Monday Made It: Contraction Shakers!

Happy Monday! Today marks the first day of my sailing lessons!!! I hope I don't regret this adventure... I'll let you all know tomorrow. :)

Time for Monday Made It, yeah!

Here is what I made this week: contraction shakers!!!!!!!!

This idea has been cooking in my brain for a while, and I had the empty bottle collection to prove it. :) A while back, Denise at Sunny Days in Second Grade posted about her synonym shakers, and I was totally in love with them! I knew my class would for sure love them, too.

Our reading series puts a TON of emphasis on contractions, and for some reason my class was really into them this past year, so I decided to make contraction shakers!

And you can make them, too!! I put my word lists and labels into a little document-o for ya.

When I looked up the Common Core standard for this activity, I noticed that it did not exist in the first grade set. So, question for you today: in which grade does your school teach contractions?

I teach one set of contractions in first grade in the fall and then the other set in the spring.

How about you?

I Want to Ride My Bicycle

I got a new bike today!!!!!!!!

I am so pumped! I have been looking on Craigslist for a bike like this for a few weeks now and my mom found this one the other day, and now it is mine!

Now I can go on more twenty mile bike rides and carry stuff in my cute little basket!

Hope you had a good weekend!

Cassettes into CDs Tutorial

Did you know that you can make a cassette tape into a CD??

Does anybody even have cassettes anymore...? Haha!

So I am working on building up a listening area for next year. Whether or not I can make Daily Five work for me, I definitely need a listening area so my chillins don't go off the deep end during reading time. :)

Anyway, I have found or acquired a number of books on tape, but I didn't think I really wanted to have to deal with the kids rewinding tapes or pulling all the tape out. This past year they all did fine with CDs when we would listen to our Reader stories, so I wanted to make my tapes into CDs, and my brother helped me figure out how to do it!

Here's what you need!

You can also use a tape player if you have one in your CD player! It just takes up less room if you do it this way. :) I got my auxiliary cable at Meijer for like $10; you can find them in the electronics area!

First, download and install the Audacity software. It is free and safe!

Then plug one end of your auxiliary cable into the headphone area of your Walkman or tape player and plug the other end into the microphone part of your computer.

Open up Audacity, hit play on your Walkman, then hit record on Audacity!

When you have recorded your whole tape, push stop. Then, click on File and then Export...

It should automatically come up to save as a WAV file. Name it whatever you want. I saved mine to my desktop. Then I added it to Itunes and burned it to a CD! Done and done.

I don't know if anyone will be able to use this little tutorial, but if you need it then hooray! Let me know if anything is unclear. :)

I'm off to find more books on tape!!! Happy Friday!

Girl Power!

First, thank you for the prayers and thoughts for my dad! All the tests came out perfectly fine yesterday. He has a follow up appointment today but everything is looking good. I really appreciate you all!

In a few hours, I'll be done with my fourth class to go towards my ESL endorsement! This term, I took Developing Cultural Awareness Through Multicultural Children's Literature. Quite a mouthful, but it was a fun class and I learned to be a LOT more critical of the books I read to and with my students. :)

As a final project, I critiqued my boxed reading series to check for cultural authenticity. It did okay, which is kind of a relief. I also had to pick out a lesson that wasn't incredibly multicultural and make it better by supplementing it!

In the first grade curriculum, there is a story in the kids' Reader called The Foolish Giant. In the story, two boys and one girl are pretending to be a giant, a knight, and a princess. In the story, the princess gets stuck in a tower and is totally dependent on the two boy characters to help her get out.

Multiculturalism absolutely includes gender, so I chose to compile a small collection of fractured fairy tales that feature strong female protagonists. Each of the stories either feature a strong female character or offer a different perspective on the typical fairy tale formula.

Here are the books I included!

And if you'd like my annotated bibliography, here it is! This is what I'm bringing as a handout to my classmates this afternoon. :)

Do you know of other fairy tales with strong female characters? I'm always looking to add to my collection!

What I'm Loving Wednesday

Hi friends! It's Wednesday, and you know what that means...

I'm loving the bike ride that I took with my cousin, Lisa, over the weekend! We rode 20 MILES all the way from a nearby town to the border of Wisconsin. That is just craziness. We were pretty much exhausted and dying on the way back but we made it. :) Next time I know to bring double the amount of water and some snacks for the road! Here I am working on my fitness:

I'm loving that the disgusting milk-stained and wrinkly carpet has already been torn out of my classroom! That means we are for real getting new floors, yeah!

I'm loving that I acquired my very own wiggle seat for my classroom. Do you have any students who use one? One of my more active students was given a wiggle seat by the district OT, but it isn't made for first grade chairs and basically hangs off the edges of his little chair. My new wiggle seat is from a retiring teacher, it is smaller, and I can't wait to show my student when he comes back in August. :)

I'm loving that I'm already finished with my final project for my ESL class that ends tomorrow! I am a HUGE procrastinator, so this is a big deal for me. I'm going to share some of it with you all tomorrow - someone might be able to use what I put together!

I'm loving the weather today. It is really quite pleasant - 75 with a slight breeze. This weekend will be 90 degrees again, ay yi yi!

One last thought - please keep my dad in your thoughts and prayers today. My mom took him to the hospital earlier this afternoon because he had some blurred vision and lost his balance a bit and wasn't feeling too well. He had a slight stroke back around Christmas time so they just want to make sure everything is okay. So far I haven't heard anything since they left and I'm not super worried, but every little thought and prayer helps! :)

What are you loving today?

Monday Made It: Mod Podge Paint Cans!

First of all, OMG! I almost had a heart attack watching The Bachelorette. I don't know if west coast people watch it later so I won't say anything, but I definitely shed a happy tear today during one of the dates, and before she gave out the last rose, I was feeling very anxious!!! But I'm happy now, all is well, and I can keep watching. :)

Second, I am participating in Monday Made It hosted by Tara at 4th Grade Frolics!

This is a really big deal for me, people. I am a visionary.... I get visions of things I want and that is pretty much where it ends. Haha! So I am really proud of myself for actually following through on a thing I wanted to do!

Here is my finished product!

I was inspired by Natalie's post about her paint cans!

This was my first ever Mod Podge project! I feel like that is crazy talk in the blogging world. I am trying not to care that there are some wrinkles in the paper and that it doesn't look perfect........... :) I'm sure I will get better with more Mod Podge practice!

I am going to use it to hold these bad boys:

They are the little rubbery things that come on Target prescription bottles! My mom had been saving them for me and I had like 4, and then I was able to go through a retiring teacher's stash over the weekend and she had TONS! I am going to use them as counters.

Last, over the weekend I picked up The Phonics Dance book!

I actually have an older version... it is well-loved. :)

I spent the afternoon lining up the hunks and chunks in The Phonics Dance with the order that I teach them in my reading program. I think this will make a HUGE difference for my students this year and I can't wait to do it!

What I'm Loving Wednesday

I haven't linked up with Jamie in a LONG TIME! But today is the day to tell you what I'm loving!!

I'm loving that summer gives me a chance to read a lot! I love reading and this school year was kind of stressful, so all I wanted to do was NAP when I came home. I've already finished 5 books since school has been done! I just finished this book yesterday and it was fabulous - but I'd only recommend it if you want to think while you read it. It's not really a beachy book. :)

I'm loving that I FINALLY organized my sticker stash! I was inspired by Teri but I used an expandable file thingy for mine.

I'm loving that I found this amazing sticker sheet in my stash:

It's okay to be jealous; I would be if I were you. ;)

I'm loving taquerías!!!!! The family of one of my second graders owns a taquería/grocery store in the town where I teach, and I ate there yesterday for lunch when I went to school to clean my desk. It was MUY delicioso!

Okay, time to tell you what I'm NOT loving! Just one thing though. :)

I had this crazy dream last night about the first day of school! In my dream, I had 35 students, a crazy aide who was taking over the class, students who were taller than me in second grade, a TV whose buttons I couldn't reach, and one student who was a cyclops! Like straight out of Greek mythology. Also I had forgotten to plan for the first day, and only one of my second graders came back from last year.

I didn't think I was nervous about next year.... I guess my brain is telling me to step it up or something, haha!!

What are you loving today?