Monday Made It- August 15

 I have a couple new Monday Made It's today and one of them is the reveal of the big project that I have been working on!!   

I decided that I wanted a framed mirror for my bedroom, but I did not want to spend a lot of money on it.  I had an old dresser mirror sitting around. 

Look below to see the finished project! 

Before...

This was a $6 picture that I bought at Goodwill.  I was not a fan of the picture, but the frame was exactly what i was looking for.  So, I took out the picture and put in my mirror instead.  

After...

Sorry for the bad lighting, but as you can see the mirror fit perfectly and was much cheaper than going and buying an already framed mirror!  You will have to check back next week to see where I put it in my bedroom.  HINT: It may have something to do with my sneak peek!

I absolutely LOVE the Olympics!  I spend way too much time watching TV during Olympic time.  So, it is probably a good thing that it only happens every 2 years for 2 weeks! Anyone else love the Olympics?

Last year, I started adding reading passages for holidays and big events to my TPT store.  I was hoping to make a bunch more this summer, but summer has gotten away from me and I have just created my first reading passage and what do you think the event is??  Yep, it is the Olympics!  Click the picture below to purchase this reading passage for only $2!

This reading passage is the first passage of a new reading passage series that I am starting called "When, Where and Why".  This series is going to include reading passages that give the history of past events in our country and around the world.  Each passage will have kid friendly language that explains the event with new vocabulary for students.  Follow my store to be updated when more passages in this series are added!

This is the BIG project that I have been working on for weeks.  It is FINALLY done and I could not be happier with the end result. 

Before...

I bought this dresser for only $35!  The dresser was in great shape, but just not my style.  

After...

Here is the same dresser with a little chalk paint and new hardware!  Oh, and of course I had to buy some new decorations for it!  I am so happy with how it turned out and loved using chalk paint.  I will definitely use chalk paint again in the future.

Well, I am going to go back to laying by the pool and relaxing as this is my last week off before I start school back up!   Come back next week to see some of my classroom reveal this year!

Monday Made It July!

Somehow, the month of July got away for me and I did not create many projects and did not post even one time a Monday Made It.  I spent most of July visiting my friends and family in Michigan, but now I am starting to think about this next school year and already started some projects for my classroom this year.  

Make sure you scroll all the way to the bottom as there is a sneak peek for something I have been creating for my home that I am SO excited to share with y'all next week!

I have been wanting a comfortable and cute (of course!) desk chair for my kidney table for a couple years now.  I spend a lot of time at my kidney table working with guided reading groups and math groups.  I decided that this summer I would actually find and recover a comfortable teacher chair. 

I went to the Habitat for Humanity Restore and not only did I buy the chair for $5, but they were having a buy one, get one free special.  So, I was able to get 2 chairs!!  I bought fabric for both chairs at Hobby Lobby.  They just opened a Hobby Lobby by me 2 weeks ago and I cannot explain to you how excited I was!  Recovering these chairs ended up to be a little more challenging and time consuming that I thought, but I am so happy with how they turned out and still feel like it was worth it!  I am going to use the orange chair at my kidney table and still haven't decided about the other chair.  I am thinking maybe a student computer chair, reward chair for students, or a reading around the room chair.  Anyone else have any ideas of how I can use the blue chair in my classroom?

I have decided that I want to focus more on writing in my classroom this year.  Therefore, you will be seeing more writing products in my TPT store this year!  Here is my first writing product that I have been wanting to do.  I spend a lot of time at the beginning of the year teaching my students how to have math and reading conversations with the appropriate language.  This year, I want to add in writing conferencing language and have my students conference about their writing more often.  I have created this product to give them writing language prompts.   I am going to laminate these prompts and put them in a place that is accessible to my students all year.  You could also make them posters for a writing center or put them in a writing notebook!

You can purchase this product here!  
Before school starts, I will be creating a beginning of the year activity for my students to start practicing have writing conferences and using the correct language.  Follow my store or look back in the next couple weeks for this product!

SNEAK PEEK for next week!!

I CANNOT WAIT to reveal this project to all of you that I have been working on for a couple of weeks now.  Any guesses of what it is??

1st Monday Made It for 2016!

This is my first Monday Made It with 4th grade frolics for Summer 2016.  It is going to be my goal to post my Monday Made It at least every other week!  I am not officially on summer break yet.  I am teaching summer school for 3 more days.  So, starting Thursday I will be OFFICIALLY on summer break and will hopefully have more time to create for my classroom next year!!

This week I had a baby shower for a good friend and fellow 4th grade teacher.  I have always wanted to make a diaper cake and decided to make one for her.  The only challenging part was that she was going to be using cloth diapers for her baby.  The diaper cake was not the easiest to make, but in the end, I am happy with how it turned out and it fit the sea animals theme for the party.

I finally decided that it was time to update my wreath.  It still had Christmas decorations on it.  I bought this blank wreath a year ago and have loved being able to change it up with the season.  The current decorations are inspired by wreaths I saw on pinterest.  What did we do before pinterest??

Since I am currently doing summer school, my last Monday Made It are the anchor charts that I have used to help my students prepare this week to re-take our state end of grade reading test.  My county decided to do a 8 day long remediation summer school for any student who did not pass the end of the grade test and wanted another chance.  I only had 4 days to work with some of our 4th grade students.  These anchor charts were a huge hit with the students and are something I will definitely create again.

 This anchor chart was inspired by another one that I had seen on Pinterest.  I wanted to help my students better understand poetry and how to annotate poems.  There were so many light bulb moments that happened with my students while creating this anchor chart.  

 I loved to see their excitement for poetry after this lesson.  I then gave students their own poems to write in the margin and they did so well and many of them asked for another poem to write in the margins!! 

If you're interested in hearing more about this lesson and how you can use it in your classroom, I am going to be creating this lesson and putting it in my TPT store at some point this summer.  So, check back for a more detailed post about this lesson soon!

I look forward to seeing everyone's Monday Made It's this week and will be looking for some inspiration for one of my Monday Made It's next week!!

Sharing Sunday Link-up: Dr. Seuss's Birthday and Morning Work Rubric

It has been awhile since I have done an update.  Needless to say, things have been crazy busy at school for me since Christmas Break!  I am excited to be back on the blog and get back to my goal of posting at least once a month.  Feel free to hold me to this!!

For my first post in 2016, I am linking up with The Primary Peach for Sharing Sunday!  I have a couple things that I want to share.

My FIRST Sunday Share is about National Reading Month and Dr. Seuss's birthday.  Every year, the first week of March, my school has a Dr. Seuss hallway decorating contest(fire code prohibits us from decorating our classroom doors).  Throughout the week, teachers take their students around the school and our students vote on the hallway decorations of one classroom per grade.  The winners receive a small prize and bragging rights!  Every year, I look on pinterest and brainstorm some ideas of how I can decorate the hallway(I probably spend way to much time doing this).  Every year, I think I have a better idea than the last year, BUT this year I REALLY think my hallway decorating is the best that it has ever been.  Look below to see what I did last year.  Sadly, I did not take pictures the first year that I taught at this school.

My students wrote places that they like to read for the Dr. Seuss hat and then created themselves as a "Thing".  I took a picture of each student and they glued it on the "Thing" they created of themselves. For confidentiality reasons, I had to cover up the faces of my students.

DRUM ROLL PLEASE!!!  Here is my masterpiece this year that I believe will be a BIG competitor and even a winner this year!

 What do you think?  Do you think this Dr. Seuss hallway decoration is a winner this year??

Here are just a couple samples of the Dr. Seuss Writing that my students did.  You can purchase this Dr. Seuss Writing Activity for only a $1 at my TPT store here!  

SECOND, I want to share my new morning work.  I noticed that my students needed additional practice with doing writing responses from what they had read.  I am ALWAYS looking for more ways to integrate writing in my classroom!  Therefore, I decided to create weekly reading passages with writing responses.  Look at the samples below:

Each of my reading passages include 2 writing responses, a multiple choice comprehension page and a short answer comprehension page.  Each passage is just $2 here.

I have my students work on these reading passages with writing responses every morning as they are coming in for about 20 minutes.  I created a rubric to grade my students weekly on this writing response.  The rubric includes areas that I want my students to focus on when during their writing.  The rubric is below:

This rubric can be purchased here for only $1 at my store!  I will be creating editing and revising checklists to go along with this rubric.  Follow my store to see these checklists when they are complete!

Well, that is it for now! I hope one of these was helpful for you.  Wish me luck at the hallway decoration contest this week :)