Monday Made It & Make & Take Freebie!

I'm linking up my Monday Made It a day late, but I do have a fun freebie for you at the end :)

First up, look at the pointers I made!

Since my theme is "Where the Wild Things Are" and I want my classroom to have a foresty feel to it, I decided to make my pointers out of natural materials. I got all of the balls from a box of table decorations - they are made from burlap, vines and gourds. I did have my husband drill holes in the gourds, but the rest I just used a glue gun to attach.. The actual pointers are just  branches! I added the ribbon in colors that will coordinate with the rest of my decor. I put some floral foam in the bottom of the basket to hold the pointers, then covered it with moss to make it pretty! I think these are just pretty enough to entice my kinders to want to use them, while still giving a woodsy feel to the room. I think they are my favorite thing I've made this summer! Here are some close ups:

Alright, onto the freebie!

Today I went to Great Expectations training! Great Expectations is a fabulous program that so far operates in Oklahoma, Kansas, Texas and Michigan, but it's expanding rapidly! It has a base of 17 classroom practices that excellent teachers use, as well was 8 Expectations for Living, and 6 basic tenets:

• High Expectations
• Teacher Attitude and Responsibility
• Building Self-Esteem
• All Children Can Learn
• Climate of Mutual Respect
• Teacher Knowledge and Skill

I'll be there from Tuesday through Friday. This is my third summer attending this training and it's my signal that my summer is drawing to an end, but it's also so inspirational that I always come away rejuvenated and revved up and excited to start a new year!

Today and tomorrow I'm in a "Make and Take" class which has been a lot of fun. My favorite things from today were these cute little signs:

 This is Candy Complete. She reminds children to use a complete sentence when they answer a question. This is one of the 17 classroom practices and it's also important for teaching kiddos to eventually write in complete sentences too!

On the other hand, sometimes you just want them to "popcorn" their answers, so you can show them this sign on those occasions!

Here's another version - you could call this one Cathy Complete or some such for a jungle theme:

They are just mounted on a paint stirrer, so you can keep them by your whole group area and pull out whichever one suits the occasion! I think it'll be a great visual for reminding my kiddos to speak in complete sentences! I took the time to trace the templates so I could scan them for you if you'd like to make your own set :) Just click here to grab the templates!