Woot!

I am a happy happy woman today.  For one, I WON the 100 follower giveaway at Miss Elementary. 

  That's ME!!!

I am the ever gushing winner of 7 different TPT lessons from 4 different fabulous blogs, all of which are going to be AWESOME for my curriculum (oooooo I can't wait to get ahold of a fresh color ink cartridge!) and a Target Gift Card from another fabulous blog. Haaaaaappppppeeeeeee!  And I will be sure to blog about each of the TPT items so you can see how great they are and get your own set.  I also got to pick what I wanted from Mrs. Stanford's Class and am very excited to have gotten her Dolch Sight Word packet.  Activities for ALL 220 words!  Which is perfect for my word work plans. Yes yes yes!


You know though, it starts me thinking about giveaway's in general.  If I had one, I have NO STINKIN' IDEA what I would give away.  Perplexing....this blogging gig is getting more and more compliated...ideas and etiquette on this subject will be much appreciated.


But anyway, to add to my happiness of happiness- I LOVE my Dad.  He is "The Mayor McCheese", yo!
I'm sure we've all slobbered over this particular pin from Grade 2 Happenings:

I have been wanting, nay, coveting, Lo! ENVYING  this since I saw it.  I looked for inexpensive crates, and finally found my lowest deal at Big Lots.  $3.30.  And then I bought twelve and brought them home.  Enter Mayor McCheese:  "What are those for?"  Ohhhhh, but let me show you, Pookums!  So, I guess he was bored or something- because a couple of hours later I had this waiting for me.

I still have to add the batting and fabric cover for the top, but this is slick!  We didn't have baskets big enough to go in the middle, and I didn't want to pay $7 (I am sorry, Lowe's! But I must watch my frivolous spending), but Captain America saw $1 plastic shoe box bins and set me up with two running planks in the middle.  After he's made all three for me I will be looking at 32 boxes of storage!  This is going to be awesome! I totally can fit all of my math and word work centers in these three benches.  I'm planning on putting them on the perimeter of my carpet area where we meet in front of the Promethean board.  This means I can have 12 bodies at a time on a bench seat, and then the remaining 11 on the carpet.  I already have a plan for how to make sure everyone gets equal time on the benches so there is no fighting. Well, LESS fighting anyway.

The inner planks are zip-tied to the ends, and the crates are zip-tied together in the front and the back.  I think I'll cover up the zip-ties with some ribbon bows, or I'll figure something else out- but then he also bolted the top down to help with what he called "inevitable wiggling".  It's a nut and bolt though, so I can easily unscrew the top to put on the batting and fabric.  My mom found some fabric in her stash that will fit PERFECTLY with my classroom color theme/scheme, and she says she has batting somewhere around here too.  Score!

We (as in snoopy me) also found some discarded long plastic flower boxes under the porch and had moments of thinking of attaching them to the back of the benches to hold white boards and clip boards and what not- but there were only five, and it would take three to cover the whole back of one bench- but good ole' Mayor McCheese to the rescue!  We had also talked over this pin from Simply Second Resources about a week ago:

 

We'd changed it up a little though, and planned to cut holes in the center to drop in plastic baby wipe tubs so I could put all of the kid's writing supplies and markers and pens and what not in the tubs in the center. Which is still AWESOME, Mayor! Still. Awesome.  BUT!  With this new discovery of the flower boxes- with a little power washing, and a little divider magic going on in the middle- they will sit perfectly in the middle of my desk groups without having to saw or nail wood.  Or I could even set it on the Hillbilly organizer shelf I made up.  Either way- it's going to be cute.  I could even tape fake flowers to the ends of everything so that when they put it back in the flower box it looked like it "bloomed". Ahahaha, too cute!  Well, we'll see if I can get that cute.  But STILL, exciting developments in classroom decorating are in the works.  When I get them cleaned up proper I shall take photos for you to judge harshly. Or covet.  You know, whatever you feel like.

I totally see the resemblance!

Now, one last word of caution.  If you have a Babyzilla like I do- ALWAYS remember that QUIET = UP TO NO FREAKIN GOOD.  I found myself saying, "Wow, he is playing so nice and quiet!" and then my spidey sense tingled TARDILY. Gah, he ate half a glitter crayon aside from the art work.  No harm done though- I guess.  Meh, the package says non-toxic.  When you're at number three, kittens, you just don't worry like you used to. The most this will end up being is a "disco diaper change".




































Until next time- same bat time, same bat channel. POW!