Thanksgiving in July

This summer, a friend and I decided to tackle some holiday crafting because time always seems to slip away in November and December. Brilliant, right? Right!

I was inspired to make a cute little craft after seeing the adorable blocks my friend made for her husband for Father's Day. I packed my bags and went on a shopping spree in Hobby Lobby to find 4x4 blocks, scrapbook paper, and whatever else inspired me. Sadly, I was only able to find small wooden blocks opposed to the 4x4 size I was hunting for. After realizing the miniature blocks were my only option, I snatched them all up and headed towards the scrapbook paper. 

As I was searching in the scrapbook aisle, I decided to go with a autumn/turkey day theme and settled on the phrase "Give Thanks" to Mod Podge on my blocks. (Imagine me standing in the aisle thinking deeply about what phrase would fit on the ten blocks I picked up. It took some deep thinking.)

To start the project, I used my Cricut to cut out the 2x2 scrapbook paper squares. I glued paper on each block and put about two layers of Mod Podge on top. On the chevron side (as you can see below) I glued my turkey day phrase. As long as you don't look closely, the project looks very cute and crisp. If you begin to look closely, you'll notice I made boo-boos all over the place. Oops!

Next time I tackle another block project, I will paint the blocks before gluing on scrapbook paper. Instead of trying to cover each side in paper, I will rely on paint to make it look fancy. I spent ALL day waiting for these puppies to dry so I could continue working. I managed to get caught up on my DVR recordings though! 

InstaFriday!

What am I doing on Black Friday? Oh, just relaxing in my pajamas and catching up on a few of my favorite TV shows. Life is grand!

What's better than swinging outside on Thanksgiving? (In Missouri I must add...) Not much! This cute little face is one of the many things I'm thankful for. 

Traditions are the best part of the holidays. Christmas lights and fireworks are one my favorites! 

I jumped the Christmas gun a tad too soon, but I couldn't help it. It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas at the lake. 

Visit Life Rearranged and link up your InstaFriday submissions. 

Happy shopping, friends!

I Get By With a Little Help From My Friends

I love Thanksgiving for multiple reasons. One of those reasons is Friendsgiving! A delightful tradition that started over five years ago in a college apartment. Needless to say, the 5th Annual Friendsgiving was just as incredible! 

My contribution to the party was a little potato dish. I was introduced to the "Party Potato" phenomenon a few years ago when a fellow teacher brought in her family recipe to class one day. Since then, I've been having parties with potatoes like it's nobodys business.

Now, trust me with this recipe and go make your own Party Potatoes!

What You Need

1/2 cup melted butter
1/4 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup shredded cheese
1 cup sour cream
1 can cream of mushroom soup
2 lbs. Ore-Ida frozen cubed hash browns

Mix first 5 items together with salt and pepper, combine with frozen potatoes, put in greased 9x13 pan. Top with 2 cups of corn flakes and 1/3 cup melted butter together.Bake at 350°F for 1 hour.


Now, a family gathering isn't complete without a family photo. Before our delicious feast, we gathered by the fire for a group shot. All we're missing his Clark Griswold. 

Family Portrait by the Fire

It also wouldn't be a family gathering without a little arts and crafts time. I rallied the troops back to the table for a pinterest-inspired yummy craft. I had ulterior motives when planning this activity. My 5th graders will be creating this little turkeys on Monday and I did need to practice... but I also wanted to make the treat for fun as well. Uhh... You're welcome! 

We were good students and followed the directions below. You could say that we had a unique bunch of turkeys. 

I found this How-To on Examiner. Warning: this isn't as easy as it looks!

What You Need:

Oreo cookies
Candy corn
Miniature Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup
Icing
Candy eyes

Directions:

1. Separate the Oreo into two pieces (you may want to use a knife to make sure the cookies stay in tact).
2. Add icing to the Oreo’s cookie icing and arrange five pieces of candy corn around the top of the Oreo that contains the most icing creating “feathers” and two across the bottom to create “feet” with white tip facing down.  (Note: strategically place feet to prop and hold up the Oreo turkey.  It may take you a few times to get the exact placing.)
3. Re-close Oreo cookie using icing more icing to attach it if necessary.   
4. Using icing, attach the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup with the widest part flat against the bottom of the face of the Oreo. 

The icing was the best part. Right, Scott?

Admit it, you love arts and crafts time. 

Now, back to my favorite Atlanta housewives for some high-quality drama on a Sunday night. Enjoy the short week, teachers!

Over the Moon!

I'm fairly certain that I am not the only teacher on the block "secretly" counting down until Thanksgiving break. Right? Anyway, until that time arrives I'll do my best to plug in some Thanksgiving cheer in my classroom! 

While browsing blogland, I found an idea to "Gobble Up Similes and Metaphors", but similes and metaphors weren't on our menu, so I racked my brain to think of a way to gobble SOMETHING in 5th grade.  Then, I remembered that we could always use a little refresher with vocabulary. Plus, we were working hard on using context clues to identify the meaning of unknown words. So, one day we gobbled up great vocabulary!

Pardon my poor photographs, we'll blame it on the fact that I've dropped my phone several times and it's not in the prime condition it once was. 

Gobble! Gobble!

Each student received a plate and was instructed to pick two vocabulary words from any content area. Then, they had to use the word in a sentence on their plate. We went over proper sentences that would help our readers figure out the meaning of our vocabulary words.

For example: "I can survive." was not an acceptable sentence!

Yum! I'm stuffed.

At the end of September, I posted "Power of the Pod" (click here to refresh your memory) where I shared an idea to name your pods after content you want your kiddos to memorize. Sounds sneaky right? 

Today was the grand debut of the moon phases in room 52! I have five pods in my room and I have 5 moon phases represented to give the students a visual when memorizing the oh-so-wonderful phases. 

Full Moon in the HOUSE!

I bet you didn't know the surface of the moon was made from construction paper, did you? See! You can learn something new everyday. 

Watch our for Werewolves

Needless to say, today was confusing. I called the "Cumulus" group to line up then realized they were now the "Waxing Gibbous" group. Yikes! I should have studied a little more. 

Ready.. Set.. Memorize!

This morning, I asked my students, "do you notice anything different?" This is one of my favorite games to play. Simply because they not only notice what I want them to find, but they also sometimes mention things I've misplaced in the room or things I didn't mean to change. Which helps me out tremendously! They always keep me on my toes. 

For example, this morning the "game" (I'm noticing I use that term very loosely nowadays, there was no actual gaming occurring in my room) went like this..

"Notice anything different in our room, kids?" -Me

"Your desk is clean!" - Student

"Yes........................... anything else? Look up." -Me

"Are we studying space!?!" -Student

This went on for awhile. Great Monday morning conversation! 

Happy Monday!

Party Rock Anthem

Once again, my blog has taken the back burner to the rest of life. (i.e. 5th grade, Mizzou football...) You get the idea!

As I was driving back to the lake this afternoon, I was 98% sure I would be headed right to my couch for a nap and a Bravo marathon (insert a Real Housewives title here). Instead, I decided to make a craft and cook!

As always, Pinterest never lets me down. A few weeks ago, I pinned a recipe for mini deep dish pizzas. I checked out Dashing Dish's post and started pulling ingredients from my fridge.

Now, let me just say that my little pizzas did not turn out as cute and bite-size as the photo above.  Mine were a little... how should I put this? Bloated.  Yes, they were bloated. Were they delicious? Absolutely. I will be having my leftovers for lunch tomorrow.

Here's the recipe Dashing Dish posted on her blog. Head over to her page here to see photos and read how she made her mini pizzas!

Ingredients:

• 3-4 whole wheat wraps (try to find ones with at least 3 grams of fiber or more per wrap)
• 1 (15oz) can pizza sauce (you may have some left over, depending on how much sauce you like)
• 3/4 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
• 1/4 cup parmesan cheese
• 48 mini turkey pepperonis (or the 12 whole turkey pepperoni’s, each cut into 4 even pieces)
• 1 tsp basil/oregano mix OR Italian seasoning
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• pinch of sweetener, (sugar/stevia/splenda)
• pinch of black pepper

*Put your own spin on these by adding anything that you would normally like on a pizza just before popping them in the oven!

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Spray a 12 count muffin tin with non-stick cooking spray.

2. Start by laying each tortilla out individually on a flat surface, and use an empty can, cup, or cookie cutter to cut 3-4 medium circles out of each wrap. I used the empty pizza sauce can, which worked well!

Have you met Mr. Gobble Gobble? He's the newest member of room 52! My students wrote what they were thankful for on each of his feathers. Now, he is gobbling proud in our classroom for the rest of the month. 

How about those Missouri Tigers? Sorry Texas, just wasn't your day!

PARTY ROCK!




Linking up with another messy gal in blogland! Marvelously Messy!