The 30-Day Challenge

You hear that phrase all the time!  Losing weight, building up stamina to run a race, car dealerships running a sale, etc.  I think that the biggest 30-Day Challenge is the First 30 days of school.  My lack of posting is first of all a bad habit and second of all directly related to my school year craziness. Everybody is their own kind of busy so I won’t try to compare stories or carry you through my day, but I do want to carry you through the last 30 days! 

For the most part my kids are great, actually the best class I have ever had, but the MOST challenging.  We are settled into our morning routine and reading stations are running as smoothly as one could expect in fifth grade. We are finished with Reading Street Unit One and will take our Benchmark Test this week.  Hopefully, all of the hours of pinning and creating lessons to help teach the skills and strategies will pay off. Even though I admit that part is fun for me. Envisions Common Core Math is going well. We’ve covered cells,and completed an AMSTI kit on Variables (the kids LOVE this) in Science and covered map skills and Early Americans in Social Studies.

I hope that your year is going as well as you hoped.  I finally had an original idea and I am going to be using it for our Halloween Bulletin Board.  Check back for a glyph freebie before Friday!

Hoping the next 30 days are even better!

    

 

Football Fridays and College Game Saturdays

Baby Birthdays and Births

  

Flying our Airplanes

Great way to review…I put up posters with the names of all of our skills that we need to review… the kids had to choose at least three skills and write down their schema about that skill.

  

We love Pandora playing over my speakers… our top stations are:

1. Tween Radio

2. Radio for Kids Radio {Pretty much all Disney}

3. Lady Antebellum

4. Justin Beiber

5. Pachelbel's Canon in D

6. Praise and Worship

Have a great week!

Happies

Pretty stressful 12th day~

Taught one of my sweet boys how to draw a heart.  Yes I teach 5th grade and no he didn’t know how.  This is WHY I teach…he is just precious….challenging…even VERY Challenging most days, but then I step back and think…NOBODY! not his parents, not his pre-school teacher, not is kindergarten, first, second, third, or fourth grade teacher, took the time to help him learn to draw a heart!  It literally broke my heart. I’m already in love with him and I hope that he stays in my room long enough for me to give him a chance. {please don’t critique that immensely long run-on sentence}

I NEEDED some Dt. Dr. Pepper so I made a Target run tonight.  An hour later I came home with the CUTEST tissue paper to make some poms so I can hang my table numbers, oh so cute thank you cards, eye make up remover pads (best invention ever), a birthday card, an art box for one of my kids, 3 8 packs of coke, all of which I was SUPER pleased with… and I tried to find the perfect shade of fall purple polish like in this picture

So I tried: Essie, Revlon, Loreal, Sallie Hanson, and O.P.I

Nothing even close…ugh…I came home with Loreal Paparazzi Pleaser, which ended up being super grape… not really a huge fan:

Still on the hunt for a perfect purple and a new fall lipstick!  Any suggestions?

Check back soon for some more Reading Street Resources.

<3, Laura

Make It Monday

I’m a little late on joining the Make It Monday crew, but better late than never.  Tonight I made an adorable burlap door hanger that was OF COURSE inspired by pinterest!

via Pinterest

Hers is so PROFESSIONAL…mine not so much. I will take you step by step on how I made mine.

{Step One} Grab Your Gear

You will need:

Burlap, A Ruler, Scissors, Pliers, Wire, Paint (colors of your choice), Paint Brushes, Hot Glue Gun

Optional: Rick Rack, Ribbon, Glitter

{Step Two} Cut Burlap, I cut mine 16*8

Then I made the point by splitting the side at 4 inches and cut back six inches

{Step Three} Start Painting!

           

I painted 4 inches of pink and 1inch of silver. Then I marked off the curves at the end of the pencil. Painted the middle yellow, the end brown, and the tip black.  I forgot to take a picture but the tip is 1 1/2 inches across.

{Step Four} Add Rick Rack

Completely up to you if you do this step… you could just paint the lines.

{Step Five} Multi-Task

The pinterest article suggested using a lid to make the polka dots perfect.  I found the perfect lid… NUTELLA!  It was almost gone, so I took one bite of it and threw it away and used the lid.

Fill in your polka dots, and write your name.  I REALLY hate the way I write with paint, so I wanted to use the letters from my no name sign and I was just a FEW short.

This is also the time to sprinkle the glitter on. SPARINGLY!

You don’t want your sign to look like an advertisement for Toddlers and Tiaras.

 

 

{Step Six} Stuff and Glue

I stuffed mine with target bags, because Lord knows I have tons.  After stuffing just glue up the other side and Wa-La!

{Step Seven} Twist Your Wire

Just poke the wire through the burlap and twist it with your pliers or your hands if you can.

WARNING

Your table may look like this

and your manicure like this

but don’t worry, both are fixable!

The ribbon I wanted to use was a no go!  Choose a ribbon with wire.  I will add it after a trip to Hobby Lobby tomorrow. I am going to use my sign for my back to school bulletin board.

Mrs. Ledgewood Has a Sharp Class

and the kids are going to complete these glyphs from The Glyph Girls.

Best Part? It’s FREE!

Hello CUTE Bulletin Board.

15 more days till I go back, ahhhh the TO DOs!

Skinny Fries and Our Anniversary

The title is random and not related!

So like the majority of the people out there… I wanted to start eating better and lose some weight. I was pinning on Pinterest {what else} and came across Skinnytaste.com. OmiWord Gina has great recipes!  What I especially liked was the fact that she has several recipes that Carter will like.  The first one I made was Skinny Texas Cheese Fries.  I know one would think that statement was an oxymoron, but a half a serving was 7 Point Plus value for Weight Watchers. Please visit

Gina’s Skinny Taste Skinny Texas Cheese Fries

for the complete recipe, but I will leave you with some pictures of how mine turned out.

Yum!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I used two small Yukon Gold potatoes, and reduce fat shredded cheese. They were so good!  Happy Eating.

 

On a side note Carter and I celebrated our FIRST ANNIVERSARY this week!  We went to the Opryland Hotel to stay the night!  We had an awesome view from our balcony of the Garden Concourse.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I had a little mishap with my ring!  The diamond fell out!  Good news I found it, bad news 1st anniversary with out it!

 

 

 

 

It was an absolute awesome trip!  One of the highlights was just stopping by the American Pickers, Antique Archeology store in Nashville! We literally passed it on the interstate and I said, THAT’S MIKE AND FRANK! So we exited off randomly and made our way back to the right street. They weren’t there but we saw some cool stuff and made a great memory.

          

We most certainly did NOT match on purpose! The old building was so cool.

               

What a great anniversary!  We of course are looking forward to many more!

Pinteresting Project Day

Today is rainy and dreary.  Which is great!  It has been over 100 degrees for the past three or four week. We need the rain.  I have been waiting on a rainy day to complete some projects. I gathered my supplies:

I’ve been wanting to make these flowers from Shellly Smith from The House of Smiths Blog to complete a project for my classroom.  So I pulled up her tutorial got some energy drink in me and started going!

I got my fabric swatches and buttons from JoAnn’s.  If you aren’t already aware they offer a 15% discount for teachers!  Awesome! 

          

My classroom colors are red, black, and turquoise so the first pack was for my room. The second pack is for a project for some pictures we are going to take.

{Quick Tip} I found it so much easier to cut my fabric in to squares after I ironed them.  They are neatly folded with a piece of cardboard to keep them perfectly square…. just heat up that iron and press those wrinkles out.

Next, watch Shelly’s Tutorial, I am not going to give one because a. not my idea and b. she already did it so just head over there and read it real quick if you wanna make the flowers. 

{Quick Tip} I folded my circles like a taco, then in half, and the folded the corners back.  I couldn’t ever figure out how to just fold the corners back.

BEWARE: Your fingers will get burned with the hot glue gun! Thank you BirchBox for saving my table.

After cut, glue, repeat about 100x these were my finished products:

 

I’m sure they are perfect but I think that they are super cute. I wanted to add them to my project I was making for school. 

                A Birthday Board

Something to remind me that Yes!  Even 5th graders like to celebrate their birthdays! and I did a TERRIBLE job last year with this, so what better than a Cute project to remind me.

Pinspiration:

She has her board with wire and then she laminated cute cut outs with each month and then writes the kids names on them.  Well I just think that is a fantastic idea. So I was roaming around Hobby Lobby getting my creative juices flowing and I came across this embroidery hoop. Bazinga! I picked up some twine that was on sale, some cute tags, and some mini clothes pins to complete the project.

I spray painted the hoop turquoise and then added the twine to the inner hoop only: 

 

 

 

 

Then I secured the outter hoop on the inner hoop and added my flowers:

The two big ones fit on the wood and the little one I hot glued two felt circles to the twine. I added the cards and the mini clips and with write the kids birthdays on them when I get my list.

YAY for a complete project!  I will also to the balloons on the long pixie sticks… click on the picture for the link to the balloons.

Project #2 Pinsipration

I got a blank wooden board at Hobby Lobby and painted it turquoise. Then I got red polka dotted ribbon and hot glued one edge behind the wood so it would wrap around the end…like so:

then hot glue the other end:

 

 

 

It should be tight against the front of the board so pull tight.

I seriously need a Craft Room!

Next I added some precut letters and already black clothes pins to complete my no name sign!

Again not perfect but cute!

Come back soon for the other flower project reveal and some awesome recipes from Skinnytaste.com.

Laura