What's THAT? Wednesday {July 3}

I'm linking up with Alisha from First Grade Follies for her What's THAT? Wednesday.  I found Alisha last week somewhere along the way, most likely through a linky party.

I have 2 pictures to share today.  Your task is to comment with your guess as to what you think each picture is.  I will post again tomorrow sharing the answers.  Have fun!

What is this?

I know this doesn't look great.  Can you guess what it is?

Monday Made It {July 1}

I'm linking up with Tara at 4th Grade Frolics for her Monday Made It Linky Party.

I have not been very crafty this summer; not that I am normally crafty, but Pinterest has helped me lean at least a little bit in that direction.  I'm not real sure what I did the whole first month I was out of school, but school work was not it!  As Tara said at the beginning of her post today, where did July come from?!?

I've been thinking about parent volunteers and others who help in my classroom.  While some years the help is very limited, other years I have some great helpers.  Pinterest inspired many cute ideas, but I never get around to doing anything about it.  So, as I was getting lunch today, I noticed the strawberry jam I made a couple weeks ago sitting in the freezer.  I believe it was 3 years ago when I made a very large amount of jam (30+ jars) and used jam as a gift for EVERYTHING!  I would just drop it in a bag with a little card and a note of thanks.

To make my life even easier, I created these little guys today.  I plan to print them on cardstock, attach them to the lid of the jar, tie a little ribbon around the middle of the jar and gift away!

This label fits in the rim of my plastic jam jars.  

This label covers most of the lid.

You can download your own copy of these labels here.  Both labels are on one sheet.  I'm hoping to create some more labels to go with other ideas I have so I have some "ready made" things when school starts.

50 Follower Giveaway Winner

Congratulations to Jill who is the winner of my 50 Follower Giveaway!  Thank you to everyone who entered and checked out my blog.  I look forward to sharing more with you in the future!

Five For Friday {June 28}

I'm linking up with Kasey from Doodle Bugs Teaching for her weekly Five for Friday Linky Party.

1.  I actually worked on something for school this week!  I spent a couple hours putting together some of the books I printed from Reading A-Z before I left school for the summer.  I thought putting them together now would make me more likely to want to use them.  It felt good to put a dent in that project!

2.  A friend visited from Florida and we went to the Columbus Zoo.  I had never been there, and while it was REALLY hot and muggy (for Ohio in June anyway), we had a great time.



3.  I tried a few new recipes again.  I unfortunately didn't snap any pictures.  I tried: coconut crusted pork chops with pineapple salsa, lemony brownies and S'mores cookies.  They S'mores cookies didn't look too great but they tasted good (picture melted marshmallow all over the place).  All got two thumbs up!  Thanks again Pinterest!


4.  I did some pleasure reading this week. I started and finished "I've Got Your Number" by Sophie Kinsella (of the Shopaholic series).  Light, funny reading is my kind of reading most of the time.

5.  I am having my first giveaway!  Last week I hit 50 followers, so with the help of Amanda from Mrs. Pauley's Kindergarten and Nicki from Mrs. Thigpen's Kindergarten, I put together a little giveaway.  You can check it out (and enter) here,

I hope you had a great week!  Looking forward to family visiting next week for the 4th of July.  I can't believe it is July already on Monday!

50 Follower Giveaway

Last week I hit 50 Followers on my little blog!  Thank-you for your support and kind comments! Amanda Pauley from Mrs. Pauley's Kindergarten and Nicki Thigpen from Mrs. Thigpen's Kindergarten have generously agreed to donate their creations to the giveaway.

Amanda has contributed her Back to School Emergent Readers  and Chevron Alphabet.  Nicki is giving the winner an item of their choice from her TpT Store.  The winner will also have the opportunity to choose 2 items from my TpT store.

You can enter the giveaway below.  The giveaway continues through Saturday.  Good luck!


a Rafflecopter giveaway

Bloglovin'

I took some time this morning to switch my blog following from Google Reader to Bloglovin. I really liked having Google Reader and using iGoogle, but that too (iGoogle) is going away soon.  It was so easy to see everything on one page.  So, I took advantage of the need to change and carried my blog following over to my personal email account instead of my school account.  Here is the link to follow me through Bloglovin if you so desire!

How do you follow your favorite blogs?

Five For Friday Linky Party {June 21}

I'm linking up with Kasey from Doodle Bugs Teaching for her weekly "Five For Friday Linky Party".

I spent most of this week visiting a friend who lives about 5 hours away.  She has 2 girls ages 4 years and 21 months; needless to say, we were busy!

1.  We took the girls strawberry picking.  The oldest was all about filling her bucket...the youngest was all about filling her belly.

On our way into the strawberry patch.  She did not come out as clean as she went in!

2.  We had to do something with all those strawberries, so we made 16 jars of strawberry jam and 2 strawberry pies. 

These are a little dark as they are already loaded into the freezer.  Have you used these plastic ball canning jars?  Love them!  They are especially handy when I give jam to parents (great thank you gift); I don't worry about sending these home with students.

Here is a simple strawberry pie recipe for you:

You need:

-1 1/4 cups water

-1 small box of strawberry jello

-1 small box of COOK and SERVE vanilla pudding

-Sliced strawberries (enough to fill the lid of a graham cracker crust container)

-1 graham cracker crust

-Boil 1 and 1/4 cups water

-Add jello and pudding

-Stir until dissolved

-Add sliced strawberries to mixture

-Pour into graham cracker crust

-Refrigerate 4 hours or until jello is set

-Serve with cool whip if desired.

3.  Our second adventure was to the butterfly exhibit.  Butterflies flew all around you as you walked around in the exhibit.  Very cool!  My students would have loved it...too bad it is 5 hours away.

She is very proud of the butterfly that landed on her paper.

4.  We took a trip to IKEA.  I enjoy just walking around IKEA, no purchases necessary.  I picked up a plain gray lampshade to replace one that got crushed in a box.

5.  I'm working on some name tags for my classroom.  I have been leaning towards bright colors with some polka dots in the mix.  Here is what I have come up with so far.  Not sure I'm totally set on them, but it is progress.

What have you accomplished this week?

Check back soon...I'm working on putting together my first giveaway!