It's Monday again and I'm excited to link up with Tara at 4th Grade Frolics for her Monday Made It series.

One of my goals for this upcoming year is to be more organized. For example, having labeled binders  to organize all of our assessments, texts, and testing materials. I've always organized in manilla folders and had it nicely arranged in the file cabinet, but it tends to get messy and I need more order to the order in the folder if that makes sense, ;) So, with those thoughts on folders becoming binders that I'm going to begin with when I get back into my classroom in the next month or so, I have to start with an area behind my desk that is always a mess. I wish I had a picture to post, but I don't, so take my word for it when I say it is a mess.  There's a small area behind my desk that I house all of my teacher tools such as tape, paperclips, white-out, numerous pens because you can never have too many, highlighters, and other things that are all thrown in a purple basket. Every now and then I straighten it out, but when I need something I can't ever find it. Well that takes you to my first Monday Made It below. 

The teacher toolbox! I am so excited about this toolbox. It is going to keep the back of my desk looking sharp. I found my toolbox at Lowe's for $17. You can also purchase on Amazon, but I found the price to be higher. Then comes the labels that I found and purchased on Teachers Pay Teachers. My classroom colors are red and blue, so I went with a nautical theme for the labels. My purchase came from the The Teaching Texan. 

Three of my boys are wanting one of their own now for their desks in their rooms, so I may be making more of them next week. 

My next Monday Made It was inspired by Joanne Miller at Head Over Heels for Teaching. She made the cutest keychains for her students and I just had to have them. I purchased the keychains for about $6 for a pack of 16 "Playside Creations" keychains. You can find Joanne's template that fits the keychains here. I used scissors to cut them out and the help of one of my boys to put them together. They look great! 

Finally Monday Made It #3 is a recipe that I got from my mom that she found on Robbie's Recipes. We both love Wonton Soup and I was craving it, so off I went to purchase the ingredients to make it. Here's the recipe below. A few things I did a little differently to make it as easiest as possible are I bought green onions already cut and I froze the remainder that I didn't use. I used ground ginger which I know is not the same as grated fresh ginger, but it was easier and I had it already. I didn't add white pepper because I forgot. The napa cabbage was huge in the grocery and I didn't want to buy it because I only needed a small amount, so luckily I found a ginger sesame stir-fry that included the cabbage, snap pea pods, red cabbage and carrots. It contained a few extra ingredients, but it was the perfect amount for my pot of soup. I also excluded the mushrooms, sorry but I'm not a fan. 

This is a picture of all the ingredients that go into the stuffing of the wonton. My favorite part of the soup. It actually makes a lot of wontons. I had about 10  leftover that I didn't use for the soup. I fried them up for my hubby the next day and he ate them with sweet and sour sauce. I had a couple, but not too many. I 'm trying to be good and eat healthy! 

Just a little dab of the stuffing in the wonton wrapper. 

Here's the final dish! I added extra soy sauce to my bowl of soup. It was delicious! 

Thanks for taking the time to check out my Monday Made Its! 

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Mrs. Shepherd

I am super excited to join Tara from Fourth Grade Frolics for Monday Made It. 

My "Monday Made It #1" is decor for my youngest son's bedroom. This was a very simple Monday Made It, but it was painted by Jack with love. We went out to Hobby Lobby to purchase the letter "J" and some red acrylic paint. Adding the letter J has been long over due, 3 years over due. I've had the space there to add the J since he was a baby when the crib was on the wall, but just never could find the time or I would forget to purchase when I was out and about running errands. So, we definitely made this a priority last week. Jack was so eager to help me paint his letter J. Below is the finished product!

Here's Jack helping me paint. He was being so careful. 

Monday Made It #2 is was one of my low carb recipes. This recipe was given to me by my sister. One of my goals for the summer is to eat healthier and to exercise daily. So, I've been going to Pinterest for lots of low carb recipes. Click here to see my Low Carb recipe board.  I've been staying away from carbs and adding more healthy fats to my diets (walnuts, pecans, etc.) Below is a crab cake spinach salad that I had for dinner on two occasions so far this summer. It is yummy! The ingredients are organic spinach, a red onion, walnuts, goat cheese, a crab cake, and balsamic vinagarette.

My last Monday Made It, was not made my me, but purchased off of Etsy for my husband for Father's Day. He plays basketball two days a week and uses a sweat towel that was getting old. So, I purchased him a new one and had it embroidered. Hope his basketball buddies don't make fun of him :) Click here for the Etsy store I used. 

Thanks for checking out my Monday Made Its!

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Mrs. Shepherd

Who doesn't like National Holidays! I sure do and so do many of my Social Media friends. People are  always posting pictures of themselves celebrating a National Holiday. I'm sure there's a hashtag - #NationalHolidays that you can post to and follow.

Well, my students love them as well. They are always so eager to enter the room each morning to find out what the National Holiday will be for the day. Some students will even come into the room and tell me they heard it announced on the radio on their way to school.

Each morning in my 4th grade classroom I display the National Holiday of the day.  I use the site Checkiday

I used this site because it displays an image on various holidays for the day. I look for the one that states National in the front, sometimes there's more than one. So, when this occurs I search Google with each Holiday to see which one is more popular, or the one that Google selects as the National Holiday. I then click on images to find a picture that I can paste onto my Promethean board for display with the National Holiday. However next year I may use the site National Day Calendar.

This site not only gives you the image, but also the history of the day. I may add a job to my classroom this coming year and have a students read up on the holiday and share it with the class to start the day or I may assign a student to each week of school to pick the holiday of that week of their choice to present to the class. OOHHH! The ideas are flowing now!

Displaying these holidays on my board always sparks a discussion amongst students, especially the food related ones. We talk about whether we've eaten the dessert before like (National Chocolate Ice Cream Day) or if it's a well-known person, place, or event we connect it to our learning. I especially love the National Holidays that relate to our Social Studies Unit of Study. This allows for a way to remember and honor the heroism and achievements of the people, events, and our nation's ethnic heritage.

There are many benefits to exposing students to these holidays:

1. They become informed citizens.

2. It increases communication in the classroom and outside of school.

3. It increases interests on particular holidays.

4. It encourages students to explore.

I hope I've sparked an interest in you to expose your students to National Holidays!

So, have you had your Chocolate Ice Cream today? 

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Mrs. Shepherd