My FIRST Monday Made It

So, you have found me out.  I'm one of those girls who likes to lurk quietly and watch everyone else.  Then I jump in and try it myself.  That is what happened with Monday Made It.  I have been looking at everyone else's very creative ideas.   Now I'm ready to share one of my own ideas (maybe not quite as creative, but functional).


I made 6 making word folders this weekend.  I'm going to use them with my small group reading groups.  Probably not most of my groups until more towards the middle of the school year.  But I usually have one group of kinders that come to me reading or almost reading.


So here is how I made my folders:


First of all I found some awesome folders at Walmart.  I realize my boys aren't going to want the flower folders but, hopefully I will have at least 2 girls in each of my groups.  I was worried that the folders wouldn't be very sturdy since they were 3 for 88 cents.  But they are great.

I printed out two sheets that I had put letters on and glued them to the inside of the folders.

Here is what it looked like:

Then I used cardstock that I bought at the Dollar Tree.  I can't tell you how much I love this cardstock.  It is plain on one side and has a design on the other side.  It is also pretty thick.  It was 10 sheets for $1.

I printed letters on the cardstock and cut them apart.  I printed the letters on different colored cardstock so that I can tell which letters go with which folders (in case a few get separated from their folder).   I am going to laminate the letters and the file folders.  (I didn't get a chance to run to school to do that.)  After I laminate them, I am going to put velcro on the back of each letter and 2 pieces of velcro under each letter that is one the file folder.  I will also put a piece of velcro in the middle of each box at the bottom where the students can make their words.

Here is the finished folder:  

I'm sorry this picture is a little yellow.  I had my daughter take the other pictures.  Obviously, I should have had her take this picture too.

I have linked up with Monday Made It:

Click here to check out the other Monday Made Its.

I have also put the printables to use to make the folders in my TpT store as a freebie.  

Click here to get the freebie.

I have linked my freebie with Manic Monday at Classroom Freebies.

Thank you for visiting my blog.  I hope you have a great week!

Give Away on the Teaching Heart Blog

Who wouldn't want to win a $25 ITunes card?  I have recently stolen borrowed my son's Ipod Nano.  I went through 2 cd players in my classroom this year.  So I'm hoping that the Nano works better.  He, of course, has graduated to an Ipod Touch.  How come the kids always get the better technology?


Anyways, the point of this blog is that the Teaching Heart blog is giving away a $25 ITunes card to bloggers who blog about the giveaway.  I would love an ITunes card to get some new songs for my classroom.


Here is a link to the give away:

Click here to go to the Teaching Heart blog.

Also check out their Facebook page.

Good Luck Everyone,

  

I *heart* Walmart and Freebie Friday!

As we (my husband and I) were walking into Walmart the other day, we saw the school supplies.  My husband said to me, "So I'm leaving you here while I go get what we need."  You know I said, "Of course."  What was he expecting, he has been married to the teacher for more than 20 years.  Anyways, I found some great headers for 88 cents each.

I also found some shape cards.  So I thought I would put the shapes headers or the color headers on the pocket chart and have my students sort the cards.  But there weren't any cards for  the number headers.  So I made some tens frames cards for my students to sort under the number headers.  I am sharing these with you as a freebie.  Even if you don't have the headers, I thought you could make the ten frames and put magnets on the back and have your students match the ten frames with magnetic numbers.  (I may actually do both at the beginning of the year.)

Click here to get my freebie.

I have also linked up with Teaching Blog Addict's Freebie Friday.

Please also take time to enter my Ice Cream Party Give Away.
I hope that you have a great end-of-July weekend.

ICE CREAM PARTY!!! (and give away)

I think my favorite food in the summertime is ice cream.  Okay you caught me, my favorite food at anytime of year is ice cream.  (While I was pregnant with my son (who is now 18), there was an ice cream store that my husband and I drove by on our way home from work.  I had a craving for a chocolate ice cream cone on our way home almost every day.  So my husband (not wanting the wrath of a 7 month pregnant woman) would stop and get me a large one.  He swears it only took us 4 or 5 minutes to get home and I could have it eaten by then.  So you can see how much I LOVE ice cream.)


Okay so back to the Ice Cream Party.  I have been working for the past week on several center activities that have ice cream as their theme.  I finally have them uploaded to my TpT store.


Here is a peek at them:


Matching Upper and Lowercase Letters

Click here to see it.

Sight Word Readers (color words, I, see)

Click here to see it.

Ordering Numbers to 20

Click here to see it.

Write the Room (color words)

This one is my favorite.

Click here to see it.

So now that I have the longest blog post in the world, I am having a give away for one of these products (or any other product in my TpT store).  It is very simple to enter using the Rafflecopter, just follow my blog, or follow my TpT store or comment on this blog about which product you would like to win.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Thank you for visiting my blog.

I *heart* Awards!

Happy Middle of the Week!


I got up this morning and checked my email (which is how I always start my day).  And I received a wonderful surprise.  I received an award.


Mrs. Smith at





gave me the

Thank you so much for the award and thank you for the sweet words about my blog.

So here are the rules:

1. Follow the person who gave me the award. 

2. Link back to the person that gave me the award.  (Her blog button is at the top of this blog post.)

3. Pass to 15 new bloggers and then let them know they have received the award. 

So here goes trying to find 15 blogs who haven't received the award.

Ms. W at Tales of Teaching In Heels

Kristen at

Claire at 

Cassandra at

Cathy at

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Michelle at 


Andrea at




Teaching Third

Heather at



Sarah at Teachers Cannot Live by Apples Alone
So I have cheated a little.  I was only able to find 10 blogs that didn't already have the award.  I hope you can forgive me.
Thank you for stopping by my blog.

My Teacher Story Linky Party!

Since blogging this summer, I really enjoy joining a great Linky Party!  (even if my teenage daughter likes to make fun of me, I know it just really means she loves me)  So I have decided to join Janaye at Tales of Frogs and Cupcakes for her My Teacher Story Linky Party.

So here is my Teacher Story:
I remember wanting to be a teacher or a ballerina when I was 4 years old.  (good thing I chose being a teacher considering my coordination and gracefulness)  I was the oldest of 3 girls.  Being the oldest had its advantages.  I would make my younger sisters "play school" all of the time.  Of course, since I was the oldest, I was the teacher and they were the students.  I would make them do worksheets.  Sometimes my mom would buy me textbooks at garage sales and I would assign my sisters pages to do in them.  I also did a lot of babysitting when I was a teenager.  Then I was a camp counselor during the summer between my senior year of high school and freshman year of college.  (If you know how much I love the "outdoors and nature" you would understand how much I love working with kids to have taken this job.)  After so much time playing school and working with kids, I knew when I went to college I would become a teacher.  Lucky for me, writing lesson plans and working with kids came very naturally to me.
So my road to becoming a teacher wasn't a very exciting one and didn't have too many twists or turns, but I know it is my calling.  I feel truly blessed that I can wake up every day and do something that I love to do.
Thank you for taking the time to visit with me today.

What To Do With Alphabet Books? Freebie

Can you believe it is a Manic Monday again?  Do you ever just want to say stop the merry-go-round, I want to get off?  The summer just keeps slipping away.  Hopefully, I can focus a little bit more on getting things done for the beginning of the year so I'm not so crazy at the end of August.


Okay enough about  the end of summer.  I have a set of small board books, one for each letter of the alphabet.  There is a word and picture on each page that begins with the letter.  I was trying to figure out how to use these in my classroom, besides just putting them in the library center.  So I made a set of worksheets for the students to use at the ABC center.  Each worksheet has 10 letters on it with a space next to each letter for the students to write a word.  I place the 10 books that have those 10 letters at the center.  The students choose a book and pick a word to write on the line.


Here is my freebie:

Click here for my freebie.

Visit the Manic Monday page at Classroom Freebies to find more terrific ideas.

Thank you for taking the time to stop by my blog today.

A Counting Game for Beginning of the Year

Sorry that my Freebie Friday is a little late this week.  It has been a very busy day.  I've finally gotten a chance to blog.  So here I am linking up with TBA's Freebie Friday.






I have made two different games for my students to play during the first week of school.  I am hoping that I can use them to teach my students how to use dice at math centers.  One of the games has numbers for the students to color in to correspond with the number they roll on a die.    The other game is a game board with numbers for the students to cover with a marker (i.e. beans, buttons, small erasers)  I have my students play games like these a lot at math centers, so I'm hoping to use these games to teach them how to play games like these.
I hope you can use them too.

Click here to get this freebie.

Have a great weekend!

A Cooking Linky Party

Okay, so I know you are totally surprised that I am blogging twice in one day, but I just couldn't resist.  Susan at TGIF Thank God It's First Grade is having a What's Cookin' Good Lookin'? linky party that I wanted to join.  

My recipe is for Chicken Enchiladas.  I make the filling for the chicken enchiladas in the slow cooker.  The filling can also be used to put on top of nachos or for a dip.

In the morning, I put a can of pinto beans, a can of Campbell's nacho cheese soup, a packet of taco seasoning and 3 or 4 boneless skinless chicken breasts in the slow cooker.  (I put in frozen chicken breasts, but I'm sure you can put in ones that are defrosted.  It just might not take as much time to cook.)

I put the slow cooker on low (no matter how frozen the chicken breasts are, still put the slow cooker on low or it will burn).  I leave it on all day.  Since I leave for school about 6:30 in the morning, everything cooks for about 10 or 11 hours (during the school year).  I'm sure you can cook it for a little less time, it is up to you.

Then when I am ready to make dinner, I use a big fork and stir the chicken breast.  This shreds the chicken.  After that, I put in a brick of cream cheese.

This is what it looks like when I'm done adding the cream cheese.

You can use this for a dip or to make chicken nachos.  I usually place it in tortillas and put shredded cheese on top.  Then I fold it like an enchilada (I fold the top and bottom in and roll it up) and put some more shredded cheese on top of the tortilla.  I put them all on a cookie sheet and bake them for about 10 minutes (until the cheese on top melts) at 350 degrees.

This is what they look like when they are done.  (Please excuse the cookie sheet.  For some reason after a month even my new cookie sheets start to look like this.)

I top them with tomatoes, shredded lettuce and sometimes avacadoes or guacamole.

The reason that I made these today is that I had to pick my sister up in Lansing, Michigan (and we might have done a little shopping).  It was easy to make since we didn't get home until dinner time.  And she LOVES them.

See this is her (I'm sure she won't mind that I put this picture of her on my blog.  Shhh...we just won't tell her):

I hope your family likes this recipe too.  

WooHoo An Award!

Can I just say that I love getting presents and awards?  I have been given the Liebster Award.

Thank you to Mrs. Kazanjian at The Kinder"garden" Teacher.

This award is named for the German word "Liebster," which translates to "beloved" or "favorite", and is given to a "new, up and coming blogger." 

Here are the rules:

1. Link back to the person who gave it to you. 
2. Post the award to your blog.
3. Give the award to at least 5 bloggers with less than 200 followers.
4. Leave a comment on the 5 blogs to let them know that they have been offered this award.


I am giving the award to: 


Diane at



Sarah at

Mrs. Saunders at

Mrs. Saunders' Lovelies

Heather at

Katie at

Have a great Thursday!