Monday Made It!

You guys - I go back to work next Thursday!

{GASP}

I haven't been posting as much lately because I've been going into my classroom and trying to get my room organized and ready for the new school year.  I have lots of great pictures to show you, but that's a post all of it's own.

First, I have to congratulate Heather and Marsha from my last post.  I chose comments #2 and #5 for your free products.  Please ladies - send me an email with what product you would like and I'll send it off to you!

Now, it's time for Monday Made It!

This week, I made a clipboard bucket for my classroom.  I have about 10 clipboards that were overflowing out of the original bucket I had.  There wasn't enough room for all of them and frankly, I'm already tired of picking them up from the floor.

(My poor son, I shamelessly stole this bucket from him.  Now all his outdoor toys are on the ground in our garage.)

The MIL gave me a Circuit Mini for Christmas last year and I had been waiting for a good opportunity to use it with the extra vinyl I picked up at Hobby Lobby.  The problem with Circuit is that you have to pay for all the fonts and extra things you might want to use.  (I guess there was a program you could buy that would hack around that, but I didn't have the time/money to buy more stuff!)

So, I just used the regular letters that came with the program and staggered them throughout the bucket. Since I don't like to waste all the vinyl, I decided to also cut large, medium and small polka-dots to put all through the front of the giant bucket.

One of the handles had broken in half.  Luckily, I had some of this cute star duct tape in my office.  I fixed the handle and then made the other handle match.  I also added a layer of the tape to the bottom of the bucket to make it match!

Made it Monday/Optimum Organization Double Take!

It's July and in exactly one month - it will be my first day of school.  Vacation, like always, has flown by.  I'm going to have to start getting my "Back to School" to do list looked at.

Ugh!

Last week, I finally finished putting together my Lesson Plan book for 2013-2014.  It's been a bit of a work in progress for me.  My school requires that we have our weekly plans looked at by an administrator.  Plus, the plans have to fit a certain format and has to fit MY criteria as well.

I'm pretty proud to show off my finished product - especially on a Made it Monday and Optimum Organization.  I know that if I didn't have my Lesson Plan book, I'd never get anything done!  During the school year, if I have something important that I can't lose, I always tuck it into my plan book.

  

I printed out the cover that I designed, all my printed pages and took it to Office Max for double sided printing and binding.  The binding only cost $4!  What a deal!  I had to pay about $12 for the double sided printing that I did on my pages.  If my school was open, I could have saved that money... but I wanted to get it finished.

(Psst!  If you like the covers - they are for sale at my Teacher's Pay Teachers store!)

I used post it sticky labels to break up the sections for easy tabbing.  I added the Notes section after some debating.  I figure I always need some space to jot down ideas.

Calendar is courtesy of the fabulous Kindergarten Works!  Because I am cheap - the copies came out a little light.  I had to write over some of the areas so when I doubled sided copied, they would show up.

Our admins sometimes have difficulty finding the right sections, so I added in this helpful cover to my weekly plans.  With the tab, there shouldn't be any problems locating my current plans.

This is how I created my weekly plans to match the specific requests of our district.  They want that Checking for Understanding section and it helps that I added in all the strategies that they would like us to use.

This is what the weekly plans look like, a little closer.  I have this weekly plan issue - the days HAVE to go across the page and the plans go down the page.  I've rejected many a plan book that lists the days down the side instead of across the top.

Yeah, I have issues!

I had to squish my Social Studies section, but I think it will do.  I forgot to mention earlier that they are available for $1.00 at my TPT Store.  (It took me forever to get this plan right.  The $1 might make me feel better for the angry hours I spent glaring at my computer screen ;) )

To keep my place, I added in a ribbon!  I had this fun monkey pattern lying around, so I  used it.

I used sticky dots to attach the ribbon to the inside back cover of my planner.  I almost did it backwards the first time and had to think about how the ribbon would curl over the pages!

At Office Max, they add the clear cover and thick black cover in with your binding.  I added about ten pages of blank copy paper to the end of my book as my Notes section.

Overall - I'm SO happy with my book.  Last year, I printed the pages out on a weekly basis and then taped them into a blank planner.  It wasn't the greatest idea because it was a pain in the butt every week to tape in my plan book pages.  I think that this solution will work much better this year!

298... 299.... 300 and Monday Made It

I've been watching my followers for awhile now, watching them quietly tick upwards.  First it was 277.  Then, I noticed I was in the 280's.  Then slowly, but surely... 298... 299... and then finally

300!!

Yay!  {cue balloons and streamers!}

And - for YOU my wonderful, dear readers and followers - I'm putting all my TPT materials at 15% off for the next three days.  I started this blog back in September 2011 because I missed my school that I was transferred from.  I never knew that I would be entering the wonderful teacher blogging community and the wonderful friends I would make along the way!

So, thank you for reading and commenting!  I love reading your comments!  I hope that I will have more things for you in the upcoming year, now that I'm back with my love 7th grade Language Arts and Social Studies.

I've also been working on a cute set of posters to fit my 7th Grade ELA Common Core Standards for Monday Made It!

I noticed that a lot of people make these posters for the new Common Core Standards and I thought that I would create a set that I could use in my classroom.  I posted them over at Teachers's Pay Teachers!  These are just for 7th grade, but if you like them, I will happily create a set for your grade level for the same price I have my posters set at.  ($2.50)

I actually enjoyed making these and I have to give props to the awesome bundle that I'm Lovin' Lit has posted in her TPT store.  They were my backgrounds and frames for this project.

Cute, right?  Plus, what's great about I'm Lovin' Lit's package is that these are just the tip of the iceberg in the pack!  There's so much more.  I can't wait to create more stuff!

Made it Monday #11

Last night as I was wandering around Pinterest, I came across Laura Candler's ABC's of Me project.  It's a great idea and I immediately adapted it to use in my computer classroom.  Making a base file makes my life easier in the computer lab, so that way my students don't get too bogged down in the nitty gritty details of making the forms that will work for everyone.

Title page - the students will edit in their name and we will insert a picture of them.

My students will practice on adding in Word Art, Clip Art, Grouping and creating animations from each letter.  So far, they seem to be working nicely on it.  It allows them to be creative with their fonts, clip art, etc while still following a pattern that makes sense for me!  

If you want this template/file, I have it available for $1.00 on my Teacher's Notebook account.  (I have to because of the graphics used in the project.)

My students seem to be having a good time starting this project!