My Ears Are Too Beeg For My Head! {repost}

{Hi friends! I originally made this post about a week ago, but there were some issues with the discount code. However, they've all been taken care of now! Feel free to enjoy the new discount code below!}

Skippyjon, holla!

So, a few weeks back I stumbled across the cutest stuffed animal ever, Skippyjon! I found him at Kohl's, which I blogged about that same night, for the low low price of $5! And all of the proceeds go to support kids' health and education initiatives. :)

Since my last Skippyjon post, I was contacted by a company working with Kohl's who offered to give me and you a special deal!

If you make a purchase through Kohls.com, you can use the code UBLOGTEN through October 24th to save 10% on your order! You can also stack your savings with one other department specific code as well. 

Happy shopping!!

What I'm Loving Wednesday

Happy Wednesday!!

Just like everybody else... I'm loving the Olympics! I'm not good at keeping up with them during the day but I always watch the recap at night. I am especially loving basketball because my NBA men are going crazy with the wins out there! My boyfriend is apparently a big Argentina fan (??) so we had a lovely time watching the USA/Argentina game on Monday!!

I'm loving the new sheets I bought today. I'm pretty sure I will never get out of bed ever again.

I'm loving that I spent the day with my boyfriend this week! He recently moved out of town so I drove on down there and we had a lovely day!!! Delicious food, fun walks around town, and tons of relaxing. Yay!

I'm loving my cousins!!! All day err day. Today they came to school and although we made more of a mess than anything, we checked a bunch of stuff off of my list and had so much fun!! Please note that I have WAY TOO MANY books. I am about to throw up just looking at them.

I'm loving that Kristin at Little Miss Glamour Goes to Kindergarten made me some special schedule cards! Having Religion and Mass as two of my subjects kind of limits me as to schedule cards I can use... but Kristin was nice enough to add a few for me and they are crazy cute!

I'm loving Stephen Colbert. Love love love love love. He makes me die laughing every day.

I'm loving that my cousins and I are taking a day trip tomorrow! We have been planning this all summer and I am soooOOOooo pumped!!

What are you loving today?

Monday Made It: Fabric Napkin Art

I'm coming to you LATE for Monday Made It! I usually have these pre-typed up on Sunday nights but I was a busy lady, so here we go now!

Today I only have a home Monday Made It, which is weird for me because at the beginning of the summer, I didn't think I'd ever have one. 

BUT, I am moving out next week! And my new apartment has super super boring walls and I need some snazzy things to hang up.

So I made some fabric napkin art!

I was inspired by Kate at The Small Things Blog. She has a pretty good tutorial up there, so I didn't make a new one. But here are my little tricks and tips:

• I bought my fabric napkins at World Market. Don't even think about going anywhere else. World Market has TONS of awesome patterned napkins and they are reasonably priced! I found these in the clearance section at $1.98 each, and I bought 3 identical napkins. I just featured different parts of the napkin in each frame!
• My sweet square frames came from Dollar Tree and they were $0.50!!!! They are metal, not wood like Kate's, but I am on a budget here people! They were originally frames to hold 5 tiny pictures but I just threw out the little insert thing.
• After I decided which part of the napkin I wanted to show, I cut around it with an additional 2 inch border. I wrapped the napkin around the cardboard backing and then hot glued the edges to the back (remember, I love hot glue!!). I did take a picture of that part to show you... it's a little dark.

• In the end I just shoved it back into the frame. The kind I had was the kind where you slide the backing into the bottom. With the napkin glued it just barely fit so I had to use all my might. :)

So there you have it! 

You could totally use this in the classroom. It would be cheap if you just used scrapbook paper or a school-themed fabric... or a printed fabric to match your classroom theme!

And as a special treat, here are my cousins and me last night during Pinterest crafting!!!

Hope your Monday was fantastic!!!

Back to School Postcards

Tonight I carried on a tradition that I started last year at this time - sending back to school postcards to my incoming class!

When I was going into third grade myself, I remember getting a postcard from my third grade teacher and thinking it was the best thing that ever happened to me. I still have it now, and I'd show it to you, but I used it last year as a template for my postcards and I have no idea where it is now!

Here is what I wrote on my postcards this year, if you're looking for some ideas. My inspiration was from Proteacher!

This was the first grade version. I altered it slightly for my second graders, all of whom I had last year in first grade. I also had a write a completely different note for one postcard because I have brothers in my class this year and I didn't want their postcards to say the same things.

My students last year LOVED these postcards. On the first day of school, they were all so excited to tell me that they got my card in the mail, and I heard throughout the year that they were still hanging onto them. :)

I bought my postcards from my teacher store, but if you're looking to save a trip to the store, Lindsey at The Teacher Wife has some she made that you can have for free!

Do you send back to school postcards?

August Currently

Yay!

All right, back to school must-haves...

1. Storage - I mentioned in my last post that I traded in my desk for a desk that's more table-y. No drawers, just a flat surface with legs. So I need to find some plastic drawers to fill up with my stuff! I think I also need to just buckle down and make the teacher toolbox that everyone has made this summer...
2. My cousins - Kelley and Lisa came to help me last year with my bulletin boards and I really do not know what I would do without them! Kelley and I picked out borders last week and I am looking forward to seeing my whole room come together with their help!!!!!
3. Lesson plan book - Obviously I need a new lesson plan book. Although the Erin Condren planners are incredibly tempting... I am moving out in 2 weeks so I am trying to save as much money as I can! Last year we were given lesson plan books by my school. I didn't like them at all so I bought a different one but this time I think I am going to just suck it up and use it... because it's free.

I went back in to school today! I made a to-do list so I wouldn't forget anything. Do you think it is long enough?

I did cross one thing off - labeling all of our consumable workbooks!

Do you use a lot of workbooks? After labeling all of them it appears that pretty much all I have is workbooks!!

My principal told me today that he is ordering two interactive whiteboards and one will be for me! I can't even tell you how ridiculously amazing this is, as I do not even have an overhead projector in my classroom! I am not holding my breath until I see it installed and plugged in, but the word on the street is that we are getting Starboards.

Does anyone out there have a Starboard?

The Before

Today was the first day we were officially allowed back in the classroom! And, ay yi yi, what a mess!

Here's what I'm working with in my roomio...

Here is a view of my wall o' bulletin boards. Also in the corner you can see that I am trading my MASSIVE GIGANTIC teacher's desk for a little desk on wheels! Can you see it? It has the apple on it!

Here is my big whiteboard that is not magnetic. I feel like I need to say that every time I talk about this whiteboard because it would be an AMAZING thing if it was magnetic...... anyway! On the sides are bulletin boards even though they are green. I promise there is cork under there.

Here is my back wall, opposite of the whiteboard wall. Huge windows, great natural light! I have two cabinet/shelving unit things that I want to get rid of somehow.... although I really desperately need storage, they take up way too much space!

And here is the last wall. A chalkboard surrounded by bulletin boards, and on each side you can see my coatroom doors. Also you can see that I actually haven't traded in my MASSIVE GIGANTIC teacher's desk. It is way too heavy for people such as myself to be moving.

Here is something I am super pumped about.... I got a big rug!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Our Kindergarten teacher retired and she had 3 big rugs in her room. Our new Kindergarten teacher is my buddy and said she didn't need all 3! Yay! This will be where we meet for whole group instruction and read alouds.

Here is my dilemma.... behind my rocking chair and easel you can see that there is part of the wall o' bulletin boards. What can I put up behind my easel that we won't need to look at all day long?? Decisions, decisions...

So there you have it! The before pictures! Hopefully the next pictures you see will be muuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuch better-looking. :)

Monday Made It: Bead Slides

It's Monday! Two more days until I can get back into school to start setting up and I am SO PUMPED! Also I'm excited because it is Monday Made It day again!

This Monday, I made bead slides to use for phonemic awareness activities!

I read about bead slides from Katie at Two Can Do It who originally read about it from Julie at Make, Take & Teach!

You use bead slides to help students learn how to segment phonemes. As you may know, phonemic awareness is important because children's level of phonemic awareness is highly correlated with their success in beginning reading! (I feel like I should put an in-text citation here, haha.) Anyway, when you're asking a student to segment phonemes, you would give them a word like "book." If they are comfortable with this skill, they would be able to tell you that the sounds in book are: b-oo-k. 3 sounds - 3 phonemes!

Bead slides just give students extra kinesthetic support so they can build this SUPER IMPORTANT skill!  They move a bead with each sound that they say.

Anyway, let me tell you how to make them. :)

You'll need...

• regular flat shoelaces. I bought 54" shoelaces from Target. They were about $2 a pack, and I was able to make 12 bead slides using one pack of shoelaces (6 on each lace).
• beads. I got mine at Hobby Lobby for about $2.50. You could actually use pony beads if you want, you just want to make sure that the holes aren't too big so there is some resistance when you move the  beads up and down the shoelace.

Then you're ready to start!

You'll want to put groups of 6 beads onto the shoelaces and tie off about 5-6" inch sections for each bead slide. Here's a picture to show you what I mean.

After you have put on your beads and tied off each section, cut in between the knots and you will have your bead slides!

If you use Michael Heggerty's phonemic awareness book, you could absolutely use these for the segmenting and blending portions of the daily routines!

Julie at Make, Take & Teach has a video about bead slides as well as extra resources to use these! :)

Bead slides are fun to play with, too, so if you don't teach phoneme segmentation, you could easily use these as fidgets in your classroom!