What I'm Loving Wednesday

Good morning and happy Wednesday!

I'm loving the mini PVC pocket chart stand I made! The stand is sitting on our dining room table and every time I look at it, it makes me happy because I made (pretty much) by myself. :) If you have those little Target pocket charts from last summer laying around, go check out my tutorial!

I'm loving the Bachelorette still! I was pumped to see that Doug went home. He was a nice person, I guess, but acted way more like Emily's dad than her boyfriend. That kiss was so incredibly awkward... yikes. And Arie is still in it to win it!! I love you, Arie.

I'm loving that I started a new knitting project! I used to knit a LOT in my senior year of high school through college but it has gotten away from me a bit. One of my former first graders who I will have again in second grade is getting a new baby brother in August! So I've been working on a baby blanket for the baby.

I'm loving that my summer ESL class is only 3 weeks long. I'm not loving that it's 6 hours per class period and that my teacher is super quiet and likes to read off of powerpoints............

I'm loving that I picked up a TON of books at the Salvation Army last week with my cousins. We were probably there for 2 hours. There was an entire wall consisting of only bookshelves that were stacked two deep. My cousin, Kelley, is taking children's lit next semester, so she's trying to pick up books to fulfill her book list, and usually I just go along and throw things into her basket, but this time I actually bought books!

I'm loving that I got to catch up with all the teachers at my school yesterday. The priest from the church associated with our school was reassigned to a different church, so there was a going-away party for him yesterday. It was really nice to chit chat and see my buddies again. :)

I'm loving my cousins. :) Here's Kelley and me getting ready to check with with our million books the other day!

What are you loving today?

Monday Made It: Pocket Chart Stand

I'm so happy for Monday Made It because it makes Monday so much more wonderful!

This week, I made a mini pocket chart stand for my $1 pocket charts I got last summer at Target. I was inspired by Carly at First Grade Fabulosity's post about her pocket charts!

It was crazy easy! Here is how you do it!

First, you'll need to gather your supplies:

Side note: my pipe is already cut in this picture, obvi. You will need to buy a 10' piece of 1/2" PVC pipe at your preferred hardware store. :) It will cost you about $1.50 for the 10' pipe.

Then, start putting it together!

First, put your two elbows on either side of your 18" piece. This will be the top of your stand.

Then, put your 24" pieces in the other ends of the elbows. Just shove 'em in there!

After that, put your tees on ends of your 24" pieces.

Next, put one 5" piece in each tee opening.

Last, put your little caps on the open ends!

Then it should look like this bad boy. Feel free to relax at this point, as that is what I am clearly doing in this picture, haha!

Now if you would like to, you can spray paint your stand. I had some spray paint already so we painted it navy blue! Also, I have metal rings that I am going to use to hang the pocket charts but they are at school, so for the purpose of this post, I just tied the pocket charts up with yarn!

If you already have the pocket charts, this project will cost you less than $5 to make one stand. That is a pretty good deal to me!!!

There are two pocket charts back to back on the stand so two students can use the chart simultaneously!

I'm planning to use this as a station during reading time. Our first grade program features 3-4 word families per unit, so I'm going to make up little cards so they can make words independently using the word families.

Do you have any other ideas or ways we can use this awesome stand during independent work time?

Ahoy, Matey!

A few weeks back, I mentioned that I was taking a sailing class! This week was the week, and now I am finished and I have my sailing card!

Yesterday I got to have a real sailing adventure on a giant sailboat on Lake Michigan.

It was a fun day, but those big sailboats are a LOT of work! I will just stick with the little ones. :)

Happy weekend!

What I'm Loving Wednesday

Hooray for Wednesday!

I'm loving my sailing class!! Being on the water is so relaxing and it is pretty fun to sail around! Also I'm pretty sure that the guys on the Bachelorette a few weeks back had a hidden sailing master on their boats - otherwise, I have no idea how they did not capsize!! It's not easy to sail!

Speaking of The Bachelorette......... I'm loving this show!! I could NOT BELIEVE that Ryan went home this week! I mean, it was like 4 weeks too late, but I really never thought she would send him home. But thank goodness she did. I hope it is Arie and Sean in the end!!

I'm loving the amazing Robert Munsch collection book that I picked up at Goodwill on Monday! There are 10 books in this giant book and I bought it for $0.63!!! 63 cents!!! Holy mama! Check out your local Goodwill or Salvation Army ASAP for amazing deals. Here are all the books inside my Munschworks:

I'm loving my dog. He cracks me up. Last week I took him to school to pick up some books, and when we got back in the car to go home, I looked over and saw him sitting like this. Haha!

I'm loving my cousins, as usual! I feel super lucky to have been born into a fabulous familia. :)

What are you loving today?

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!