Monday Made It!

Every now and then I get in the crafty spirit, especially during Back to School season! This year is a lot different for me however, as I am 36 weeks pregnant and about to POP! I won't be headed into the classroom this year, but I am still itching to create, create, create! So, I made a little wall art for my son's nursery that I plan on making in the future for my classroom when I return and I just HAD to share! It's time for a Monday Made It!

And keep scrolling for a MARKDOWN MONDAY perfect for Back to School! :)

For this first one, I found some "Pinspiration," of course. This has been pinned on my Pinterest for ages and I finally got the supplies and went to work! This image is from the blog Catch My Party and they have a lot of crafty ideas.

I chose the colors of my baby boy's room and snagged some cardboard letters from Hobby Lobby on sale! Love it when that happens...

In her tutorial, she used Mod Podge, but I found that the hot glue gun was a lot easier and stuck a lot better, so I wound up using it the most. I wrapped the yarn vertically in areas that have a top and then made sure that the majority of the visible yarn was the same direction on each letter.

That "S" was no joke, people. This was after working on it for a while. It took a long time for me to find my rhythm, but once I did, I was whippin' on through that first "A." I got a lot of Netflix watching in during this project. ;) Added perk to crafting, if you ask me!

Finally finished the wrapping and then started hot gluing some dinosaurs to the letters! (Had to move to the coffee table because we needed the kitchen counter lol). I, of course, ran out of hot glue as I was adding those cute dinos... So those letters sat there for like a week until I finally went out for glue sticks.

And VOILA! I am totally loving it. It isn't on the wall yet, as we just finished our baby shower the other day. Once I get that nursery up and running, I'll share a picture of it above his crib on my Instagram! Make sure to follow HERE!

Speaking of baby shower, my mom totally made me CRY! She made the sweetest gift for my baby boy and even though I didn't make this one, I have to share. It is beautiful and completely, 100%, hand stitched.

Everything on the blanket has meaning to us. Our furbabies (Daisy and Pudgy) on on the top right. There's a policeman hat and nurse symbol for my husband's parents. There's a piano and a trumpet for my mom and stepdad. There's a penguin for me (my favorite!) and a Superman symbol for my husband. There's an Italian flag and a Native American dreamcatcher for my heritage. It's so wonderful and I can't express how much I LOVE IT!

Even though I am not returning to the classroom for this quickly approaching school year, I am doing some updating in my TpT shop and stumbled across my old Pirate theme classroom from two years ago. I thought I'd share the images because they are still SUPER adorable! Right now, for TODAY ONLY, the Table Numbers below are on sale for just $1.

My pirate ship desk! That was SUCH fun. The wrap around was created with 2 tri-fold Science Fair display boards. The wood look was created with wood grain contact paper from the dollar store. The red is duct tape, and the port holes are made of polka dot paper plates with blue construction paper. The flag is a matching plastic table cloth attached the a pool noodle (also wrapped in the wood contact paper).

This was our reading corner! The sail is a plastic table cloth attached to a pool noodle (wrapped in the wood contact paper). This stayed up all year, too. I was shocked it made it through the whirlwind of Kindergarten...

Found these frames from IKEA! This is an updated product in my store as well. Click the image to see more.

My paper plate word wall!

And last but not least, my construction paper X. I was in a portable that school year, which meant I could staple into the walls! Made decorating a heck of a lot easier, folks.

Five for Friday: July 8th!

What's this?! Am I doing a Five for Friday?? I absolutely love this linky hosted by Doodle Bugs Teaching, but every time a Friday rolls around I lose my mind and forget to post! Not this time, Friday! I got this!

Still pregnant. And melting. I live in Florida, by the way. Check out this weather forecast...

Yep.

But also look at this adorable Daisy shirt I got! Perfect for being pregnant. It's so soft and thin. And any time I see anything related to daisies, I have to have it!

Woah. #pregnant #34weekspregnant #babyboy #babybrutall

A photo posted by Amanda Smith - Daisy Designs (@daisydesignstpt) on Jun 30, 2016 at 1:14pm PDT

If you click the image above, you'll head to my Instagram page (my favorite social media site EVER!). Lots of images and updates on products, but also just real life stuff. :)

I have been having loads of fun with my best friend's 3 year old, Liam, this summer. He is spending some time with me while his mom finishes up her internship for her Master's program. If you haven't checked out the two posts I have up called "Learning with Liam," click any of the pictures below to go check them out! The activities we are doing are super fun and easy (I'm a giant pregnant whale. It's gotta be easy...)

I've been working on some products for my store and am pleased to announce the newest addition to the Reading Wonders series! SECOND GRADE! Unit 1 is available now and the growing bundle is really inexpensive at the moment and will increase in price as more units are added.

Click to go there now.

Click to go there now.

Are you getting ready for next year? I'm not returning to work this year to be a stay at home mom (just one year! I'll be back!), but I have to say when packing up my classroom, this storage solution was great and easy to move. I have a blog post all about it, so click the image below to see more photos. There's also a FREEBIE available for getting you started.

Click to download!

One of my favorite times of the year is back to school and I won't be there to experience it this year. :( It is CERTAINLY for a good reason. Baby boy is due August 13th and the first day of school in my district is August 10th. I've made the tough decision to stay home for one year and go back in August of 2017. I adore my job, but I know this is the best decision for us.

My favorite thing to do is set up a classroom, though! I like to change things up every year as it makes things more exciting and fun for me and the kiddos. It also makes each year feel fresh and new and gives me great specific memories of students that I won't have with other groups. If you're looking for some classroom setup ideas, take a look at the pictures below! You can also click the My Classroom tab at the top of the page to see more.

All these pictures are from last year. The year before I was in a portable and I had a pirate theme! All the old images are in the My Classroom tab at the top of the page. Enjoy! And enjoy setting up your classrooms, teachers. I'll be enjoying my new bundle of joy in about 5 weeks! EEK!

Clever Task Card/Center Storage

Almost 2 years ago, I had a life-changing discovery. Let me start from the beginning.


My sister-in-law gave me this tall DVD shelf. The image below is from my first classroom. I taped some colored paper on the back and decorated it, but really... it couldn't hold much. Looked cute, but other than holding little things like dice and crayons, it was large and in the way. That year I was in a teeny tiny portable and space was a huge deal, so I almost got rid of it...

Then... I had a thought. What fits on DVD shelves? Hm.... DVDs! I had a bunch of empty DVD cases that were literally collecting dust in my house, so I snagged them and went on brainstorming. I had lots of Ziploc baggies of task cards and center games that could definitely fit, so I whipped together some cute covers to trim and slide in the DVD case's front sleeve. The result was the CUTEST center storage that fit perfectly on my shelf. 

This is a sweet dinosaur counting center for my precious kinders my first year teaching. I jazzed up the back of it with pictures of what the students will need in addition to the game. Not all centers need something, but most had recording pages so having a picture of that is always handy for the little ones. They went to the drawers, grabbed a sheet, and gathered their supplies from the "center shelf." No questions asked and no confusion! My students actually started calling them "Movie Games" because they recognized the cases as movie cases. Love it!

Fast forward another year and I redecorated the shelf:

I had been moved to second grade when this picture was taken, so my "Movie Games" were not well stocked up at this point as the ones I had made the previous year were for Kindergarten. You can see that the shelf holds tiny things, so it was a good place to store some of the materials needs for the centers that students could look on the back of their center case and locate. I changed the background of the shelf as well to go with the new classroom I got that year. That's just wrapping paper back there, people. So cute and cheap!

If you are looking to change up your center storage, download the FREEBIE below! It is an editable file that allows you to decorate any DVD case to go with the specific center or set of task cards you want to store. The size will print perfectly to fit a standard size DVD case. (Click the image to download).

If you're looking for a deal on DVD cases, Amazon sells a pack of 50 (that's right, FIVE-OH) for only $18.99. It's the least expensive storage method I have found so far besides Ziploc baggies that never seem to stay closed and that rip all the time. Here's what I ordered (click the picture to go there):

If you use this method, send me a picture! I'd love to feature it on my blog in the future!

Learning with Liam: Let's COUNT!

If you are just joining in Learning with Liam, Liam is my best friend's 3-year-old and I'm doing some babysitting this summer while she finishes up her internship for her Master's degree. It has been a blast so far! Check out last week's post HERE.

Little Liam proved this time that he likes to count! I had noticed before while playing together on the computer that he was very good at recognizing numbers, so I printed out some centers from a product in my TpT store. It's geared towards PreK and Kindergarten and while Liam isn't ready for the skip counting center, he did the counting games with ease! I was impressed! Take a look.

We were playing "Counting Sheep" and he wanted to line them all up nicely on their hill, he said. We weren't counting any specific number here. I let him explore them and play a bit to get used to the little pieces before we dove right in. 

This time, we grabbed a counting card. It said to count 2 sheep! And he did great!

Then we played with the numbered sheep and he put them in order. He could do it without assistance through number 5. After that, prompting was needed to help him find the next number. I was amazed at how well he did here considering he is only 3 years old!

This is one of the number puzzles I have. Since he had just proved to me that he could put his numbers in order with the numbered sheep, I printed this one out, too. He really liked seeing the picture completed at the end.

So proud of himself! Way to go little buddy!

We painted a bit like last week as well, but I forgot to take pictures! Bad blogger! We painted another mask that I grabbed for 75 cents at Joanne's. This time it was a crab mask! 

If you are looking for some counting games for your little nugget or your class of little nuggets, this pack is called "Counting Sheep." You can check out more of its contents by clicking on the image below!

Keep checking back for more Learning with Liam posts! Or follow me on Facebook to get updates on each new post. It is always awesome to spend these summer days learning and having fun. I think next time we'll go to the library!

#2forTuesday and the Markdown Monday WINNER!

It's an awesome summer for stocking up, people! Yesterday was so fun and crazy with all the $1 deals! I know I stocked up for sure. Today is Tuesday and you know what that means! $2FORTUESDAY!

Sellers all over are putting their products HALF OFF today! This week I have my Sight Word Cut and Paste Packs... 2 for the price of 1! Click the images below to head there now!

And now, the winner of yesterday's Markdown Monday! Yesterday was a double whammy! We have Markdown Monday hosted by Kelly and Kim's Kindergarten Kreations and #MondayMadness. I marked 3 products down for yesterday only to $1 and decided that the most popular product would stay at the $1 price through the WHOLE WEEK! Drumroll, please!

My Train Alphabet and Phonics Centers takes the cake! If you didn't get a chance to grab it on sale yesterday, be sure to snag it this week while it's just $1!

Markdown Monday and #MondayMadness!

Happy 4th of July!! What better way to start this week off than with a markdown sale? I've joined Kelly and Kim's Kindergarten Kreations for the first time for their Markdown Monday linky. Every Monday, a group of teachers marks down products for a week and links up, so it is definitely worth checking out!

There is also a special summer linky happening now through Instagram called #MondayMadness! Several sellers are marking down products to just $1 for today! Just search "#MondayMadness" in the TpT search bar and fill up your carts! There are really some amazing deals on there, but they will only be $1 for today only! Happy shopping!

I decided to put THREE of my products on sale for only $1 today! The most popular of the three, I will keep at $1 for the rest of the week! So let's see which one will win?? Click any of the images below to go to the product. It's like a crazy Daisy Dollar Day!!

Learning With Liam: Outside Fun and Painting!

This summer has so far been a blast, although it is completely flying by! I am babysitting my best friend's little guy once or twice a week this summer and it has added such a fun element to my summer. Liam is three years old and I've been trying to come up with some different activities we can do together. His little three year old mind blows me away with what he retains and he seems to really love learning games, especially those involving numbers (more on that in a future post).

Here's the first of a series of posts about our adventures this summer called "Learning with Liam."

Day 1: Name writing and mask painting!

Sidewalk chalk is a really fun way to have little people start writing their name! I also discovered this little guy is a lefty!

We started with uppercase letters because the straight lines in the letters of him name are easier to form than the curvy kind in the lowercase letters. 

M is tough! Loving his "A." <3 

Outside adventures are not complete without some scooter fun!

I grabbed these little wooden masks for 75 cents at Joanne's Fabric and the little pack of paint tubs for $1. He LOVED these. We painted a turtle and a lion on this day, but I went back to Joanne's and bought 3 more. 

We used Q-Tips instead of paint brushes, one because I forgot to buy brushes... and two, because these are cheap and disposable. They are also easy for little hands to hold. They are also great for fine motor because since they are short, they cannot be held in a fist, forcing him to figure out an easier way to hold it. 

Liam and I had a lot of fun painting and playing outside. Next week, come back and check out the games we played with numbers! This little guy LOVES numbers and counting!