Teaching, Stitching, and Parenting: Monday Made It

Monday Made It - Binders and Buttons

Made It #1 - Reading Strategy Binders

Have you been on ReadWorks.org? Have you had time to look around and see what is all out there. It has become an all time favorite website of mine in the last 2 years. It has so much, how am I suppose to remember what is there, what is available, that is without getting lost and side tracked with everything else. I don't know about you, but I am very much a weekend planner for lessons, and then I might need something (books to go with lessons) and not have it ahead of time. So I created Reading Strategy Binders.

I started this project last year, but didn't get very far. So this year, I had to revamp and make things cute. I started off by creating Binder Covers. You can see 3 of the covers (on the floor). Here is a close up of one. There is a total of 2o Skills/Strategies I have done this with. *I also made spine labels for 1" binders.

The next step in the process was to type up what each strategy has in terms of lessons and how they connect to the Texas State Standards (Sorry, Common Core Folk, Texas hasn't gotten there yet, but you can look up the Common Core Standards that match each lesson). You will see based on the picture I did it for all Grades K -6. Why you ask, well since I have taught Pre-K, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 6th, it made sense to have the information for remediation or extension available with out a huge search.

After this, I have started the long process of printing off all the lessons, with there plans and worksheets that go with them. I also printed off the reading passages for 2nd-6th grade that go with the strategy. Yes, they have reading passages to match. For instance if I need a 3rd Grade Character Passage I can find it with 5 questions, 3 of which address character questions. I put those in the binders by grade and all the lessons in grade order on top.

So if this is something that you would like, and don't want to do all the work, shoot me an e-mail and I will e-mail you the drop box link to the binder covers, spines, and the lesson breakdowns.

If you haven't checked out ReadWorks.org - Your missing out, go do it now.

Monday Made It #2 - Buttons, Buttons, and more Buttons.

This weekend I went to another stitch weekend sponsored by The Silver Needle out of Tulsa, Oklahoma. This year they had the ladies from Just Another Button Company and I got to learn how to make buttons. Let me tell you, clay buttons are a time consuming task and I now fully understand why they cost about $3-4 a piece. We had to take 3 colors of blue blend to make 6 colors, then form a cane (tube) with some other colors and after about 2 hours and 3 other people we got this. Blue Flower Canes, can you see it.

After this, each cane was baked for 15 minutes to form flat buttons, sliced, and baked again for another 15 minutes. Once they were done baking and cooling, one of the ladies drilled two holes in them to create the button. With over 150 ladies there, we were able to make a ton of buttons with some variety, as each cane you see there made about 20-25 buttons. Here are some of the buttons after they were done, along with the variety of the other ones that were made. This was a fun projects.

In case you can't tell, those are pink, yellow, and blue flowers, leaves, 2 acorns, and a pumpkin. Those were just the ones that I got that were baked. I have about 4 times that many that only got through one baking cycle.

If you would like to learn more about The Silver Needle or Just Another Button Company, just click on their name and it will take you to their web site.

Tell next week, have fun. Don't forget to link up with Tara and 4th Grade Frolics to see more Monday Made Its. Just click 4th Grade Frolic above.