Monday, July 1, 2013

Monday Made It!


I'm linking up again with 4th Grade Frolics for Monday Made It! I love this link up each week (even though I am super FAIL at doing my home made its...I think it's because I'm in super freak out mode over how much I still need to do for school)... I always get  so many great ideas from everyone who joins in, so make sure you check out the other blog posts!

Made It #1: Bathroom Passes:



So remember the Shh We're Testing door hangar I made last week? When I bought the door hangar to make it, I bought a bunch of them at once, especially since they only cost 0.79 each! This week I took two of them and used them to make my bathroom passes for my kiddos just by adding a little paint, some wood letters, and some rick rack (I LOVE rick rack...it's such an easy way to add a little cutsie-ness to a craft...plus I've used it in several of my projects for my classroom). Now, I'll be teaching 4th graders and my room is literally no more than 20 feet from the bathrooms, but I still want them to use the passes. I really don't like having a bunch of kids out of the room all at once, so my policy is only 1 boy and 1 girl out to the bathrooms at a time. (This policy comes from the experience of learning the hard way that 3 boys out to the bathroom at once results in wet wads of TP getting thrown all over the bathroom and hallways) The passes will be hanging on the wall near the door, so my students will know to check the passes first before asking about using the bathroom, because if the pass isn't on the wall, they'll know my answer will be no. Now, I plan on eventually making a second set of the passes for the bathroom since I know before the end of the year these will inevitably break or "grow legs and disappear". But for now, the one set will do just fine since my To Do list is still several feet long.


Made It #2: The Tweet Box

This idea came out of my classroom theme. I'm using the Carson Dellosa "Boho Birds" for my class theme this year. I also wanted to have something for the kids each week to tie into character education, and one of the bulletin board sets came with a resource guide that had this in it:
And that's when it it me! Tweets! I came up with the idea that the kids could use these little sheets as a way to compliment/say something nice about their classmates. I plan on focusing on different traits each month (friendship, honesty, respect, kindness, etc) and the kids can use the tweets as a way to point out when they see their fellow classmates following the traits, or if they want to give a general compliment as well. The class I student taught with did something similar to this with their character education program and it was amazing. The kids in the class all got along really well and there were hardly ever any fights or issues among them (granted there were still kids who would act up from time to time, but there was practically ZERO bullying/teasing in that class). 

So now that I had my Tweets the kids were going to write, I needed someplace they could put them. That's where my trip to Hobby Lobby came in handy. I was walking in the aisle with all the wood stuff (the aisle where I found my handy dandy multi-use door hangars), and saw unfinished wood tissue boxes. I thought that one of them would be perfect cause the kids could drop the Tweets in there and the bottom slides out so I can open the box each week and read the tweets that are in there. 

I plan on doing a Tweet read with my kids each Friday. I think it would be a nice way to wrap up each week  for the kids, and after the Tweets are read, I have a folder I plan on storing them in so I can use them as part of an end of the year gift for the kids... I plan on putting little memory books together for each kid and in it I'll include all the tweets from the year that their classmates wrote about them. 

So as for how I made the box... it was basically the same as the bathroom passes...some paint, wood letters/shapes, and of course... some rick rack for an extra fun little accent. 

So I hope you all enjoy my made its. I'm off to go check out the other Made Its everyone else posted about!



6 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. Thanks! I saw the blackline master in that little resource booklet that came with my bulletin board set and I knew I just had to use it for something. Once I actually start doing the Tweet reads with my kids I'll blog about how the kids like it.

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  2. I love your tweet box and tweet writing. I use the "Have You Filled A Bucket?" system but I think I could incorporate your tweeting idea. Especially since the kiddos are so into technology! Thanks for sharing=)
    Lisa
    tgif-thirdgradeisfun.blogspot.com

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    1. You know believe it or not, I'm not familiar with the Have You Filled a Bucket system. I've heard about it and seen it on a bunch of blogs/pins, but I've never seen it in use before. I'd love to know more about it though. I'm glad you liked the tweet box! Thanks for commenting. :-D

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  3. Great ideas! I like your decorations. I may try that myself...I'm looking for a new theme this year.

    Jennifer
    Mrs. Laffin's Laughings

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    1. Thanks! I had the hardest time picking out a theme. I felt like everything I fell in love with was too kiddish for 4th graders. For a while I was thinking of just picking a theme based around two or three colors. Then I found the Boho Birds and I fell in love with them, plus they are perfect because the classroom I will be in has no windows so I need bright fun colors in my room. I'll be posting pics of my room during/after set up in August. Good luck in finding a new theme for your room!

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