Monday Made It - Packing & Peaches

I love Mondays!  It's partly because it's the day for one of my favorite linky parties, Monday Made It.  But Monday is also a fresh start...a clean slate...the time to get your week off on a good note!

One task this weekend was making copies of the outline for the Books You Can Count On workshop I'm presenting Friday in Tampa.  The outline gives participants an organized spot to jot down notes during the workshop. 

 

The bigger task I had was to pack everything needed for my presentation.  Oh, and let's get it all in one suitcase since we're flying!  

I'm travelling with quite a variety of props...plastic apples, clothespins, mini pocket charts, magic gold beans, and a frying pan! The good news is that everything fit! 

We went to a big farmer's market over the weekend and found these beauties.  I wish blogs had a smelly feature because these are perfect Georgia peaches and they smell incredible!

I decided to bake two smaller cobblers instead of a gigantic one since we'll be leaving soon.  I used 8x8 baking dishes and broke the recipe down to divide everything evenly into the two pans.  One to keep and one to give to my sweet friend who is overcoming breast cancer. 

Here's the cobbler recipe I use which was originally published in Southern Living magazine.  It's truly a "no fail" recipe and the ideal way to use those summer peaches.  Don't forget a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top!

I don't think I'll have any new "made it's" to share next Monday but I'm going to blog about the workshop and share my ideas for Books You Can Count On in your classroom this fall! 

Be sure to   so you won't miss anything!

Monday Made It - Shirts & Aprons

I've always wished I could sew like my mother.  However, I didn't inherit her talent so I tend to use Stitch Witchery or hot glue on most of my sewing projects.  Good thing my Monday Made It projects didn't test my seamstress skills too much! 

If all my "to do" projects were as quick as this one was...I'd be done!



I saw a cute Pete the Cat counting activity here and knew I had to make it for my kids, too!   I had some of the felt pieces already and ran up to Hobby Lobby for a couple more.  Then, all I had to do was print the shirt pattern.

 

Pinned the paper pattern on my felt...

 

Cut it out with my "good" sewing scissors...

 

Colorful shirts for Pete!

 

Add a jar of buttons and a number dice and my Pete counting activity is finished!

 

 

Last summer I bought a teacher apron from Sandy at the I Teach K Conference.  Her sewing skills are obviously more like my mother's than mine!  I wore my teacher apron mostly for teaching and reviewing sight words but this year I knew I wanted to also use it for basic alphabet lessons.  I found a wonderful beginning sounds alphabet set on Teachers Pay Teachers.  Click here to see the product details. 



 

I printed, laminated, and cut all the cards this week.  Each letter has four picture cards along with the upper case and lower case letters.  Best of all, the cards fit perfectly in my teacher apron pockets!

 

 I stored the cards in a small file box, organizing them with a set of alphabetical dividers.  It will be super easy to pull the letter cards I need for my lesson and then return them to the box when I'm done.

 

One more thing ready for school!

  

Click here to see more teacher projects at this week's linky party!

 

Monday Made It - Sharing Bag

I marked two school projects off my To Do List last week but added at least a dozen more!  Thank goodness for Monday Made It!  It provides us with ideas, inspiration, and incentive to get it all done!

 

My first Made It was somewhat of a re-do on a previous project.  Remember when I printed new my sight word cards? They looked like this...

Well, I loved how they looked and I was just getting ready for the next step to mount and laminate them when I had a major thought.  As I was trying to decide which color cardstock to use, I started thinking it would be nice if they were color coded somehow.  Maybe having the first set of words on one color, the next set on another color, and so on.  The more I thought about a color system, the more I was sure it would work great for me.  It would allow me to group a set of words and then encourage students to learn all the red words or all the blue words.  I still need to figure out how I'll track everyone's progress and make a big recording chart of some sort (that's on my To Do List!) but I'm thrilled with how this step of the color coded sight word cards has turned out! 

 

 

Of course, the whole sight word color system project turned into a need to plan when I'm introducing each word and what color it's assigned to.  I created this Pacing Guide to keep in my Teacher Binder for easy reference.

 

 

 

In my classroom, the line leader for the day gets to do Show & Tell during our Morning Meeting.  The line leader brings an item from home for the Sharing Bag, gives the class a few clues, and then we all try to guess what they brought that's inside the bag.  It's a fun twist on the traditional Show & Tell and I love it because it really helps the kids develop good communication skills.

 

My previous Sharing Bag lasted at least 5 years and it was time for me to make a new one.  I went to Michael's, found a good sized black canvas bag, and some pretty turquoise letters. 

 

After trimming around the letters, I laid them on top of the bag.  I didn't even try to put them on straight because I know I can't possibly get them all lined up!  Instead, I gently tilted and turned the letters for a more random look.  This method helps cover up your uneven mistakes.  I do it with bulletin board letters or when I'm writing on an anchor chart all the time!

 

After ironing according to the directions, I carefully lifted the paper backing to reveal the letters.

 

Success!  They all adhered perfectly!

 

And here's the finished product!  A new Sharing Bag ready for school!

 

Click here to see what other teachers are creating and checking off their To Do Lists!

 

Monday Made It-Print, Laminate, Cut

By the time you read this, I'll be at the beach!  I'll definitely have my share of fun in the sun and relaxing but I'm also taking a big bag of teacher stuff. Little by little I've been working on things for next year.  Let's link up with 4th Grade Frolics to give you a quick look at what I've done.

 

I wanted to update my Word Wall and make new sight word cards.  The Word Wall has a Popcorn theme which I love and I thought these black & white polka dots would be a nice compliment to all the reds and yellow of the popcorn accents. These editable sight word cards are part of a huge classroom bundle of black & white themed resources created by Planet Happy Smiles.  Check it out HERE!

 

 

Printed/laminated classroom helper cards from that same wonderful black & white bundle!

 

Made a number puzzle set with a very cute Back to School theme!  I love these because they are bold and simple.  Great for a quick assessment those first few weeks of school to determine if your kids recognize numerals and can count sets to ten.  These are FREE from Paula Harrell's TPT store Learn + Play = Pre K!  Click HERE to get yours and check out more great resources for preschool and kinder! 

 

 

Using the creations by Mary from Sharing Kindergarten, I made lots of fun things to use when we read the hilarious Back to School book, There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed Some Books.  You'll find plenty of resources HERE.

 

 

Finally, I worked on several small group math activities from Kim Adsit's "DI...It's Easy As Pie" unit!  Click HERE to see the details of this extensive product. It requires some prep but it's well worth it!

 

So that's what I've been busy making! 

 Lots of printing...cutting...laminating...getting ready for next year! 

Click HERE to see more Monday Made It blogs!