My First Monday Made It This Summer

So, I hope that all of you survived the 4th of July.  My family tried to squeeze in as much family time as we could.  My son is going to college in September, so we are making family time a priority. Also my sister was in town from Chicago, so we spent time with her.  A drive-in movie, a trip to the zoo, a rained out baseball game, a couple of barbecues and brunch together were all a part of our long weekend.

Yesterday, I was able to squeeze in a little time to create a quick Monday Made It.  I am tutoring this summer and needed something to help my students practice sight words.  So I created some cute flashcards to use for practice or to play a memory game.

I used some border that I bought last summer when the local teacher store was going out of business.  (Better late than never, I always say.)  The package not only had border but it also 4 corners.  The border was seashells and the corners were crabs.

The Border

Next, I cut the border apart.  I used two strips of border to make one set of cards.  I made 4 sets of cards and placed one crab in each set.

After that, I used a permanent marker to write sight words on each seashell.  To make a matching game, I wrote the same sight word on two cards.  I left the crab plain.  I haven't decided what should happen if someone turns over the crab.  The player could lose a turn, get another turn or lose one of his/her matches.

I am tutoring this afternoon, so I will see how the game works.  Once I go back into my classroom, I will probably laminate the cards.  But they seem pretty sturdy for now, especially since I am using them one-on-one with students.

Thank you for taking the time to visit my blog.  Have a terrific week!

My 3rd Monday Made It

Three weeks from tonight, I will be getting ready for my first day of school.  I went to school to really begin getting ready.  I had my daughter take pictures after we had begun moving stuff around.  (I am "picture-taking" challenged, so I have learned to have her take pictures.  And I forgot to take pictures when were first got there.)

Here are a few of the pictures:

This will be my calendar wall and my whole group carpet.

My library center is the white shelf in the corner.

This is my mess that still needs to be cleaned up.

But at least my furniture is where it needs to be (besides the tables).

Hopefully, I will be able to post pictures of my room looking done (or almost done) at the end of the week.  I need to get my room pretty much ready by next week, because I have the kindergartners comes in for beginning of year assessments next week.  I don't want to scare them with a crazy classroom.

I have also linked up with Monday Made It.

I know there are many Teacher Toolboxes all over Pinterest.  But I would like to add mine.  The teacher across the hall and I worked on them last Wednesday afternoon.  I think they came out looking very good.  The "toolboxes" we used had been used before and had sticky stuff on the front of the drawers.  So we laminated the signs on the front of the drawers and used velcro to attach them to the front of the drawers.

My Toolbox

Check out all the other wonderful things on Monday Made It.

Monday Made It

Thank you for looking at my classroom today.

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!