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