lizzie will be coming with me to my classroom today to start getting it ready.  It will be more of a mess when we leave, but I'm using her to help me bring everything back to school and to get everything down from the top of the shelves and move furniture.  lol  She's a tall 15 year old girl and she likes to help me.  I'll treat her to a movie and feed her.  lol  I'm also hoping to get my class list today so I can see who I have in my class and start working on name stuff for that.  Happy Monday!  Can't wait to look at everyone's awesome made-its!  

Lots of Made-its! :)

     Good morning!  Yay for another Monday Made-it with 4th Grade Frolics (although these Mondays take me hours to get through everyone who links up, lol).  Well this week I was a busy girl!  Yesterday was my parents 45th anniversary so I made a lot of stuff in honor of that this week, but I did get school stuff done too.

     Okay well first off, my younger sister and I had an Olympic opening ceremony party and we made some yummy snacky foods for it, but my surprise contribution to the party was this:

my Olympic rings sugar cookie with M&Ms.  I thought it turned out well.  

     Now onto my parents anniversary, I made this for my parents as part of their gift.  

Then I love to bake, so I made these for them too.  

My interpretation replica of their wedding cake.  My parents wedding cake was a 5 tier white cake with strawberry filling with lily of the valley flowers and white bells.  So to make my 5 tiers, I used my torte pan, a regular cake pan, a small cake pan, a cupcake, and a mini-cupcake.  I did put strawberry filling in it too and put fake lily of the valley from Michaels and little silver bells with bows on it too.  Then I added the blue 45 (45 is Sapphire).  This was all for a surprise dinner party my 4 siblings and I had for my parents at my house on Saturday night.  My parents not knowing about it (obviously) planned an outdoor lunch by the lake for Sunday and my dad asked me to make a dessert for that, so I made these:

they are the super soft sugar cookies you can buy in the store (that usually have sprinkles on them), but I made them.  They turned out fine and everyone enjoyed them today.  I thought they would be the easiest thing to transport and have outside.  It was such a beautiful day to be out too!  

     Now for school, I laminated all of the things that I have printed so far while I was watching the Olympics.  I also made my birthday chair covers, which was inspired by this picture:

The link didn't go to anywhere, but this picture.  Now I can't sew, so I looked at that and thought, I wonder if I could use a pillowcase and iron on transfers.  So that's what I did.  Here's mine:

I got the pillowcases at Marshalls.  They were on sale for $5.99 for 2.  I got 2 packs, so I'd have 4.  I had one year where I had 3 students who had the exact same birthday and 1 the day before, so I thought, I'll make 4 to be safe.  lol  You can get my iron-on transfer print out here for free, if you're interested.  After I ironed the transfer on, I folded the bottom of the pillowcase up, to make the pillowcase shorter and then ironed it again.  I may cut holes in the sides and add ribbon if I feel it needs to be tighter around the chairs.  So this will go on their chair when we celebrate their birthday.  I'm excited for it and I'm sure the kids will be too.  

      So there are all my made-its for this week!  Whew!  lol  Now this morning I'm off to school to copy my Welcome letter so my school can send them out to my future students and I want to get a peak on how my classroom looks and try to remember to pick up my craft sticks so I can make my brain break and sight word sticks.  Have a great Monday and can't wait to see all of the neat ideas for this week!  :)

If you're here from Classroom freebies, click the link above to get my birthday chair cover template for free.  :)

My 3rd Monday Made-it and Manic Monday :)

       

 
     I have such fun making this stuff and getting ideas!!  So happy for the chance to share with anyone interested!  This week I got a lot of little projects done.  Ones that have been on my to-do list since the end of the school year (when I start making my list so I don't forget everything I want to do for the next school year!)  So here's a picture of some of what I got accomplished this week.  :)

     We'll go from left to right.  So I too, HAD to make the lightbulb moment basket.  I loved the idea and I really want to try this year to have more movement in my room, especially for those that need it, and love that this is a quiet, great way for them to get a bit.  It took me 2 Targets to get 10 of the lightbulbs.  lol  All the rest of you are out buying them too!  ;)  In case you haven't gotten the link from the other people who've made and posted it already, here it is again.  

     As I said, I want to incorporate more movement in my classroom throughout the day, so I had pinned this a while back (click on the picture to get the sticks).  

I knew that I wanted to do something like this.  So I bought one of those empty quart paint cans from lowes, put scrapbooking paper and ribbon around it, and typed up the label.  I haven't been able to make the sticks yet because they are in my classroom.  I have a ton there, so I didn't want to buy more just to make them, when I can make them when I can get into my classroom.  

     I was also inspired by this on pinterest

and I thought, I totally need this for all of the bingo chips, plastic coins, cards, and other math manipulatives that my students find after we've cleaned up and end up going on my desk.  I thought this way, they can put it in there and then the next time we pull out one of the manipulatives and they don't have enough, they can go look in there and see if the missing piece is there.  I got the basket for $1 at Michaels and then made the sign on my computer and tacky glued it on.  (I tacky glued on all of my signs.)  Here is a freebie of my Brain Break and Math Lost and Found sign if you would care for it.  

     Then I made the highlighter cup.  I had thought of making it and starting it after spring break, but I thought that would confuse my students to have to start doing it then when they hadn't been doing it all year, so I saved to do it for this upcoming year.  That way it will be from the start.  My inspiration:

This was one of the very first things I pinned when I joined pinterest.  If you click on the link above, it will take you to the website and you can download her label for free.  That's what I did.  I used a Planters mixed nuts container that I washed and let air dry and the label was a bit big, so I had to cut off the dotted border.  I put scrapbooking paper, ribbon, and the label and now it's waiting for highlighters to go in it.  

     The last thing I made was the paperclip bookmarks.  You can see a better picture of them below:

I got the paperclips in the Walmart 88 cent aisle (4 come in a package).  When I saw them, I thought, I can make those bookmarks I've seen floating around!  I got my ribbon at Michaels.  Each spool was only 50 cents and they are ready to go for my new students.  

     So I gave you one little freebie above, but I have another one for Classroom Freebies Manic Monday.  I also decided to do the behavior charts this year, where you recognize good behavior too.  I love my behavior chart now, which is a magnetic stoplight poster, because I love that it doesn't take up as much space (it's just on the side of my whiteboard).  I love the idea of being able to recognize the students more who are doing awesome though, so I decided to make this one from Sunny Days in 2nd Grade:

So I recreated it on my computer, but I haven't printed it out yet.  I'm going to print it out and laminate it and then stick it to my board where my my stoplight was, so it's still not taking up other space I need (I had thought of using my magnet paper, but that doesn't always hold up for very long).  Instead of clothespins, I'm going to make those glass pebble magnets with my students names on them to use to move around (that's my goal for today, find the right size glass pebbles).  So on to the freebie.  I made a form that my students will fill out during the week and then take home at the end of the week to go along with the behavior chart so parents can see how they've been doing and can get those positive notes home too for when they go above and beyond.  

Just click on the picture to get it.  I figure if the key at the bottom doesn't work for you, you could always cut it off and copy it without that (otherwise I cans send you the editable version, just leave me a comment asking for it).  I liked how it showcased their week, made them accountable, and gave them a goal to work towards.  So there is my LONG post for today.  Have a fabulous day!  Can't wait to see what everyone else has made to get even more great ideas!!  :)

      Don't forget to stop by Swimming in Second for Day 5 of her 10 Day Giveaway.  Today it's a $10 amazon gift card.  I know those never last long with me!  :)

Monday, Monday

I had a very nice Sunday.  Relaxed, did a bit of shopping, and then went over to a friend's house for a dinner party.  Loved it.  So today I'm going to link up with Classroom Freebies Manic Monday AND 4th Grade Frolics Monday Made-it!
I'll start with Monday Made-it!
So for my first Monday Made-it, I'm going to show you my pinterest inspired craft I made for my niece who was born last month.  I gave this to my sister at her baby shower.  It's one of those monogrammed button pictures.  Since the nursery is pink, white, and dark cherry wood furniture, I went with an assortment of pinkish buttons (which I picked up at Archivers), the pretty pink and white patterned scrapbook paper, and white shadow box frame (both from Michaels).

I have a Silhouette SD die-cutting machine, so what I did was I bought 2 of those scrapbooking papers and I used one to cut the A out first.  So I picked a font on my computer that I liked the way the A looked (I don't even remember what font it is, sorry!) and then my machine cut it out for me.  Then I glued the A on top of the paper to camoflage it and give me a template to glue the buttons on top of.  I LOVED the way it turned out and now it is hanging in her nursery when you first walk in.  

My 2nd Monday Made-it! is for my classroom.  I got this idea from Classroom DIY.  It's a duct tape baggie quilt.  When I saw it, I knew I wanted to make it as a boggle board for my classroom.  That way I wouldn't need a bulletin board, I could hang it where I have a free space.  

Now my classroom has a rainforest theme, and my district has gone for the brain research where you don't want too many colors or patterns or anything, so for the rainforest I have different greens with some brown thrown in.  Because of this, I went with the plain green duck tape.  There were also a lot of great boggle letters out in blog land, but they didn't fit my color pattern, so I made my own with the green circles and brown letters.  Then I just glued them on some muted green patterned scrapbook paper.  Again, very happy with the way it turned out and excited to use it this year.  Hopefully my students will be too!  I'm including my word doc of my boggle letters for free, in case someone would like to use it and customize it to the colors that fit your room.  The font I used is Pea KT Polkie Dot from KevinandAmanda.com .  

So those are my 2 Monday Made-its with a little freebie in there.  Now for my freebie for Manic Monday.  It's a small freebie too.  I am loving all of the behavior prize coupons that everyone has out now and can't wait to use that in my classroom this year instead of buying stuff!  I have downloaded and printed quite a few out, but I made some of my own for other things I wanted and hadn't seen prize coupons for.  So you can download my 18 prize coupons too (6 different kinds, 3 of each).  :)

Prize Coupons

Have a great Monday!  I think I'm going to go to Michaels and use their 25% off entire purchase coupon to pick up some ribbon to make those large paperclip/ribbon bookmarks for my class this year with the clips I got for 88 cents at Walmart (see post here).  :)

 

Currently for the Classroom

So since I spend a lot of time looking at blogs I have found a lot of great ideas.  One of the things I have seen on a ton of the blogs are monthly "Currently" link-ups from the fun website Oh Boy 4th Grade! by Farley.  I had always seen them and thought they were fun and then one day on pinterest someone had pinned one with a comment that said something about how these would be great for students to do monthly to put in their writing portfolio.  I thought so too!  I loved that idea!  So I pinned it to my writing board.  Well then after seeing the July "Currently" it made me think of it again and I made a year long set of Currentlies (sp? lol) for my classroom.  I used the DJ Inkers Kids All Year page borders and some fun fonts from there as well (and other fonts on my computer.  I have a ton.  I LOVE fonts!).  So I'm posting it on here for free if you're interested.  Thanks to Farley and all of the other great teaching blogs that inspired me!  :)
Monthly Currently "pack"