Monday Made It {Magnet Board, Frames & Planning Ideas}

     I am finally starting my list of things I want to make for my classroom so I am linking up today to Monday Made It with 4th Grade Frolics. My first little project was a magnet board to hang in my room. The white boards in my classroom aren't magnetic so I was excited to find this idea on Pinterest.

This is just a pizza pan from the dollar tree covered with scrapbook paper and duck tape around the edges.  I then had my dad drill me two holes in the top so I could put ribbon through it and hang it up!


    The next thing I did was simply paint some wooden frames with purple glitter paint.  These frames were on sale at Michael's for .79! They are light even that I will be able to tack them on my bulletin board and put book recommendations from my students in them.  The picture below is an idea of how the bulletin board will look when it's being used. I'm also going to have students actually write out why they recommend those books.  It will be like an extra credit bulletin board and each week three new students will get to hang up their book recommendations.

     I'm also starting to create my own lesson plan book.  One of the first pages on the inside will be a page I created based on the book Teach Like a Pirate.  It is just a sheet that gives me ideas for activities I can use in each lesson to help my students become more engaged.  I don't mind sharing this document, however it didn't show up as pretty when I imported into Google Drive.  If you would like to take a look anyway, you can find it here.   This will really help me as I start to Plan like a Pirate.  If you are getting a head start to lesson plans for next year, link up with me below.

       Also, don't forget to go visit 4th Grade Frolics to find out what everyone else is making!

Monday Made it & played it + What I'm Reading!

   For today's Monday Made it link up I'm going to share what kind of things I've been playing with my nephew to keep him occupied during the summer.  My sister doesn't like pictures of her kids on the internet so excuse the lack of faces in the pictures.  My nephew will be in first grade next year so I try to play educational games with him.

     The first thing we did today was collect flowers and make our own hopscotch game.  To involve learning I had him count me out how many flowers each square in the game needed.

     The second thing we did was paint rocks.  We talked about what colors mix together to make other colors.  He loves to paint so this was a real hit.  Once they dry we will probably play some kind of pretend game with our new pet rocks.

     The most fun we had today was creating our own store.  He love anything pretend and I was able to get him learn a lot without him even knowing!  We first sorted books by category and then I had him label what row each category of books were on.  This helped him practicing writing numbers.  I then acted like I was a customer and asked him to suggest certain books for me.  When I was ready to pay I had him write me out a receipt showing the amount I owed.  We then switched roles and he was customer.  He had to count out coins to correctly give me for the books he was buying.

   


 Coming up with so many different games everyday can be be fun, but exhausting at the same time. Anyone else have suggestions for fun summer kids games? Make sure to link up with 4th Grade Frolics.

I also wanted to share what I was reading for the What are you Reading Monday linkup.  I'm currently reading an awesome professional development book called Teach like a Pirate by Dave Burgess.  I'm sure many of you have heard of it but if you haven't read it yet then it is a must this summer! I'm learning a completely different way to think about teaching.  It is a very inspiring book.  

I'm also reading Strategies for Teaching Learners with Special Needs, which is a textbook I read in college.  I'm going back over it to remember strategies to use when teaching in an inclusion classroom.  If anyone has any other suggestions for teaching students with learning disabilities I would greatly appreciate it!

Finally, don't forget that Google Reader shuts down today! Follow me on bloglovin to stay updated.