Monday Made It: Refresh Edition

Three. Weeks. In three weeks, I will be starting my fourth year as a first grade teacher.  I swear it seems like I've only been on summer vacation for three weeks...but I digress. Today I'm linking up with 4th Grade Frolics for Monday Made It.

It's been a while since I've "made it". Actually, setting up my classroom this year has been pretty stress free so far (knock on wood) because my amazing custodian lets me keep a lot of stuff where it's at and because I'm finally content with my theme/color scheme/etc. that there really isn't much to do until I get my class list.

However, there are a few things in my room that I felt needed a bit of jazzing up. So I put my DIY pants on and went to work:

Oh, seat crates. How I love you so. These were one of my first projects when I got my job as a first grade teacher. A brief run-down on why I began to despise them:

• The pattern. It doesn't match anything in my room. Plus, the fact that it was linear made it super obvious that I didn't put in the effort to make sure everything was straight.
• The staple job. If you could only see the backside. It's terrible. And from the front, you can tell - the fabric is all baggy and lopsided.
• The stains. After three years in the classroom, these seats began to look very well-loved, with marker splotches and other mysterious stains abound.

Even though my kitty friend Whiskers McMittens didn't seem to mind the above, I decided to "reupholster" my seat crates this summer. After a quick trip to Walmart, I was ready to go!

Here's how they turned out after. The fabric was in the bargain section at Walmart and only cost me seven dollars! I think the new pattern looks better, and a darker color means little "accidents" with our writing utensils won't show up as easily. I love how it's a thicker material, too! Plus, I clearly am a bit more skilled with a staple gun than I was before.

Okay, so my newest obsession is spray paint. Have something you wish you could use but you just can't stand the color? Or maybe you're like me and the color would be okay for a normal person but it doesn't match the color scheme of your classroom and therefore drives you crazy...?

Spray paint it. Spray paint all the things. Like this bookshelf that was originally some sort of light wood color but was kind of falling apart.

I saw this idea somewhere on Pinterest and decided to give it a try (after passing up the coral drawer liner several times at the Target dollar spot). It's definitely not perfect, but I like it, at least for now!

I also had a chance this week to put together my students' take home folders. Isn't this color gorgeous? Walmart actually earned a brownie point with me on this one.

Here's what the inside of the folders look like. One side is for things "Left at Home" and the other is for stuff that comes "Right Back to School". At the beginning of the year, I usually just call it the "house side" and the "apple side" for my non-readers. To save labels, I printed two on each and cut them in half. A version of my old full size labels are available as a freebie in my TPT store.

And of course my one cat couldn't have all the fame in this blog post. Here's Jingles, who didn't seem to mind me covering her in the backing from all the labels I used.

After years of owning a Cricut (and after impulse-purchasing the newest version this past June) I decided it was time to finally get my vinyl on. My old reading center tubs were too big, took up too much space, and simply had colored construction paper circles on them to denote which basket held which group's materials.

My new ones match my classroom color scheme, will take up less space, and are labeled for each of my reading groups. Definitely a lot cuter. But yes, it is driving me crazy that my vinyl sampler pack didn't come with orange. Hopefully I'll get over it...

As part of our new school-wide behavior plan, we're implementing "cool down spots" this year. The idea is to convey to students that we want them in our classroom and that it's okay to have strong emotions - we just need to recognize when we need a quick minute to calm down.

In my cool-down spot, I wanted to have some materials that students can fidget with or that they might find calming. So far in this bucket, I have two squishy creature ball things, a twisty tangle, a mini-slinky, and a bendable flower. I plan on adding a timer and possibly some calming glitter water bottles, too.

Monday Made It & Fa La La La Link Up

Happy Monday, teacher friends! Today I am linking up with Tara at 4th Grade Frolics for Monday Made It. This is one of my favorite link ups that I have really been slacking on lately! Need a cute Christmas-y craft and/or writing project? Read on!

It wouldn't be the Christmas season without the Grinch. The original Grinch, of course. Because no matter how much I secretly love the Jim Carrey version, the cartoon movie I once owned on VHS will always have a special place in my heart. As will this book (my copy is so old it is falling apart!)

This quarter, my students worked on procedural writing. We spent a lot of time writing about things we know how to do - making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, building a block tower, playing with a cat...you get the picture.

As a fun way to wrap up our procedural writing unit (and to keep us just a bit more sane as the holidays approach), I decided to incorporate our friend the Grinch into a fun writing craftivity. We began by reading How the Grinch Stole Christmas. We discussed the Grinch's character traits, evidence, and how he changed from beginning to end.

We decided that the Grinch from the beginning of our story was not a nice guy. Stealing presents and stockings and lying to a little girl? Not the best character, my friends. So we began to brainstorm ways to cheer him up. To make his heart grow a little bit bigger. After sharing a few examples as a class, my kids were ready to run wild with their planning sheets.

We worked on coming up with introductory and concluding sentences, as well as using our transition words when writing. I love how this friend wants to invite the Grinch over to make cookies! I got a real kick out of reading what my first graders came up with.

Finally, we tied everything together with a grinch-y craft!

Now for the fun part - your freebie! Click the image below to start spreading some Christmas cheer.

Happy Holidays! Head over to Primary Powers to see what other holiday freebies you can grab!

Monday Made It with a Freebie {October 20th, 2014}

Happy Monday! My shortened week seems to be flying by already. Although I missed Tara's initial posting last Monday, I thought I'd still join in the Monday Made It fun!

I can't tell you how many times I've heard "Ms. Nordland, what makes the ____ sound?!" More often than not, my kids are looking for a vowel sound that they just can't put their finger on. Solution? A set of fun, bright, picture-supported posters to reference during writing/reading time. The posters come in two different sizes to fit your classroom needs and can be found here in my TPT store!

Moving on to a freebie for you! As I noted in my weekly plans, this week is all about related facts. While I did have a couple of fun printables in my resource collection, I wanted something a bit more hands on for my students. They always love working with manipulatives, whether it be dice or cubes or dominoes, so I whipped up a quick freebie for them to use!

You can find your freebie here! All you need is the worksheet and a tub full of dominoes. It could work with dice as well, although the instructions mention the use of dominoes. I hope your students enjoy it!

Tara's Monday Made It link up is open for the rest of the month, so be sure to head on over and join in the fun!

One Week Until Labor Day {Monday Made-It}

Four more days. Four. More. Days. Then we've got a glorious, much needed three day weekend. Can you tell I'm excited? I'm definitely excited.

Tara at 4th Grade Frolics has announced that this is the last of the weekly made-its. While I look forward to them every week, I am a bit relieved - I am so busy that I am running out of things to share each week! Hopefully I'll deliver more quality ideas once we are back on the once-per-month schedule :)

Today I got to try out one of my newest products - Cookie Addition! I was a bit nervous having the kids try it out today, since today was the very first time I explicitly taught them how to write addition number sentences. I was very happily surprised when I saw how well they picked up on this task! It is great for practicing addition and writing number sentences - my tactile learners liked that they could "tap" each chocolate chip with their pencil when seeing how many there were in all. And the best news? Cookie Addition is free at my TPT store!

These aren't new. Nor were they my original idea (however, the person who first thought of this deserves some sort of medal or something!) Love my weekly organization drawers. I am sad that some of the letters are starting to peel off (darn that Midwestern humidity). When I redo them, I'll probably type the labels onto the paper so I don't face this problem again. Regardless - Love. These. Drawers.

Okay, so I didn't create these. Credit goes to Reagan from Tunstall's Teaching Tidbits. But technically I did make them. With my glue stick. And a fancy piece of black construction paper. I even laminated them. Awful attempt at a made-it but hey, if you didn't know about Reagan's fantastically free workshop posters, you do now!

I promise to save up some better made-its for next time around!

'Twas the Night Before First Grade: Monday Made-It!

Back to School Countdown: It's practically here! Teacher inservice is today to kick off the year and the kiddos arrive tomorrow! All the emotions are happening right now.

I've got my first day of school shirt all ready to go. Our whole first grade team ordered these shirts so we will all be rocking them tomorrow. I'm finding myself attempting to follow the "keep calm" advice as I anxiously await 8:00 in the morning!

I believe it is time for some Monday Made-It with 4th Grade Frolics!

One of my must to-dos for this upcoming school year was to redo my word wall cards. The ones I used last year were so awful, I'm not even sure why I made them in the first place. We're talking bad font, bad paper, randomly colored - the obsessive woman inside of me could not handle those any more! This year, I decided to color-code by level (pre-primer, primer, first grade, etc.) and include a subtle chevron background that will look cute in any room! Grab my Dolch cards here at my TPT store!

I wish I remembered where I found this fabulous idea. If anyone knows who to credit for this, please let me know! These are for those kiddos who need that reminder to track their reading with their finger - or, in this case, a big ol' googly eye! We obviously won't use these all the time but I think they will work nicely for small groups and for those times when the kids need a little extra engagement-boost.

When I saw these adorable wooden forest creatures at the craft store, I knew I had to use them for something. Shout out to my amazing mother who suggested turning them into magnets! Since I moved my word wall to an actual wall rather than the back chalkboard, I've got plenty of room to hang anchor charts with my new forest cuties!

Back to School Monday Made-It!

Back to school countdown: One week until teacher inservice, which means one week + a day until my room is once again filled with first graders! I'm feeling real good about year two. Like, really really good. As far as firsts go, I wouldn't change a thing about my first year and am hoping my second will be even better!

In hopes of rocking this blogging thing the second time around, I'm linking up with Tara at 4th Grade Frolics to show off some things I've been working on!

Okay, so last year so many of my kiddo's "go home" folders were a hot mess. We're talking piles and piles of papers shoved in haphazardly and (sadly) oftentimes not checked by parents. This year I'm taking charge and attempting to alleviate the problem with these labels! Grab it for free at my TPT store. All paid products are also 20% off in celebration of the blast-off back to school sale!

Okay, I know you've seen Maria Manore's awesome sight word freebie at her blog, Kinder-Craze. I knew I had to jump on the bandwagon and make some for my classroom! I found both the labels and the bright index cards at Staples.

The mid-summer jitters seriously hit me around mid-July, after my grad school classes ended. You know, the ones where you actually have a free moment and you feel like you need to be doing something productive with your time. Cue Pinspiration! I followed this tutorial to create some wall art for my master bathroom in my apartment. And you know what? It actually turned out alright for once!