Monday Made It: You're Such a Smartie Pants!

Whew....first day in my new classroom and I am T.I.R.E.D.  Of course I made a huge mess unpacking a bazzilion boxes ( I fear I may be a teacher hoarder), but it's *starting* to look like a normal classroom. Yea!

I'm linking up with 4th Grade Frolics for another 

 

Like MANY of us out there in the blogging world, I use the clip chart system for behavior management.  LOVE IT!   My clip chart just wasn't matching my polka dot decor, so I made a new chart which is totally Pinterest inspired from here.  Here's mine

I wanted something extra for the students who make it **off the chart** and since I'm constantly calling my kiddos "Smartie Pants" I made these

I've seen versions of the Smartie Pants made out of baby jeans, but I didn't trust my sewing skills on jeans.  I bought some baby bloomers at Hobby Lobby for cheapo ~ like 3 bucks.  Got the owl patch there too, it ironed on, but I sewed a couple spots just to be sure.  The letters are iron on also.  I made the suspenders by sewing on some ribbon and used the buttons to cover up my not so good sewing job.  I added a couple candy stickers onto the hanger since that's what will be inside.  

Can't wait to check out all your creations!

~Carrie 

Giveaway Winner and a Freebie

Congratulations to Hope over at Teaching With Hope for winning my first giveaway!  She'll be sportin' this 

for back to school.  

Thank you to everyone who entered, that was a lot of fun and I will be having another one real soon!

In other news, I can FINALLY get into my room on Monday!!! Luckily, I've been working at home and I *think* all I'm going to need to do is organize and finish my bulletin boards.  Speaking of which, I made myself a new class rules poster.  I heard you can things to Office Max and get them printed big and in color for cheap.  So I'm off to see about that.

If you would like a copy, click HERE.

Have a great day!

~ Carrie

Measurement Ideas

Hello friends! Just a reminder, I'm having a little giveaway and you can enter HERE!!

Okay, onto the point of today's post...

Since I can't get into my classroom until next week, I've been trying to calm my "I'M NEVER GONNA BE READY!!" nerves by preparing as many lessons as I can.  You know the kind, super cute, super engaging, the kiddos love 'em, but you require a TON of work on our part in the form of cutting, laminating, etc., etc. 

This summer, my team and I got together a lot to talk about and find activities for common core math lessons.  One of the ideas we came up with for measurement 1.MD.1 (Order three objects by length; compare the lengths of two objects indirectly by using a third object) was to have yarn cut to the average length of some common animals and then allow the students to sort the animals from shortest to longest.  

Each pair of students will be assigned an animal from the list, stretch out the string, and then work with their classmates to figure out what order they should be in.  You'll probably want to go outside to give them room to move around and figure this out.  Plus, a few of these animals are really long! Several of the animals are close to or the same length, so you can even graph the results when you are done if you wish!

Here's a couple literature ideas to tie into the lesson as well. I have used both before (borrowed from the library) and the kids adored them since they have fantastic pictures. 

There are three versions of this book including an aquarium version that I'm gonna have to check out.

If you'd like to give this activity a try, you can download the picture cards below for free. The average length (found by a Google search) can be found on the last page.   Of course you can use any animals you'd like.  I tried to come up with a variety and after I cut each piece of yarn, I wrapped it around a piece of cardboard and put it and the picture into a Ziploc baggie so it's all set to go.

Download by clicking HERE.

I suggest you find a better helper than me to cut the yarn:)

Now I'm off the tackle this mess...

that's a whole lot of laminating to cut:(

Have a great day!

~Carrie

Giveaway!

Have you all seen this on Pinterest?

That's about how I feel every time I get a new blog follower:)  Seriously, I get so EXCITED that someone is actually maybe reading my ramblings!  

Anyways, moving on...

I'm sure I'm not the only one who has to wear my school ID to work every day. I used to just use the plain B-O-R-I-N-G necklace thingy they gave us, but the problem was it had one of those anti-choking snap releases on it.  Now, I appreciate not choking to death, but it was a little inconvenient that it kept coming apart and landing on the bathroom floor or in the toilet (once) EWWWWWWWWW!!

So, I had to cute-ify my name badge necklace and ordered one from Etsy.  My pink polka dot one from last year was looking a little rough, so I ordered a new one for an new school year.  Here she is  

Purchased from BaffinBags

a simple grey and white chevron print.  I feel like I'm cheating on my polka dot obsession, but I had to have it:)

Of course I've got an identical one for one lucky reader, so if you would like to be sportin' this for back to school all you have to do is enter below!  If you are the winner, I'll email you to know where to mail it.

a Rafflecopter giveaway
Oh, and I have no idea what I'm doing since this is my first giveaway so here's hoping I don't screw this up!

Monday Made It!

Linking up with 4th Grade Frolics again to share my craft project this week.  My inspiration comes from Nicole at Rowdy in Room 300.  I was browsing through all the past Monday Made Its and came across her tutorial on making a painted burlap sign and knew I just had to have one for my classroom door.  Here is what I came up with ...

 I wanted to paint my name on the front, but was pretty certain I would ruin it without a stencil, so I think I'll keep it as is.  

Seriously, the hardest part was making the bow!  I must of tied that thing a million times before I got one that looked semi decent!!

Looking forward to browsing through all your creations:)

Don't forget to enter my giveaway!

~Carrie

A Easy Peasy Recipe and Fabulous Find Friday

  I do plan to share lesson ideas and such, but since I don't go back to school for two more weeks I'm not quite there yet.  I'm still in summer mode, which for me involves a lot of shopping and cooking yummy dinners, so these to linky parties are right up my alley.  Yeah!

First, the recipe. Linking up with Staci

 This is by far my favorite meal of all time that I make.  I think it's super easy, but you can be the judge.  In college, I worked at Outback Steakhouse and we had a menu item that is similar to this.  I was so sad when they took it off the menu that I had to make my own version.  I usually cook this on the grill and make a foil packet for the chicken, a foil packet for the veggies, and a foil packet for the pineapple (cook this last).  As you can see in the pictures, I used a wok for the veggies and an electric skillet to cook my chicken.  I didn't grill the pineapple this time, it was yummy, but the grilled pineapple makes this AMAZING.  

Chicken Mixed Grill

Ingredients:

3 boneless skinless chicken breasts cut into pieces

1 bottle Caribbean Jerk marinade (I buy the Kroger brand)

1 Box Long grain wild rice (prepare as box directs)

Fresh chunk pineapple (I buy the small pre cut container in the deli)

All purpose seasoning for veggies

Olive Oil (if not cooking on the grill)

Assorted fresh chopped veggies – I typically buy:

1 red pepper

1 yellow pepper

1 green pepper

1 orange pepper

Mushrooms

Red onion

1 Zucchini

1 Summer Squash

Picture of the marinade, veggie seasoning, and rice I use.  I like to cook the chicken in lots of marinade, it makes a yummy flavored carmalized outside on the chicken.  

Veggies cooking in a little olive oil. YUMMERS  

Serve on a bed of rice.  Seriously, grill the pineapple your taste buds will thank you:)

Also linking up with Fun In 4b to share my shopping finds.

I made a trip to Michael's earlier this week for some craft supplies, more on that Monday:)  While there, I was crazy excited to find these alphabet shape molds.  I love to offer playdough as one of my word work choices, but it was taking FOREVVVVVVVVVER  for my kiddos to roll it out and make the letters.  Hopefully, these will speed it up.  I still plan to only offer playdough as a choice on special occasions like when we have a volunteer in the room to supervise:)

They were only like 2 bucks, so I bought 5 of them.  

Then, I headed over to Old Navy to return some dresses I purchased online that didn't fit and I found 

 

this and

 

this.  I'm one of those shoppers that if I like it I buy all the colors available.  My new room doesn't have air conditioning, so these will be great for the hot days since they are a nice airy fabric.

OOPS!  Forgot I also bought this cute necklace in turquoise with a silver chain from Groop Dealz
Love that site, it's a must check every day for me.  If you haven't checked this site out, I highly recommend it  and go back often cause they have new stuff every day!!

What's your fabulous find this week?

Have a great weekend enjoying these last days of summer!

~Carrie

Favorite Back to School Linky Party!

Today I'm joining up with First Grade Found Me to tell you about some of my favorite read alouds for back to school.

One of the many books I love to read is 

It's a great book to read because this cute little gingerbread runs all over the school providing a great opportunity to talk about where the library, cafeteria, office, etc. is.  Last year, I bought the gingerbread Little Debbie snacks and we had a sweet little treat to eat after touring the school.  I also love this book because around Christmas time when I'm reading lots of versions of the Gingerbread Boy, the students will remember this story and it's a great opportunity to talk about text-to-text connections!  Love when that happens, don't you!?

My kiddos LOVED this one last year

It's got some over the top rules and my kiddos couldn't get enough of it.

After I read it aloud, they all wanted to take it to their seat and read it again.

I also have all the Splat the Cat books, so I like to introduce one of my favorite cat cuties the first week.

I even picked up some fun activities to go with this book for free over at First Grade Blue Skies.  Thanks again to Jennifer as her fun activities are for sure gonna be part of my first week plans:)

And of course I fell in love with Pete the Cat last year along with every other primary teacher:)  I'm excited to be adding this book to my personal collection this year.  

As you can probably tell, I'm a sucker for a cute funny story.

I hope you all link up too cause I'm excited to add some new books to my " Back to School "collection.

Have a great day!

~Carrie

An Award! For Me? Thank you!

How exciting!  I started this blog a week ago and I had no idea how fun and rewarding it would be to connect with all of you.  So, needless to say I was super surprised to be nominated for my first award!

A BIG THANK YOU to the awesome ladies over at Fashionably in First Grade, Pocketful of Centers, and Back in Fourth for nominating me!

As per the rules, I have to share 7 random facts about myself:

1.  I always set 3 alarms and have my mom call me on the first day of school to make sure I wake up.  For some reason I always think I'm gonna oversleep even though after 10 years it's never happened.

2.  I have a self diagnosed case of OCD in concern to leaving things on in my house.  It never fails, I get down the road and think " Oh NO!  I left ____ on" and then I turn around to find that the iron, curling iron, fan, Christmas lights, etc. are all turned off.  Never once have I come back to something plugged in, but I would obsess over it if I didn't and ruin my day.  Please tell me I'm not the only one who does this:)

3.  I am absolutely terrified of snakes and all things reptile. I once drove a friend back to college with her very large pet snake in a pillow case in my back seat.  Worst car ride ever!!!

4.  It takes me forever to get out of bed in the morning.  I check my e-mail and make my moves on the countless games I'm playing before getting out of bed. Gonna have to break that habit.

5.  I think I could eat a burrito bowl from Chipotle EVERY DAY for the rest of my life. 

6. I want to marry a man with the last name Bradshaw, so I will be Carrie Bradshaw!  SJP has some killer style.  I was C-R-A-Z-Y about S.I.T.C. to the point that I bought the cutesy merchandise when the show was in it's hey day.  

7.  I LOVE all kinds of music and if I ever win the lottery, I'm gonna take all my besties and travel the world going to concerts.

Now on to my nominations:

4th Grade Haps and Hacks

The Bomb Diggity Classroom

Teaching with Meaning

The School Potato

My Silly Firsties

Clever Little Birds

Teaching With Z

Teacher and a Mom

First Grade With A Cherry on Top

Polka Dot Firsties

Owl See You In Third Grade

Tanner Tales: Life in Room 24

Keepin It Core

Teaching With Hope

Fantastic First Grade Friends

Follow these rules to to claim your award:

1.  Thank who nominated you.

2.  Include a link back to who nominated you.

3.  Include the award image in your post.

4.  Give 7 random facts about yourself in your post.

5.  Nominate 15 other bloggers for the award.

6.  When nominating, include a link back to their blog in your post.

7.  Let the bloggers you nominate know by leaving them a comment.

Have a great day!

~ Carrie 

Two Linky Parties!

Today I am joining up with TWO linky parties because well...they are so much fun! The first is
where you share one memory from the grade you teach.  My best memory of 1st grade besides having the most AMAZING teacher (she was a ROCKSTAR teacher in the days before the internet and pinterest) was our Halloween party.  It was the 80s and apparently we weren't concerned about germs back then because we were all taking our turns bobbing for apples.  Gross huh? Everyone putting their open mouth in the same barrel of water EWWW!!! Anyways, I remember it being super fun except that I had recently lost all 4 front teeth.  If any of you have every bobbed for apples you would understand that by not having front teeth I was at a serious disadvantage in this little competition.  Yep that's right, we were being timed to see who could do this the fastest.  Well, after about two tries with no luck and no front teeth my super competitive mode kicked in and I literally put myself into the barrel to get an apple!! Funny that I don't remember if I won or not (I probably didn't) but I DO remember being soaked like I had just jumped into a pool.  I seriously wish I had a picture to share of my toothless grin, it was quite a sight!  Needless to say, I don't think bobbing for apples will ever be part of my Halloween classroom festivities.   I'm also linking up with I haven't been able to get into my new classroom yet, so I'm not in full on back to school craft mode.  I did work on a much needed Book Boo-Boo Bin for my library area.  In the past I have kept the books that need to be repaired under my desk in a old copy box.  Well, I realized I needed to make something to put out in the classroom because at the end of this school year I had Halloween books still needing repair!  OOPS:)  Next year, my little repair bin will be in the classroom library and  since it will be visible, I will hopefully (fingers crossed) remember to take it on our weekly library trip.  While my kiddos are checkin' out books I can fix mine with all the tools in the school library.  Here she is and sorry for the horrible picture quality. I just slapped the sign onto the front of a bin I got at
Target for a dollar.

You can download the little sign here

I also made this little sign for my desk, but I forgot to save it of course. I love this little message that I've seen all over pinterest.

Can't wait to see what you all made!

Newbie Bloggers Blog Hop

Whew! I had absolutely no idea what I was doing trying to make a thumbnail to link up to Janis from Third Grade is the Place for Me.  I didn't get what I wanted as my thumbnail, but at least I get to link up to her fabulous blog and maybe just maybe get a follower or two:) fingers crossed!! 

So since I was semi-successful in my link up process, I guess I have to be a rule breaker and do a double post in a day ( I doubt my millions of followers will mind lol).  Here are my answers to the blog hop questions:         

1.  I live in Michigan & teach in Ohio

    2.   current teaching position = I will be 1st grade next year!

    3.   teaching experience = I have taught 2nd, 6th, 5th, & 4th 

    4.   started blogging = about a week ago, but I've been blog stalking for about 2 years!

    5.  share a blogging tip / blogging resource = I think I'm too new to be giving any tips other than I have been able to figure most of my questions out by googling "how do I _______ on blogger".  How did we live before google???

Once again a BIG THANK YOU to Janis for starting this newbie blog hop.  Now I've got some reading to do ...

Pete the Cat is Back!!

I LOVE LOVE LOVE the Pete the Cat books and so do my students!  I'm SO excited that a Christmas version is coming out soon!  The Amazon review says that it's a "rockin' new spin on the traditional tale 
The Night Before Christmas".  Well, I don't know about you, but I must have this book to add to my collection.  You can preorder a hardcover copy at Amazon right now for 10 bucks (it comes out in September). I can't wait to read this to my class!
http://www.amazon.com/Pete-Saves-Christmas-James-Dean/dp/0062110624/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1343587875&sr=1-5&keywords=pete+the+cat

Conference Update

So I went to the Daily 5 and CAFE conference this week and it was awesome. Holy Moly do they shower you with their favorite things!  It's like your on an episode of Oprah's favorite things. I left after two days feeling really energetic that I can implement this into my classroom.  If you are thinking about starting these programs in your classroom, I would recommend attending they are highly entertaining.  
1.  Super cute owl clipboard to use when checking kids in for D5 choices.  You can see the back of the clipboard in the picture the front is polka dots and note cubes to match!  All purchased at Home
Goods.
2 & 3. Loot from the conference.  Love that check-a-roo, it's much better than the paper ones I've made before.
 Now I'm on the hunt for the perfect binder for my pensieve and fun sticky notes for my CAFE board.  
Here are some owl signs to match the CAFE signs I posted earlier these are also made with clipart from Michelle T. from The 3am Teacher. http://the3amteacher.blogspot.com 

Click the link below the picture to download!

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B9-Y1EbfcCR2MGRzY0NSeXk5Y1k/edit

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Let's Get It Started....

Here we go... my first blog post for my zero followers. Ha.  Well maybe soon I won't be writing to myself.
ANYWAYS, back to school is soon upon us.  I laughed out loud today when I saw the music teacher is back on the Target commercials this year singing once again about denim.  Here it is in case you haven't seen it.

Maybe it's just me, but that's funny stuff.

  With about a month of vacation left, my brain is already starting to think about next year.  Probably because once again I will be tackling a new grade level.  After 3 years in 2nd grade, I'm off to a new school and a new grade.. FIRST!!! I'm super excited, mostly because I know my new team is going to be AWESOME and everyone is in the same boat since we are rolling out the new common core standards in our classrooms for the 2012-13 year. I'm also super excited to implement the Daily 5 and CAFE next year.  My teaching partner and I are going to a two day conference with "The Sisters" tomorrow.  

I have been thinking about my classroom set up for next year and decor.I've decided to keep my polka dots from last year ( I <3 polka dots!!) but I will be adding some owl accents.  I'm obsessed with all these owls I'm seeing everywhere.  I made these cute little CAFE signs to use in my classroom.  They were made with clipart from Michelle T. from The 3am Teacher. http://the3amteacher.blogspot.com

Click the link below the picture to download!

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B9-Y1EbfcCR2R2J0TWptUnJ3elU/edit

I'll be back with news from the conference and Daily 5 posters to match as soon as I get them finished.