monday made-it

I just discovered 4th Grade Frolic's Monday Made It! As usual, always tardy to the party. 

I abandoned my blog many months ago, and I never shared my Interactive Notebook series I created titled, PICK POCKETS! Feast your eyes on the first installment, PIGGY BANKS: Counting Coins.

Everyday during calendar math activities, we review coin values and solve a few money math problems. And everyday, my students struggle with recalling coin values. So, I decided to employ the use of interactive math notebooks to remind them of coin values and coin equivalents.

Also included in this product, coin equivalents.

Here's a short video clip of the Pick Pockets interactive notebook in action!

You can find this product in my TPT store. I plan to add more activities in the near future. If you have any suggestion for activities I should add, please let me know. 

Click the picture to be directed to my store. Thanks in advance for your support. 

Valentine FREEBIE!

Jesus, Mary and Joseph...creating my Sweet Treats TPT math station proved to be a daunting task. As a newbie TPT product creator, I sit for hours struggling with the simplest tasks. I spend a majority of my time sitting in front of the computer screen with my head in my hand thinking, "There has got to be an easier way." And there usually is. You just have to know the right person to ask for help. There are so many ins and outs to creating TPT merchandise. There is a bright side to my recent harrowing TPT experience, I learned two new techniques...which I plan to share on Techie Tuesday. 

Enough "talking." It's been a rough week. Grab this FREEBIE for a limited time only. This sweet treat contains the following

• 1 I CAN card
• 10 cupcake tops and bottoms
• 1 printable practice sheet

I plan to add 2 more stations to this product. Please leave feedback on TPT.  THANKS! Here's a preview:

Click HERE for FREEBIE!

As always, make the ordinary EXTRAordinary!

Do you want fries with that?

While posting a photo on Instagtam (IG), a thought occurred to me...and thus began another episode of Internal Dialogue Theater.  So I thought to myself...

Self: "Why am I always posting pictures of MY students engaged in activities created by OTHER TPT sellers?" (Yes, I talk to myself, and I answer back on occasion.)

Response to Self (I promise, I am not crazy): Yeah Trina, why? Your creativity knows no bounds. What about all the goodies you purchased from the Target Dollar Spot last May?

Self: Oooooo...yeah!Where is that crap?   

END SCENE

(And so ends another episode of Internal Dialogue Theater...LOL @ myself) 

So, off to my shelf I went in search of the red bucket where I dump all of my Target Dollar Spot finds. As I rummaged through my Dollar Spot repository, I ran across these french fry containers. 

Last week while attending  the most productive staff development day EVER, I created the french fries you see pictured below. A few days later, the idea for the programmed ketchup bottles popped into my brain.

I found the ketchup bottles on the My Cute Graphic website. My Cute Graphics is a financially challenged teacher's best friend. 

I created this station to assist my students with their math goals and objectives. Some of my lower level students struggle with numeracy concepts such as counting and one-to-one correspondence.  

I wholeheartedly appreciate the ideas and the activities I find on Pinterest and Instagram, but I really need to buckle down and start creating my own products. Honestly, I would prefer to post pics and blog posts of my students engaged in activities, I masterminded. But...like everything else, these things take time.

As I sit here with heap of ideas swimming around in my head, I find it hard to decide on my next project. But...in the meantime, I am in the process of completing my Roll-A-Sandwich Dice Addition math station. Here's a Sneak Peek:

Can you believe those are coasters? Those sandwich fixings look real...lick the screen real...right? Guess where I found them. That's right, the Target Dollar Spot! 

Stay tuned for Meet the Teacher Monday. This time, I promise to post earlier...probably late Sunday night. 

By the way, what are your Super Bowl plans? Me...nada. Until next time, make the ordinary extraordinary.

Not Another New Year's Resolution Post...

GUILTY! Yes, this happens to be yet another New Year's Resolution post (insert eye roll here). WAIT! Drop your hand and step away from the mouse! Whether you like it or not, New Year's Resolutions are here to stay. But on a more personal note, between you and me, I am the biggest New Year's Grinch. I avoid resolution setting like the plague. After many years of resolving and never fulfilling my promises,  I decided to ditch to the resolutions and set meaningful, purposeful goals. This year I followed suit with some fellow Instagram teachers and  chose one word to serve as my guiding principal to drive me through 2014. You can read about my one word HERE. The word I chose embodies the actions I WILL take to flourish creatively this year.

I digressed a bit. So let's get to it! Today the students returned. I felt like I went back in time to the first day of school in Marty McFly's DeLorean. We revisited many, many, many, many classroom rules. After we settled into our routine, we convened on the carpet to discuss...YEP, you guessed it, New Year's Resolutions (goals). To introduce the lesson I played the following video.

My favorite idea...LEAVE BIG TIPS. I nearly died when he started "making it rain." See urban dictionary for the definition of " making it rain." After the video the students created a New Year's hat craftivity courtesy of A Cupcake For the Teacher...

After the craftivity some of the students wrote about their New Year's Goal, "To make 2014 AWESOME for others."  

Pictured below: A 2014 New Year's Goals Foldable. We used the ideas provided by Kid President to set our goals. 

I customized the foldables according to my student's goals and objectives.

Until next time, make the ordinary extraordinary...