Monday Made It: Mr. Spacer

Another week! Happy happy Monday. :)

This week I went with a super simple Monday Made It, but one that will be very useful next year! I introduce to you............. Mr. Spacer!

I first heard about Mr. Spacer from Hadar and he has been pinned for a long while. Mr. Spacer is used to help your students leave appropriate spaces between words! Lots of my students last year could have used this, but I can think of one student in particular who I wish I would have had this for! His handwriting is pretty messy, and a lot of the time I couldn't tell which letters he was making, let alone where one word ended and another began. I will have him again next year so I am excited to see how his work will change with the help of Mr. Spacer! 

To make Mr. Spacers, you'll need popsicle sticks, googly eyes, and Mod Podge. I got my popsicle sticks and googlies from Hobby Lobby. The popsicle sticks are regular sized and the googly eyes are 4 mm. So tiny!

All you have to do is Mod Podge two little eyeballs on top of each stick! I used a Q-tip to apply the Mod Podge and then just tossed it. That worked perfectly.

These can also be used as pointers or trackers to support one-to-one correspondence in reading. I think I'll have these out in baskets on the students' tables so they can use them when they need to. :)

Fiction Friday

Happy Friday! This week has been so crazy with the fourth. I feel like I am just floating from day to day, haha.

Time for Fiction Friday!

My first book for you today is a picture book, sort of! More like an Easy Reader I guess - Cowgirl Kate and Cocoa: Partners!

I recently finished No More I'm Done and the author suggested reading this book to introduce the idea of writing partners to the students. Now, I don't know about you, but I find that is WAY more effective to teach things in the context of a read-aloud than it is for me to just sit there and talk at the kids.

Anyway, this was a cute story about Kate and her cowhorse, Cocoa! There were 4 little chapters in the book detailing different little adventures they had - like trying to find a lost calf and getting new horseshoes for Cocoa. You might want to spread this over a few days, reading a chapter a day, when introducing Read to Someone in Daily 5 or when introducing writing partners, like the book said!

My second book for you is a chapter book: Anything But Typical.

This story is narrated by a middle school boy with autism. It basically goes through his day to day life, and you get to peek inside the head of someone who lives every day with autism. It was very interesting and eye-opening, especially because I've never worked closely with a student who has autism. I am just in awe of people who dedicate their lives to teaching students with autism - that is such an important and difficult job.

The only complaint I had about this book is that the author, Nora Raleigh Baskin, didn't mention how she came to write this book. Does she have a child with autism? Did she ever work with a student who has autism? Or was everything she wrote just based on research? I would have liked to know how true-to-life the story was.

Go check out the linky party for other good reads this week!

What I'm Loving Thursday

I missed my WILW post yesterday! Too busy having fun. :)

I'm loving the fourth of July. :) I forgot how fun it is! Everyone just chills all day, everyone is smiling, and you get to spend time with people you love! Yay.

I'm loving outlet malls! Today I went with my brother to one and it was amazing! I bought some linen crop pants, a new shirt for school, and a scarf, and I saved $50 compared to what I would have paid in the real New York and Company store. Any ideas of how to store my scarves? This is what I have now and it is kind of overflowing... haha!

I'm loving that I'm going sailing tomorrow! So excited!

I'm loving that there is going to be a Chicago area blogger meetup! Click on the picture to go to the Lesson Plan SOS blog so you can get your evite!

I'm loving that my cousins and I made t-shirts for the fourth of July. They were pretty much the cutest things ever and we had a great day together! I am in the middle here. :)

What are you loving today?

4 on the Fourth

Happy fourth of July!! Here in the Chicago area it was excruciatingly warm but I survived. :)

Today I am going to link up with the lovely Ms. M for her 4 on the Fourth linky party!

For this party, we need to talk about four things we are going to try this year - brand new stuff!

This is timely for me because during my ESL grad class yesterday, I got bored and started making a list of all the new stuff I want to implement! It was longer than four things but I will pick my four favoritos. :)

(1) I want to do writer's workshop this year. Last year I was kind of flying by the seat of my pants and doing my best teaching writing, but I know it wasn't as good as it could have been. I just finished No More "I'm Done!" and it was awesome. This combined with Mrs. Meacham's writing workshop lessons is hopefully going to equal happiness in my life next year. :)

(2) I want to expand my calendar routine to incorporate some of the Teacher Tipster's ideas to make it more well-rounded and comprehensive. I also want to move my calendar routine to the afternoon since I teach math at that time!

(3) I want my class to fill out their planners/assignment notebooks first thing in the morning next year. It seems like a little change but I think it will be a big difference in the day. Last year I would have them do it right before dismissal and it was a mess every day. Now I'll know that everyone has the right information and parents will know exactly what's expected of their kiddos!

(4) I want to forego my weekly newsletter to parents. It was a lot of work and stressed me out every Friday! Instead, I already set up a Tumblr page for our class to update parents on spelling words and upcoming events, and I'm going to implement News Notebooks in my class. Hopefully I'll write more about that once the school year starts - if it's going well, that is!

I have a really good feeling that this upcoming year is going to be, like, 8492749832 times better than this past year. My confidence is super high and I feel unstoppable!! :)

Skippyjon!

In case you haven't heard already, Kohl's has Skippyjon Jones books AND matching plushes right now for only 5 dolla dolla bills.

I picked up one of each.

The plush cracks me up; its head is HUGE. 

I'm thinking about putting Skippyjon in a basket so the kids can read to him during Read to Self time next fall. It might make reading a little bit more exciting for them. :)

Also, I have been legit bombarded by awards, which of course I so appreciate!! Thank you so, so much everybody for the Versatile Blogger Award and One Lovely Blog Award!

Check out these super nice lovely ladies' blogs. :)

and Alyce at Mrs. Bartel's School Family!
I hope you have a super happy and fun 4th tomorrow!

Monday Made It: Cloth Erasers!

Hi friends! Happy Monday Made It!

This weekend, I made some cloth erasers for my student chalkboards that I have in my room. These could also be used for student whiteboards if you have those instead (which you probably do...). I've heard of other people using socks to erase or other cloths, but I didn't have any of those, so I made these instead! They are based on the directions I found at maya*made.

If you can use a sewing machine at all, you can make these in a snap! Here's how you do it.

First, you will need to get some cotton batting. This can be found in the bolts at any fabric store. I bought a yard, which will make about 27 erasers. Once you have your cotton batting, cut rectangles that are 5 inches by 10 inches.

Next, take one rectangle and fold it like so:

Then, you will sew all the way around it. Sew about 1/4" in from the edges. It's really not that big of a deal if it's not perfect, just remember... it is an eraser. :)

After that, sew parallel lines. Make as many as you want to, as far apart or as close as you want to. If you are a Type A sort of personality, yours will look much more perfect and beautiful than mine. I"m cool with that. :)

Then that's it! The original directions said to use pinking shears and cut all the way around. That does make it cuter ... but my border around isn't really thick enough.

So here is a little pile of them! They all look different, just like snowflakes!!

Each eraser took me about 3 minutes to make. Just sew, sew, sew! My sewing machine skills are like... first grade level (if first graders use sewing machines), so if I can do it, so can you!

I made some of these last summer for my class and the kids LOVED THEM. Absolutely 100%. They are really cute and they erase well. And if you use them for dry erase markers, just throw them in the wash after a while.

And I leave you with a little funny today:

Haha! Have a good week!

July Currently

It's July?!

I am a HUGE Froggy fan! I was first introduced to him when I did a clinical in a sixth grade class. My cooperating teacher used a Froggy book as a mentor text for writing. The sixth graders LOVED IT and I did, too. Froggy's First Kiss is one of my favorites because it is so super cute and has a little twist at the end.

Reading with Meaning rules too! I need to reread it and try to work toward a reading workshop model next year. I can't do it full out because of my scripted reading program, but I can work in some stuff here and there.

Hope your weekend was aaaaaaamazing! Mine was! Off to my sleepover! :)