Monday Make It: Picture Tiles

Oh, how I love being crafty! I have as much crafting and arts supplies as I do teaching and cleaning supplies (I have a major cleaning disorder! My boys always ask me why it's cleaning day every day. That's just how I roll, kids!). So today I want to share with you a great and easy way to display your photos. They make great gifts, too. I've used them as coasters to give on Mother's Day or as table favors for a wedding or even for birthday parties to show special events in that person's life. 

The Modge Podge you use depends on you! Here I used the Glossy Finish. It has a really nice finish; some of you might like the matte finish. The size of tiles also depends on you. Like I mentioned, I used the plain white bathroom tile. A little tip, I wiped the tile off and let it dry before I started gluing my picture down. The tiles can be dusty. 

If it is a large group picture (meaning there are people almost to the edge of your photo), I would probably not use that photo unless you have a larger tile. 

I always like to display them with "plate holders" is the best way to describe them. I found mine at Hobby Lobby. They are super cheap. There is also a larger holder that can hold several "plates" or in this case tiles at a time. Just look around around and see what they have if this interests you. 

     

It really does make a beautiful display and family and friends always love it! 

It's a great summer project! I plan on making a few more for display. Speaking of summer, I'm helping a sweet fellow blogger with a Summer Giveaway! Meredith from Sunshine, Sand and Scissors 

is hosting a summer giveaway! And she got a fabulous makeover, too! It's perfect for her since she lives in FL, too! I hope you will join us as we are Flippin' for Summer Fun!

You can enter to win some great resources! Enter the Rafflecopter below:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The contest will run until Monday, July 6th! Good Luck! 

Florida Blog Hop: Back to School Edition!

Hey everyone!! Welcome back!! I am so excited to be back with these fabulous bloggers to share some exciting tips and resources with you to help you get ready for back to school or if you are already back to school to help you in your planning. 

I am the

 Please stay along with us through every hop! There is something special for you at the end!! 

Today I am going to talk briefly about building number sense in your classroom. As you know, number sense is essential for building those foundations for addition, subtraction, multiplication, division. We practice it extensively, like you do, in our calendar time through skip counting, 10 more/less, 1 more/less, counting the days, place value with hundreds/tens/ones, everything so that they know numbers forwards and backwards. 

Do you do math centers in your classroom? We have math centers incorporated into our math block to help build and foster these concepts for our students. It is great for working those trickier concepts with a smaller group than whole group.

I wanted to share a paid product with you that I created for number sense.

click on the picture to grab it! 

There are 6 Centers dedicated to helping your students master Numbers Sense to 120-- One race at a time! 

Number word cards (for display at centers)

120 charts (with color saver version)

Pit Crew Place Value Game

Ready, Set, Count

Winner’s Circle- I have, Who has

Build a Dream Race Car

Quad Races: 10 more/less, 1 more/less (with color saver version)

Race and Roll (+1, +2, -1, -2)

There are 6 Centers dedicated to helping your students master Numbers Sense to 120-- Once race at a time! There are games and activities built for independent, pair, and group settings.

As a little preview of my pack, I have a FREEBIE set that goes along with it. Please click on the picture to download it! 

I hope that you have enjoyed hopping along with us! 

Now here is the other fun part! Have you been grabbing the clues (If you need a reminder of what to do with each clue, click here! ) through our hop?? Be sure to join us on Instagram! 

Don't forget by linking up and getting all the clues, you can win these prizes!!

Here is your CLUE!!!

Don't forget to write down the letter from each of your hop stops! :)
Solve the mystery word and post a selfie on instagram with your answer!
Don't forget to add

#OrangeHop2014!

That way we can find you for the drawing! :)

Now onto the next stop, sweet Kimberly from The Learning Tree! You all will adore her! She is so FUN and CREATIVE!! 

If you want start from the beginning, please click on the "First Stop" below :

Going Batty for Halloween!

I hope that our banner speaks volumes for my love of Halloween! It really is an obsession! If only I was at school now to take some pictures of my Halloween book collection and all my files that I do for Halloween! And now that I am a mother, my boys share in my love of Halloween! 

This past week, we worked out of my

(click on the pic to take you to my store!)

The kids had a blast with it! They (I wish I took their pictures but some were not from my homeroom class so I couldn't post their pictures) learned so many facts about bats! And the headbands were just oh-so-cute! Here is my little man modeling the headband!

Check out these facts! 

And guess who else has an AMAZING BATS pack?? My sweet friend, Tamara from

Has she got a bat pack for you!! 

Click on the pic to take you to her store!

It is so new, I haven't even begun to dig into the fabulous content that Tamara has packed in there! I really love her fluency practice pages as we know that firsties need that fluency benchmark of 60 WPM (at least in my district) and this is a great center to help practice that! She also has great literacy links for bats and great writing ideas, vocabulary builders, an emergent reader-- oh my!!! . She is just an all around fabulous creator! LOVE her!! Well, we have teamed up to offer you some amazing products! Check out our Batty for Halloween Giveaway!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

So many chances to win!!! SO many fun and great prizes to help you with this fun month of learning! Good luck!!

Classroom Reveal, a Sale, a freebie, and the Winner Is....

This has been a VERY busy week! My first week back with pre-planning and I am totally exhausted! In fact, I was so tired yesterday I just hurt all over. I pretty much slept all day today and left my house to encounter the bedlam that is back to school shopping at Target at 6:00 p.m. this evening. I attempted Publix but decided to leave that bit of fun for tomorrow! Yay for me!! Haha! 

So all summer, I have been going on and on about my Wizard of Oz room and here are some pictures of my room. So excited!!

Each of my tables are labeled with a hot air balloon and are named after each of the characters. Sorry... there is no Flying Monkey table! LOL!

My reading corner and cute (albeit ghetto sign because I ran out of time) sign for my door. 

Classroom Jobs-- Still needs a sign but posted up at least! 

Wow! Sorry it's blurry!!! My classroom view from the doorway. 

Advice to a Future First Grader! I had my kids from last year write some words of wisdom and I displayed them in my hallway just for meet the teacher! I wasn't sure if this was a good idea because they wrote things like "First Grade Math is tricky!" or "You work hard in first grade" and all of that is true. I didn't want to scare them but it'd the truth. You know kinda like in college-- you asked around about classes and 

professors! 

This cute guy pointed the way to my classroom for Meet the Teacher! I actually did a bit of trash picking but it was in good condition! I never trash pick but I was desperate and low on funds! Plus I was driving by and saw it and knew it was meant to be!!! 

The Yellow Brick Road that lead up to my classroom!!! 

Love this picture angle! My hallway portion and the field of poppies! I hung up some cock board with sticker chalkboard frames with their names on them. I cannot wait to display their "Wonderous Work!" 

I am also excited this year to be working with some new team members! I can honestly say that I love my team! I cannot imagine working with a better team and we work so well together. One of my longtime teammates left to work as a teacher-on-assignment for our county and I will miss her greatly but I know it time for her to move on. I am not sure I could do that. I wish her the best! Here is a picture of my new team: 

These lovely ladies are just fabulous and I am excited to be in such good company!

Speaking of good companies... I am excited for the Teachers pay Teachers back to school sale! 

Take a look at your wishlists or if you haven't yet.. start placing items in your wishlist cart now! The savings and prizes (your new teaching packs) will be amazing!!!! My wishlist is out of control! I think I am at like 97 items! Not sure I can afford all 97 items but I know I will spending some money tonight. And if you have provided feedback on all your items on TPT you can use your credits to purchase some of your items at the discounted price! Even better!!!! I am all about saving money but the grocery store savings thing still baffles me! 

Another store that I love is 

If you noticed in my previous post I bought this dress

and I wore it Friday and everyone LOVED it!!! SO thanks!!!

And now for the WINNER of the Glam Back to School Giveaway!:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Congrats Sara!! I will e-mail you and get with you so you can pick out your 3 items from my store!!!

And now, since you have been so patient with me in reading my post, a little freebie for you to go along with the big TPT sale going on:

Click on the picture to take you to my store to download! 

Remember the sale is going on August 18-19! Stock up now for Back to School!