Gift Ideas for the Office Staff- Administrative Professionals Day

Administrative Professionals Day is right around the corner! At my school, we have outstanding office ladies. I truly feel that they are the glue that holds the school together.  These ladies field phone calls, calm down angry parents, deal with sick kids when the nurse it out, take care of behavior cases while they wait for admin., handle all the paper work, answer billions of questions…. all with a huge smile on their face. They are so helpful, friendly, and kind. 
In honor of them, we usually collect money from the staff so that we can all chip in to make them feel special. Instead of only celebrating for one day, we actually turn it into a week long celebration. This year, I had the honor to put together their gifts. 
Today I'm here to share them with you. A lot of these could easily be used for Teacher Appreciation week as well.

I got the cute tumblers from Target, you can find them here. I used my Silhouette Cameo  to cut out the names and designs from Vinyl Sheets . 

You can snag the labels here. 

I used EOS lip balm as the 'bomb'. You can pick that tag up here.

You can get this sign here.

Next up is an Ice Cream Sundae Kit:

Signs available here.

I hope you find some of these gift ideas useful! Let me know in the comment section if you end up trying any of these ideas out :) 

Aloha,

DIY December Linky #1: Melted Snowman Cookies

Happy Sunday!

This month I have been doing a lot of DIY and baking projects for the holidays. I decided that I wanted to share it with you all and since I know that you are all a bunch of creative and crafty teachers- I want to see what you've been DIY-ing this month! SO..I present to you a brand new Linky:

Yesterday, my baking buddy and I  (another teacher) got together to make some Melted Snowman Cookies for our students. 

I absolutely love baking and decorating cookies, so this was a totally fun project for me! 

We started off by making our sugar cookies from scratch. This was my first time making sugar cookies and it was pretty easy! I have a really yummy recipe if you're interested. 

Click the photo above to download a copy of this recipe :) 

We then used circle cutters to cut the dough-then baked the cookies. 

The cookies will need to stay in the oven for a bit longer than the 15 minutes the recipe suggests. We just took a peek into the oven to make sure they were browned around the edges. These are what our pre-decorated cookies looked like. 

We then made our frosting using water, meringue powder, and some powdered sugar. 

We had to experiment better with how we liked the frosting. As you can see..we originally tried frosting the entire cookie-but didn't like that. We ended up using a plastic baggie to outline the melted snow look. Make sure to pop the marshmallows on before your frosting hardens. 

We then added some food coloring to the frosting-and used plastic bags (instead of piping bags) to draw on the eyes, nose, arms, and buttons. 

You could get fancy and add scarves, bows, and earmuffs but we were running low on frosting since we made 75 cookies! 

We then bagged each cookie into a plastic Ziplock Sandwich bag..and added these cute topper tags. I absolutely love how they turned out! It makes the packaging look much fancier!

The back of the tag also lists the ingredients.

If you're interested in using these tags-you can download them for free in my TPT Store. This is an editable file (for ingredients and teacher name). Please leave some feedback if you do decide to use these tags :) 

If you'd like to share any of your DIY Holiday Projects from this month-or from the past I would love for you to link up below! I always love getting new ideas and definitely would like to add some new projects to my to-do list! If you don't have a blog-feel free to leave your ideas in the comment section :) 

Thank you for sharing and Happy DIY-ing!

Rules for this Linky:

1. Link the picture of your project to your blog post. 

2. Add the DIY December Linky button to your blog post with a link back to my page. 

3. Check out the other DIY Projects and leave some cheerful comments

Thanks so much for linking up!!

Monday Made It #2: Lesson Plan Book!!

Hey Everyone!!

I'm so happy/proud to be posting my second Monday Made it...2 weeks in a row! Hopefully I'll also have something to share next week as well. Linking up with Tara from 4th Grade Frolics for this week's Monday Made it! 

I've been busy at work tweaking my plan book for next year. I currently have one up in my TPT Store  from last school year. Last years book was a black and white version..because I wanted to save my ink for all of the other wonderful things I had purchased and printed at home. This year, I decided to update the plan book because I wanted it to be fun and colorful, like my classroom theme for this coming school year! 

I took it to Office Max yesterday and got it bound..I LOVE how it turned out. I was so shocked that it cost less than $4.00 to get this book put together. 

Last summer, I decided to create my own plan book because I couldn't bring myself to paying an outrageous price at the teacher supply store for a plan book that I really didn't care for. The prices of those plain and not cute books are so expensive...so I decided why not create something that i like, and that has everything that I want/need in it?! 

I will go through each of the sections in this book. 

I had a few more sections that I had planned for...but unfortunately, I ran out of paper to print with and I was so anxious to just take it to get it bound...otherwise, I'd keep obsessing and adding things and this would be a never ending project!

The first section is this student information sheet. 

Behind are pages where you can fill out the following:

• Student and Parent's name (for those students who have different last names from their parents..it's always good to have it down just in case)
• Email address
•  Cell phone and home phone numbers
•  Allergies
• Extra Notes
• and a place where you can circle if the child is a bus rider, parent pick up, after school care, or other...

Next up is the Long Term Planning Section.

Here is where I will plan out what big ideas/standards will be taught during what month. 

This is always helpful for me to keep up with my pacing as I teach...and to make sure that I cover everything!!

Next comes the Monthly Calendar section...

I decided to use circles so that each year you can just go ahead and fill in the numbers for each month. 

This year, I've also decided to add a quote for each month. This is a very basic and plain calendar template but I plan on jazzing it up with colorful pens as I fill in all the gazillion things that teachers always have going on in their busy lives

Then comes the Grade Book

This is pretty self explanatory. The little line up at the top is where you can write down the date of the assignment/assessment..and then below you can either write down the assignment title and/or the standard. 

Lesson Plans

This is the template that I like to use for my lesson plans. The top has a spot where you can jot down the subject area. I like to leave this blank because sometimes my math block may take up 2-3 boxes depending on the day. This gives me some flexibility. 

I've also decided to add a Things to Do box at the ending of each lesson planning week.

I'm constantly making lists of all the things I have to do each week....but I am also constantly losing those lists and am having to remake them. This way..I won't lose them and it'll be all right there! 

The last section in my book is where I keep a list of my CC math and ela standards. 

Please note that when this product is uploaded to TPT, I will not be including standards for each grade level. You will need to find your own copies and add them in. 

I had planned on having one final section which would  have been Parent Communication. I ran out of paper so I couldn't include this in here but I'll probably bind another little book to keep track of my parent communication. This is where I wanted to document all the phone calls/emails that I made to parents and the purpose for the contact...Documentation is key and it's always a good thing to record when you do contact parents!!  

That's it for this week's Monday Made it!. I'm really happy with how my plan book turned out this year!! Hopefully I'll get this uploaded to TPT soon. I have a few more things to tweak on here and have to add in a credits page.

**Planner is now up in my TPT store!  It is marked down to $3.50 for today only!

My black and white version of this is also marked down to $3.50 until midnight Hawaii time :D  

Monday Made it #1: Apple Cupcakes and Centerpieces

This was one of my favorite linkys last summer because it actually got me off of my lazy butt to do some work!! 

I'm so excited to be linking back up with Tara from 4th Grade Frolics for my first Monday Made it of Summer 2013!!! 

For those of you who are following me on instagram, you know that I have been busy getting ready to host a retirement party for one of my coworkers who has luckily retired from our grade level this past year. SO some of these pictures are probably a repeat BUT I will go into detail on what I did and how..so stay tuned :) 

This week I made some yummy apple shaped cupcakes!!

These cupcakes were given out as favors at the retirement party..

I've posted the pictures on instagram and I had a lot of people asking how I made them. I figured this would be a perfect post for a Monday Made it!

SO..here are MOST of the things I used (my girlfriend had the frosting which is missing from the picture!) 

Things You Will Need:

• Box cake mix 
• Optional: 1 box vanilla pudding and an extra egg (this will make the cake mix extra moist and fluffy)
• red cupcake liners
• green chewy candies (jolly rancher or laffy taffy)
• tootsie rolls 
• 2 dozen donuts 
• frosting
• red paste food coloring 
• red decorating sugar

What To DO:

1. Bake the vanilla cupcakes as directed in the red cupcake liners. You will want to only fill the liners about half way full or a little less so that when they bake, they are about level with the liners. Once the cupcakes are done, let them cool.
2. You can begin by prepping your leaves and stems. All you need to is cut the tootsie rolls in half, lengthwise and you may need to shape them a little. I suggest putting them on a plate because we laid them down on a paper towel and after awhile they got stuck on the paper tower. We had to repeat this step all over again! 
3. You will want to microwave your green jolly rancher chewy candies for about 5 seconds. This is going to soften the candy and make it more moldable. You then want to take some kind of mallet and pound the candy down to about 1/8 of an inch thickness. 
4. I used kitchen scissors and just cut the shape of leaves out. I also used a knife to make the little leaf line and then just gently folded the leaf.
5. Once you're done with this, the cupcakes should be cooled down.  You will want to cut your doughnuts so you have a flat bottom. Frost the cupcake and stick the donut on top of it (picture in background). Once you've got all your cupcakes topped with donuts, stick them in the freezer for about 10 minutes. This helps to set the frosting and will make your job easier when it comes to dipping. 

6. Once the cupcakes come out...you want to then mix your frosting with the red dye. You then go ahead and frost your donut/cupcake. Place your sprinkles into a bowl and dip the cupcakes into the red sugar. 

7. Once that's done you can go ahead and add your leaves and stems.

I loved how the packaging of these cupcakes turned out! I was planning on buying individual boxes for each cupcake..but I couldn't find any and assume that it would have been pretty costly. 

I got these 9 oz. cups at target for about $3. 

Wrap them in some clear cellophane bags and tie it up with a cute ribbon and they're good to go!

Along with the cupcakes we also decided to make these cute little centerpieces for the tables! The cute little pail and all of the candied flowers came from the one and only..Target dollar section!! 

We then just made some cutouts using the cricut and arranged them. I was really happy with how these turned out. I forgot to take a picture of the finished finished product. We actually also added some sparkly easter grass, which made it even cuter! We hid some candy in there as well :)

Here's a blurry picture of the tables...

I sure hope this tutorial wasn't too rambly and was semi-helpful for you! Let me know if you have any other questions about recreating the cupcakes or centerpieces!! 

Publishing Party and Medals

Thank goodness it's the weekend and yay for a productive Saturday. It sure has been awhile since I've had one of those. Today I've been busy at work prepping some stuff for something exciting happening in school next week. Some of you may remember, awhile back I was talking about how my students were busy at work writing stories that had a twist to classic Fairy Tales. Well..those stories have finally been completed, shipped out for publishing, and shipped back to our school. 

Excuse this photo. I had to pull this of of my instagram since my copy of our book is at school :/ 

My students are officially published authors...and to celebrate such a wonderful accomplishment..we are having a Publishing Party this Wednesday in our school cafeteria. This is an event that was open to all third grade parents. Students will be displaying their books and they will be given the opportunity to answer any questions about the process or their inspiration. They will also be given the chance to share their books aloud to others in the author chair.  They are SO EXCITED and I am so proud of them because they each did such a wonderful job and worked so very hard. 

SO...I decided to award each of them with a IM A PUBLISHED AUTHOR medal...

Not sure if anyone else has a use for these but if you're interested let me know in the comment section below and I could send you an editable version on ppt. 

AND...I just have to mention that the cover to our book was drawn by my very talented friend. Some of you may remember her as the person who re-created my Angry Birds Cause and Effect Anchor Chart. 

Isn't she so talented?? When my mom saw our class book, she thought I had used clipart to create it. 

I've been trying to convince her to create clipart because she's talented and I think she would do great. For those of you out there who do create clipart...is it difficult? Perhaps she could start this up for a summer project?! haha. 

In celebration of all the wonderful mom's out there...here is what we created for our Mother's Day Gifts. It's just a cute little bear holding a bundle of flowers. On the stem of each flower is a coupon that moms can redeem from their child. My kids also created their own coupon. Many of the wrote things like "I will complete my homework without being told" or "I will complete my homework with no complaints". lol. I had to laugh at that one. 

How precious is this little bear?? 

Happy Mother's Day to all of you moms. I really give you all credit. I don't know how you all continue to be such wonderful teachers, diligent bloggers, and excellent mothers. I hope to one day be like you :)