File Crate Seats!!

When I saw these  file crate seats on pintrest, I just knew my friend Desiree and I would have to make them.   So I sent them to her and we started plotting.  Then I had the brilliant idea of sending it to my mom so I could see if her boyfriend could cut the the plywood for us.  Little did I know my mom would decide that she would help us take on this project.  So while I have been in NJ this week we have made the new seats.   

Check out the pictures to see how it went!!!

I got the crates on sale from Target.  They are were $3 each. 

My mom had the foam left over from another project she did for her store (Vintage Goods & Antiques, check it out!).  

I have a record of breaking staple guns and I made sure not to break it today!!!
















3 yards of fabric covered 6 seats.  I really miss the Walmart $1 fabric.  I used to get a lot from there.  Where do you get your fabric?





And drum roll please!!!!

We added the strap to help the kids pick up the lid if need be.  I figure if I don't like it, I can always take it off!  I can't wait to use these.  I really think it will be great alternative seating for some of my kiddos. 

And the winner is.....

Janet Vines

Congratulations Janet!!! I will be contacting you via email soon.

Thank you to all of my new fans for joining this giveaway!

Fabulous 4th Grade Froggies: Getting to know your students (& the parents too) ...

Lorraine over at Fabulous 4th Grade Froggies has a GREAT and adorable information sheet for parents to share information about their child. Go check it out!

Fabulous 4th Grade Froggies: Getting to know your students (& the parents too) ...: "As teachers, we get to know our students pretty quickly but we don't always get to know the parents right away. I use this questionnaire I c..."

Autism Classroom

Being a special education teacher who never knows what types of students she will have year to year, I am always on the lookout for new ideas. I am also a parent of a child whose official diagnosis is PDD-NOS. So I found this website through a mommies group I belong to called Autism Classroom that looks promising. Click here to check it out.
Check it out if you work with students on the spectrum, which I think most teachers will at some point in their career. My question to you all is, what is your go to website for information on teaching students with disabilities?

My First Contest!

I am so excited to get my blog going and to have 50 followers that I am giving away a beaded lanyard to one of my fans! This beautiful, handmade lanyard has a magnetic clasp which makes it super easy to get on and off. I only ask that you follow either the Learning Ahoy blog or Facebook Fan page. Contest ends on Tuesday July 26, 2011 at 9PM EST. Good Luck!!

Weekly Progress Report

I have been working a lot my forms and documents for school and wanted to share a weekly progress report(or two) that I have used in the past. Please feel free to use away! If you would like the word format, just let me know and I can email it to you.

Enjoy!

Weekly Progress Report


Here is a link to the other one! Click here.

Parent Involvement Linky Party!

Mrs. Bee is having a Linky Party about Parental Involvement. There are already so many great ideas!



Being a special education teacher, I do not have a homeroom, so my parent contact is a bit different.

Good Notes or Happy Grams: I send home good notes that I found on scholastic printables. I also just purchased some postcards from Vista Print yesterday to use as good notes. You can check out my post about them here.

Parent Contact Log: I have a binder where I keep information on all parent contact. I made a new contact log a few days ago that you can find here.

Weekly Progress Report: When I had a homeroom a few years ago, I sent home folders every Friday with papers from the week and a weekly progress report. This report included behavior and work habits for the week and had a place for comments. It also required a parents signature. Parents seem to like this so they could keep up to date on what was happening. I do not have a copy of this at home, but I have it on my school computer. If you would like a copy, send me an email and I will forward it to you. I will try to add it to this post tomorrow.

i-school: We have something called i-school in our district. Basically each teacher has a site linked to the main school website. The students must use a password and user id to access it. On this page I would include my homework, class room information, poems that we might be working on, important links for parents and lots of links for my students to use.

Remember to go check out Mrs. Bee's page and link up!!

Monster Math

I have been trying to come up with a better way for my students (2nd grade) to practice speed at their basic addition and subtraction facts. I feel like they need to have a firm grasp on the basic facts for continued success in math. In both school I have taught at we have had weekly speed tests, but I never felt it was rewarding or successful for my students. While blog stalking yesterday I came across this great blog, Lory's Page, and a post about pig math, which led me to create Monster Math I plan on having students do a 30 second speed test daily. As the successfully complete the daily problems they will move up to the next level. We will keep track of this with my own recording sheet and a vision I have of moving clips to different monsters (pictures to come once I finish creating this). I am hoping to reward periodically for hard work and being successful. I would love your thoughts on this and any challenges you may foresee. I worked on the addition portion today, but I will also make a portion for subtraction.

Check out the Monster Math Addition here.

Free Postcards!

I just made post cards for my classroom through this offer from Vista Print. If you use their images you just pay shipping (about $5). I chose to upload my own so it cost me a few more dollars, but I love the final product. I plan to use these to mail home as good notes, meeting reminders, etc. What will you use yours for?

If you have never used Vista Print before, it is great! I always chose the cheapest shipping and get the items within 2 weeks. I have ordered birthday invites and business cards for my classroom.

The Lesson Plan Diva: 500 BLOG AND FACEBOOK FOLLOWERS GIVEAWAY!!

Check out the giveaway at The Lesson Plan Diva!!! Not only is she giving away a gift card, but there are freebies from other blogs!

The Lesson Plan Diva: 500 BLOG AND FACEBOOK FOLLOWERS GIVEAWAY!!: "This totally snuck up on me but I am so grateful to have reached 500 followers on my blog and my facebook page. As you know I love to give s..."

Christmas in July: Picture Book Exchange

I stumbled across this post from Here We Go Loopty Loo and thought what a cool idea!! It is a picture book and activity exchange. What a great way to get a new book and an activity to go along with it! Now I need to decide which book I want to send.... so many choices!!! (I love books!) I thought this would be a great time to share one of my favorite Christmas pictures of my oldest son A.

Create a Graph

I just found out about a great website for graphing from The Organized Classroom Blog. She has a video up to show you how to use the website and some instructional ideas. I was able to figure it out with out watching the video, but will go back and watch it later. It was so EASY to make a graph. I now have so many ideas flying through my heads with this. I would love to teach my students how to do this so they can make their own graphs. I could also use this to make my graphs for progress monitoring. Ohh I am getting all excited. Go check it out and see what you think by clicking here.

Here is the graph I made (this took me about 2 mins.):

Teacher Binder

I decided that I want to make a teacher binder to keep all of my student information, parent contact, lesson plans, etc in. I have not been able to find anything created that seems to fit my needs, so.... I am creating my own. I am hoping to make it the first thing I sell on Teachers pay Teachers. Today I made a parent contact log that I wanted to share with my readers. I thought about adding check boxes to the reason section also... something like behavior, happy gram, IEP, ect. Please let me know your comments and if you think I should change anything. Also if you have or would like a teacher binder, what would you include in it?
Parent Contact Log

Making sand... mmmm it was good :o)

First I need to start off by saying Thank you to an anonymous donor who supported my Donor's Choose project. I came home from ESY today to an email saying I had a new donation. This totally turned a not so good day around! Huge Thank yous!! Question for all my readers.... how do you "advertise" your Donor's Choose Projects?

So as I have said before our theme for ESY is Pirates. We like to do cooking with the kids since it is something not all of them get to do during the school year. Yesterday we made sand. It is a lot like dirt, just a different color.

First the kids crush up vanilla wafer cookies. We put them in a plastic bag and have the kids pound on them. Some of the kids hit it with a spatula. Of course, I forgot to take a picture of this part. My wonderful co-teacher reminded me after by saying, "Hey, don't you want to take pictures for your blog!"

Next, we made vanilla pudding.

Then we folded the cookies into the pudding. We also put some pudding on the bottom of the cups we were using for a layered effect.

We then put the mixture into cups and topped with a bit more of the cookies. Each cup then got an umbrella, some rocks (check out my beach walk post for info on these) and some fish gummies.

The kids loved making and eating this. They also delivered it to various people in the building. I stressed when we were delivering that we ALWAYS wash our hands before beginning to cook.

I also wanted to mention that I am planning on having a giveaway when I reach 50 followers. I am so impressed when I log on a see I added another follower. I can't believe it!!!

You know that you are a teacher when.................

I lovE this post from Pocket full of Kinders and just had to share! She is also having a giveaway, go check it out!

Pocket Full of Kinders!: You know that you are a teacher when.................: "Your heart does palpitations at Target and Dollar Store You train and coordinate for the Back 2 School Sales You turn trash into a treasur..."