Monday Made It: Boggle with The Cat!

Hi Friends!

Hope you had an amazing weekend... I'm sure a lot of you took the time to spend it with your families {enjoy it while you still can because back-to-school is already creeping up on us... according to Staples, OfficeMax, Wal*Mart, Target, etc. of course}.  I've been pretty busy myself doing the same thing everyone else is doing, which includes: family, blog-stalking, pinterest, cinebistro, shopping for my classroom and pinterest (I mention it twice because I do more of that than anything else...ha!)  Speaking of Pinterest, I know that the Boggle board has been making appearances in everyone's classroom ever since Rebecca over at Create.Teach.Share came up with it! (Click on the link to see her version).  Anywho, while blogstalking I came across Mrs. Heeren's Happenings and absolutely fell in love with her FREE printable Boggle board letters (click on her link to get those) so I printed those babies out, laminated them with my Scotch Thermal Laminator {best thing invented since sliced bread! If you don't have one... you need one! Trust me!} and bazinga! (love, love, love Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory) and then put my Boggle board together.  Now, if you've read some of my previous posts... you are aware of my school dilemma. So, since I have no idea whatsoever what school-wide theme will be used for this upcoming school year I wanted to make a Boggle board that I would cherish and love for eons and eons to come.  I am a HUGE Dr. Seuss fan and when I first decided to create a Boggle board for my classroom all that kept popping into my head was this:

and then it hit me... Lightbulb! When you play Boggle you have to look left, right, up, down, frontways, sideways, backways and every which way... so what is more perfect than Dr. Seuss for a Boggle board I ask you?! So, here is my very first Monday Made it Project {I'm linking up with 4th Grade Frolics for this awesome weekly Monday linky since I have been making tons of projects and plan to continue making more the rest of the summer for Back-to-School} for the 2012-2013 school year, it is my Boggle Board!

I plan on purchasing the Cat in the Hat bulletin board set (I only need the Cat though!) so that I can put him up next to the Boggle board and I will also be making a sign with the quote from Dr. Seuss! I think its going to be a HUGE hit in my classroom no matter what my theme is... you can't go wrong with The Cat!

I wanted to mention, that I passed 130 followers! I feel the love, I feel the love, I feel the love its really real! {Walkin' on Sunshine song}.  I have a Back-to-School Icebreaker that I created to sell on my TpT but since I'm so close to reaching 150 followers... I'm thinking that I will offer one as a giveaway (with the materials needed to do the activity... can't divulge the information just yet!) so I hope that y'all will continue following and let your friends know so that I can make it to the 150 mark and do the giveaway before July ends!

Also, do you remember my post about the Wooden Utensil Carrier... I promised that when it was finished I would share with you the finished product.  Well, here it is... can't you tell how much I love animal print?! I think that it came out awesome and I'm excited to see how it will look in my classroom Guided Reading table. 

BEFORE

AFTER

Front View

Side View

Happy Pinning and Creating!

Trash to Treasure...

So, this weekend I decided to stop in at a Goodwill store to "see what I see" and I found a ton of books for my classroom library at a whopping 75 cents each {including some A to Z Mysteries! LOVE!} and then I made my way over to the housewares section and stumbled upon this...

Note: It did not LOOK like this when I bought it... unfortunately I did not take a "before" shot because I was so excited to get started on painting it that I forgot to! So sorry! But anyways, I ran into this beaut... I believe that someone made it to hold plates and pots, it was just plain un-finished wood when I found it and after some coats of paint... Voila! I turned it into this awesome paper/file organizer that will be adorning my classroom desk for years to come! It is a perfect reminder to us all to always think outside the box and find new uses for old gadgets! LOVE how it turned out... you will definitely be seeing this when I do my Back-to-School classroom photos post in the near future so keep your eyes out for it.

I also happened upon this...

I took a "before" shot this time thank you very much! And I will be posting about it when I finish painting it so that y'all can see how it turns out.  This beauty is a wooden utensil and napkin carrier... like the ones that you would use for a party or picnic outdoors.  I, however, will be using it as my teacher toolbox for my guided reading table and it will house materials that I will need to have handy {i.e. pens, highlighters, index cards, post-its, etc.}

Don't forget... tomorrow is the day that I will announce my very FIRST giveaway item... so stay tuned because I'm sure that you are going to be as excited about this product as I am!

Happy Sunday! :)