Monday Made It: Polka-dot and Ten Frames

I'm linking up for another Monday Made-It! Many thanks to Tara over at 4th Grade Frolics for continuing to host this linky each week! It is so great to see what everyone else is up to!

First up - I had to make one of these ubiquitous teacher tool boxes! I resisted all summer, but caved on Friday when I was in Hone Depot for a different purchase. I couldn't resist trying my hand at customizing a toolbox of my own!

I used Kristen's template for the little labels, (Ladybug Teacher Files) but changed them to brown rather than black. Then I spray painted the toolbox in a matching brown. I used two different styles of scrapbook paper for my drawers. I think this will look great in my "Where the Wild Things Are" classroom!

 On Saturday, while out on our "Girls' Day Out", Moira and I stopped in at our local teacher supply store and of course stopped to look at the books on display. I picked up this one, read it through, LOVED it and bought it!

If you know this book you probably love it too. If you don't have it yet, you NEED to add it to your back-to-school list! This is a great book for the first week of kindergarten! You can click on the picture to see it on Amazon, or look for it in your local bookstore. It's called "Polka-dot Fixes Kindergarten " and its written by Cartherine Urdahl and illustrated by Mai S. Kemble.

This is an absolutely precious story of Polka-dot's first day of kindergarten - and the one thing that I want to make sure I take away from this story is to fix the important things right away. Being responsive to the needs of students is very important - and sometimes what we, as adults, might think of as unimportant and able to be put off for the moment really should be our priority because it is monumental in the eyes of a child. Something like a misspelled name on a name tag - or using a full name rather than the shortened version, can be disrespectful to who the child is as a person.

I liked this story so much that I made a "Fix-it Kit" for my classroom. I'm going to keep this handy and have duct tape, bandaids and runny soap (spray bottle of mild cleaning solution) in it. I'll probably use these items 100 times this year, but I could easily keep them out of sight in a cupboard. My purpose for making the kit and keeping it visible is to remind my students of the story of Polka Dot and Liz and how they became friends when they let go of their anger and helped each other. I made my container from a coffee tin (you'll see the coffee in another post soon!) and used Mod Podge to adhere some striped scrapbook paper (for Liz) and a polka dot label of course!

I also made a fun frame so that I can take pictures of my kinders on the first day of school! I started off with this wooden frame, which I got super cheap at Hobby Lobby because the glass was broken!

 I used a dry brush and applied a little bit of green paint, added some nuts and flowers and some word art, and voila! A fun way to commemorate the 1st Day of Kindergarten!

Finally, I have a new product that I just made and I'd love for you to take a look. I was in the middle of working on something else when this idea hit me and I had to abandon all else for a few days until I got it finished. I really love this and hope you do too. It is a over 100 pages long and contains 3 different styles of ten-frames.

I call this one my Back-to-school Ten Frames Unit because the graphics would go great with "The Kissing Hand", "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom" and an Apple unit. Each theme has a large set for display or whole group activities, plus a smaller set that you can use in Math Center. I'm going to use these to play memory, do a pocket chart matching activity, have students put the cards in numerical order etc. There are also 4 recording sheets that are differentiated to provide a little bit of challenge to your advanced kiddos and an easier version to enable your struggling students to experience success. Here are some pictures!

There are large number cards with both the numeral and number word, that can be match to the large ten frame cards. Numbers 0-20 are included for each style.

The pack also includes these smaller cards, also for numbers 0-20 which can be used at math workstations

Each set also has differentiated recording sheets for 1-10 and for 11-20. There is an easy version that has the ten frames in numerical order, and a more challenging version with random number order.