Cool Stuff

I thought with all the sharing I've done about my Hobby Lobby purchases, I would share with you some other things I've found lately.

5 Drawer Organizer on Wheels - $25.00 at Big Lots. 

I'm going to cute-ify it and use it for my centers/group work.  More pictures when I'm done with it coming soon.

Isn't this a great bin???  It was $9.99 at Target.  I was hoping to wait until it was on sale, but I waited 3 weeks and it hasn't yet....so I bought it anyway!  I'll show you the finished product soon...idea is in my head, not completed yet!

 

Aren't these cute?  They are birthday chair covers that I will put on a birthday kiddo for them to use all day long!  Only $1.00 each at Dollar Tree.  I know I could make them, but for $2.00 they are done and off my list!

 

Okay, that's it for now!  I gotta stop shopping and starting creating/finishing!  :)

Hobby Lobby Before Pictures - Day 2

Welcome to Day 2 of my Hobby Lobby shopping spree.  If you missed out on yesterday's pictures, make sure you head back to see all the good stuff I got.

Here are today's pictures:

Isn't this super cute?  I'm going to paint the blue area, because it is a little to distressed for my liking.

 

These are so happy (and they were on sale, which made me so happy).  I need to touch up the flower faces a little bit because they got scratched up.  I also think they need some smiling faces on them, don't you?

 

Dry Erase Canvas...really????  I can't wait to try this.  And look how cute the design is (on sale too)!

Chalkboard Side

Dry Erase Side

Side View

Isn't this super cute?  I'm going to add some accents to the dry erase side. 

Wait until you see what I have planned!

 

 

Well, that's it for Day 2.  I hope you check back soon to see what I do with everything!  :)

 



Hobby Lobby - Before Pictures Day 1

I FINALLY made it to Hobby Lobby.  I read about all the great stuff you all get from there, but I have a Michael's so much closer to my house.  It's just easier to go to Michaels.  Well, not for the summer!

I was watching my nephew (who lives about 45 minutes away from us in Indiana) the other day and we decided to go the World's Best Gummy Bear Factory, Albanese.  Have you ever been there?  It is in Merrillville, Indiana. They show you how they make candy (well it's a video presentation, but you get to look into windows that show the actual working factory).  It is so much fun watching gummy candies being made and then the giant robots filling the boxes. And I have to say that yes, their gummy bears are the BEST!!!!  Click on the picture and it will take you to their site.

Anyway, I wasn't blogging about that.... on to what I was talking about.  Hobby Lobby.  On the way back to the expressway, I saw a Hobby Lobby sign.  My nephew, son and mother were all fed (we stopped at McDonalds, of course) I decided for a little Mommy stop.

Boy, I don't know if that was a good idea!  I spent way too much money!  But it was so much fun!  I wanted to show you some things I bought that I'm going to cute-ify.  I'll share these now and then I'll show you the after pictures once I finish them all (just give me a little time to finish everything, okay)!

 

 

 

Sorry, I couldn't get this to rotate.  Ugg!  But here is a banner that I'm going to put my name on and leave up all year long.  I'm going to hang it behind my teacher's area.

 

Here are the scrapbook sheets I bought to make the banner.  I know, I make banners to sell at TPT, but I wanted to incorporate chevron into my polka dots so it's easier to match the paper.  And if you know me, you know it all has to match!

  

I have some nice glittery READ letters I used last year, but I need to change them.  Why?  a)  the colors don't match my room colors, b) they kept falling off the wall, and c) because I want to cover these with lots of colors (so when I change my room colors-AGAIN-they will blend in and I won't have to change them out).

Yes, you saw this right, $2.40!  Yes, Bargain!!!

 

This is what was $2.40.  I'm going to paint it and reattach the clips. 

Stay tuned to see the results!

 

Uggg...I can't get this to turn either!  Anyways, this I bought on sale.  I've decided that I want some fun little girly things in my room.  I don't know about you, but it was a revelation this summer...I AM a girl!  I try to keep things neutral for all my students, but I've decided to add some accents in and around my teacher area just for me.  And this was super cute!

I'll share the next bunch of things I bought from Hobby Lobby next time (yes, there is more)!

Reward Prizes Anyone

I originally saw this idea on Pinterest.  It was created by Mr. Hughes.  Click here or the picture to read about it.

For those of you who follow my blog, you know that my school is a PBIS school.  The students earn marbles for following our school wide expectations throughout the school.  They can earn them in any special class, in the hallway, or in our classroom. 


Last year I made this marble jar. 

You can read about my marble jar reward system here.  It worked really well, but I thought it would be fun to change things up a little.  So.....I made this:

Font used was Hello Bubbles from

Super simple, I know, but I wanted my students to color each bubble when they choose which one to go for.  Also, I picked this font because it looked more like marbles, which is what my school uses. 

I will cut these out and put them on my cabinet at school so the entire class can see it.  I thought I would do both of these ideas by alternating them each time my class earns a marble reward.  This way I will mix it up to keep things exciting and new each time.

If you would like these super simple prize sheets, click on the picture above and it will take you there!  You could leave me a little comment to tell me you downloaded them, if you wanted to of course....  Enjoy your prize (heehee-couldn't help myself there)!  :)

Totally Random

This is going to be a totally random post (just like the title said), but I wanted to share something with you all.  I was going through the mess of the century my office and I found this special thing my dad made for me last year.  So I wanted to share it with you all.

Last summer, my son wanted to change his room over.  When his room was a nursery, we decorated in sailboats.  It was super cute.  We have been adding "older kid stuff" type things to his room each year, but this was the big time....his sailboat border was coming down. 

I cannot tell you how hard that was, not physically, but mentally.  It was the end of my little baby's room....

Sailboats gone, Mario and Luigi were in.  He loved it, but I was kinda bummed.  My dad knew who emotionally I was (how do dad's know that?), so he surprised me with a little something. 

He asked to see a piece of the border.  I had a little bit of the original roll left over, so I gave him a hunk of it.  Not thinking about it of course...

This is what he made for me.

He took a complete section of the border and made me a frame to put it in.  Yes, made the frame.  He wanted it to match the color wood I have all over my house.  Isn't it the best???  Once I do a Office Makeover, it will be hanging on the wall.

I just had to share it since I found it in that sinkhole office of mine.

Expectation Posters

Okay, so I have a million things to do and I sit here thinking about how I want to cute-ify my expectation posters (and yes, I believe cute-ify is a word, isn't it???).  I usually do everything to match my current theme, but since I'm doing crazy fruit as my theme, I didn't think that would be a good idea for my school wide expectations!

Here are what my new ones look like:

Wonderful clip art from Melonheadz (Kidletts set and her new awesome set called BFFs, font from DJ Inkers,

and background from Jessica Weible Illustration's Baby Bumble Set.

What do you think?  I think they turned out super cute and I know my kiddos will love all the kiddos on the posters.

Banana Split Fact Families

I saw this really cute idea on Pinterest about using banana splits for fact families.  Of course now that I'm blogging about it I can't find it.  If this is your idea, please let me know....I'm sorry I can't find it.


When I finished up my fractions unit in math, I was heading to division.  So I started thinking....I really need a way to tie in multiplication and division to make my students realize how they are related.  Now of course I could just do regular old fact families, but that wouldn't be any fun.  My class is really into ice cream, so I thought...wouldn't it be cute to make a banana split using multiplication and division fact families???

Here is what I came up with:

My students LOVED it.  I had them work with a partner to come up with a complete fact family.  After showing it to me (to make sure it was correct) they then had to go find another group that was done so that they could quiz them.  They had so much fun!  After the lesson, I put them in a math center.  They were so excited to continue making banana splits!  They figured out the relationship with multiplication and division and all it took was a little ice cream!

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Quick Question

A super quick one today.  Happy Father's Day to all "DADS" out there! 

 

This is one of my favorites with my dad and my son!  He is the best Grampa ever!

It's even Happy Anniversary to me today.  I have been married 13 years!  AHHHHH...no I mean Yeah!  :)

Here is a picture of my husband, me, and my son at the White Sox game.  Sorry no wedding picture, didn't have time to scan one.

Speaking of Anniversaries - I have a quick question for you all.  I have my Blog Anniversary coming soon (I can't believe it) and I was wondering....what do you think I should do for a giveaway?  I know I love getting freebies, but I also like getting gift cards.  If you could, can you leave me a comment as to what you think I should offer???  I want it to be good since I am so grateful to all of you for following this crazy little blog!  Thank you so much for your input!

I Won the Giveaway Lottery

I won a fantastic giveaway!  I won Jessica from Second Grade Nest's One Year Blog Anniversary!  I am getting something from each of these wonderful bloggers.  Yeah!!! 

 

I don't know about you guys, but whenever I win something it feels like I won the lottery!  :)

 

 

Thank you so much Jessica and all the wonderful bloggers who participated!!!! 

I'm a Friday Freebie Guest Blogger!

Hi Everyone!  I'm super excited....I'm Tonya's Friday Freebie blogger this week!!   Click on her picture, pop over to her blog, and get my freebie!

Tonya was one of my first bloggy friends when I started out, so I'm super honored that I was able to be one of her guest bloggers! 

End of the Year Gifts

I realized that I never shared my end of the year gifts for my kiddos with you.  So here goes-

 

Here is the bag with an adorable poem on the outside. 

I saw the poem on Pinterest but retyped it on to a cute cut out I got from Painting Fairy on Etsy (and I was able to type their names on it to make it more personal).  I used an adhesive machine to add sticky on the entire back so it would stick on to the bag.

 

Here is a picture of the cups.  I needed 20 and all our Dollar stores out here were sold out.  So what did I do????  I ordered for the first time on www.DollarTree.com. It was so easy.  I just ordered and went to the store to pick them up.  No shipping costs!  YEAH!!

 

 

Here is a close up of the cups.  I made the cute sign with www.scrappindoodles.com graphics.  I put a packet of Kool-Aid in the cup and that is why the sign says "Have a KOOL Summer!"  I punched a hole in the corner and attached it with curling ribbon.  My son had a ball helping with all of this!

 

 

Here is a close up.  I added a chapter book for them to keep them reading this summer.  They were so thrilled to find them on their desks.  There were a lot of Oohs and ahs while they were reading everything.

And that is what I gave my kiddos for the end of the year.  I can't believe I've been off for a week already!  It is going way too fast!!!