Prize Buggy

At the beginning of the year, I decided that the MC needed a reading theme that would tie everything together. I came up with "Catch the Reading Bug."  I even made a brochure that outlined all of the neat programs the MC would be running throughout the year.  You can see a copy of it by clicking on the picture below.

One of the programs I have really enjoyed and that seems to have been very effective is the Prize Buggy Punch Card.

Here's how it works.  At the beginning of each month, K-5 students receive a punchcard with 5 slots to get punched.  Second through fifth grade students are encouraged to read at least one book from the Genre of the Month as well as an AR book and 3 other books or other media of their choice.  K and 1st grade students are encouraged to read 5 of any type of material.  After reading each material, they get a punch in their punch card.  When they have completed their punch card, they bring it to the Media Center and pick a prize from the Prize Buggy, with the exception of  K and 1st grade. They come as a class at the end of the month to the Prize Buggy.

Here's the front and side view of the Prize Buggy.  It's really just an AV cart that I decorated with fabric and loaded up with white baskets full of prizes.

Here are some close ups of the prizes.

Since the reading theme is "Catch the Reading Bug" all of the prizes are bug related.  I get the prizes from Oriental Trading.  I spend about $50 a month, which to me is a very insignificant amount to pay for encouraging the kids to read.  When I ran a circulation report and compared each month to last year, circulation has double and sometimes tripled since last  year.  Students, parents, and teachers seem to really like this program and I am so happy that it has encouraged the kids to pick up books that they might not have otherwise read.

Here are some pictures of the students choosing their prizes.  Even the fifth graders love it!

This is just one of the exciting programs I started this year.  If you'd like to know more, you can click here to read descriptions of all the Media Programs I am running.  I'd love to hear what you think.

Little ol' me?

Can't believe that my blog was nominated for an award, the Versatile Blogger Award!

I was nominated by  Heather at Beg, Borrow, and Teach!  

Being as this is my first blogger award, it's an extra special honor.  Thanks, so much, Heather!

So here are the rules,

A.   Thank the person who nominated you and link back to them.  Done.   Thanks, again, Heather!  =)

B.   Tell seven things about yourself.
Okay...here goes.

1.  In July, I celebrated 10 years of marriage to my wonderful husband.

2.  I am the mother of two wonderful boys, ages 9 and 2.

3.  I have been teaching for 14 years, but this is my first year as a Media Specialist. I taught 5th grade my first year, then moved down to Kindergarten for a year.  I looped up with my Kinders the next year and spent six years teaching first grade before moving to the computer lab where I taught for 5 years.  And now I am enjoying life as a Media Specialist.  =)

4.  I love to be creative, from blogging to scrapbooking, to sewing to crafts.  I get withdrawals if I go too long without being creative.  Luckily, I get to be creative with my job.

5.  I was a Girl Scout for 13 years, from Pixies (which aren't even around any more) in Kindergarten to Seniors.  I even earned the Girl Scout Gold Award which is the equivalent to the Boy Scout Eagle Award.  My experiences in scouting certainly had a great influence on my success as an educator.  I have many fond memories of scouting and have encouraged my oldest to keep with scouting. Currently he is a Bear and he is enjoying it.

6.  My guilty pleasure shows include The Big Bang Theory and Tori and Dean, Home Sweet Hollywood.  Definitely different ends of the spectrum, but I enjoy them both and look forward to Tuesdays and Thursdays every week.

7.  I have a major sweet tooth.  Cupcakes, caramel, and hard candies are my favs.  My husband knows to put Sugar Babies, Twix, Red Hots and Lemon Heads in my stocking every year.

C.  Pass this on to 15 newly discovered blogs and let them know they've received this award.  

I don't know how new these are, but here are 15 awesome blogs I follow.  I have them in my Google reader so that I don't miss a single post.  Just click on the pics/buttons to go to each blog.

   

If you're not currently a follower of these blogs, you might like to check them out.  There are some great ideas out there.  

Pinterest Addict

I cannot help myself.  I have pinned almost 2,000 items.  I don't want to keep all these pins to myself, so here are some links to some Pinterest boards that you might could use, too.

General Classroom Ideas

Neat Bulletin Board and Door Decor Ideas

iPads in Education

100th Day Activities

Winter Books and Activities

Valentines Books and Activites

Eric Carle

Dr. Seuss

Laura Numeroff

Kevin Henkes

Math

Reading

Science

Writing

And this isn't even half of all the boards I've started.  Yes, I am a Pinterest addict.

If you're not currently using Pinterest, what are you waiting for?  One word or warning, though.  Pinterest is addictive.  You may find yourself browsing and "pinning" for hours, but it is sooooo much fun!  Hope you find something you can use.

Doodle Bugs Paper Giveaway

Looky what I got for Christmas!

If you like these, you need to take a look at the Doodle Bugs Paper website, where my husband ordered these for me.   Everything is so cute and very reasonably priced.  Right now, the Doodle Bugs Paper blog is having a fabo giveaway that you can enter.

Just click on the picture to go to the blog to enter the giveaway.  Good luck!

A Very Crafty Christmas

Hope everyone is enjoying their holidays.  I know I am enjoying the time off to be with my family and to rest up for the new year.  It has been a super busy year and I could not have done it without the help of my wonderful parent volunteers.  To thank them for all that they do, I made these Pinterest inspired gifts:

They are Hersey bars covered in white cardstock, decorated as snowmen, and topped with a pair of gloves, one tucked inside the other, tied with ribbon or a bit of fabric.  The original idea called for popcorn, but I went with chocolate.

Here's a closeup of one of these cuties.  They were "snow" much fun to make!  You can find the original project here.  You can find a different version here.

These little guys got me in the mood to make even more fun crafts, so I made these cute reindeer, also inspired by Pinterest,  for my son's teachers.

I used punches from Stampin' Up for the circles and the "hair."  You can find the original project here.  There is a similar version here.  

But I didn't stop there.  I had seen some cute apples made from the bottom of coke bottles and was inspired to make a winter version...chocolate filled snowflakes!

First, I started by cutting off the bottoms of clean, dry 20 oz. coke bottles.

Next, I wrapped some yummy kisses up in tissue paper.

Then, I placed the wrapped candy inside the bottoms and taped the seam to keep the two pieces together.

To cover the tape seam, I added some ribbon and hot glued the ribbon to keep it attached.

Next, I added the snowflake design.

One snowflake "arm" on each "bottle bump," plus a little ball at the end of each snowflake "arm."

In between each bump, I added a smaller arm and then crossed the long snowflake arms.

I added a cute snowflake stamp to the top.  The stamp is from Stampin Up.

To finish, I used a scallop punch and Christmas stamp that I hot glued to the front.  So cute.  To see what inspired me, click here.

And finally, I was inspired by the coke bottles to decorate some water bottles for my grandmother for Christmas.  It was a gift I know she would use and would love.

I simply removed the water bottle label and replaced it to one I personalized for my grandmother from my boys.

Viola!  A personalized waterbottle for Great Grammie!

And finally, yesterday was my birthday and since I was feeling crafty, I decided to make myself a couple of presents using some fabric I had left over from decorating the Media center.  I made a pillow for my office chair (I have a really bad back) and a polka dot purse.   I really like the way they turned out and the fabric just makes me happy!

So did you have a very crafty Christmas, too?

P.S.  If you're on Pinterest and would like to follow my DIY Gift Ideas board, just click here.  I must warn you, though.  Joining Pinterest can lead to a "pinning" addiction.  Be prepared to spend lots of hours finding neat ideas.  =)

P.P.S.  The frames around the pictures are from Mel D.  of  From the Pond  http://frompond.blogspot.com  She has tons of cute frames on her blog. Check 'em out!  =)  

Free eBooks

I don't know about at your school, but at my school our budget is very tight.  We don't get very many new library books per year due to the small budget so I try to find ways to access great literature at little to no cost. Some of my favorite sites for free eBooks are listed below.

Online Storyline is Barnes and Nobles free eBook site.  Every month a different book is featured and is usually read by that book's author or illustrator.  The Polar Express is this month's free “ebook” on Barnes and Noble's Online Storytime site. Chris Van Allsburg is reading the book! It’s about 7 ½ minutes long.  Available until Jan. 3rd.

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/storytime/index.asp

Storyline Online is another great eBook site.  This site features actors reading popular children'ts books.  Storyline Online is also featuring the Polar Express.  Lou Diamond Phillips is the featured reader.  

http://storylineonline.net/

Do you have any favorite eBook sites?  I'd love to hear what you think of these sites, too.  Just leave me a comment below.  =)

Ever just have one of those days?

Today was one of those days for me.  Nothing seemed to go right, technological speaking.  My day started off with the online circulation program we use being down for about an hour and half.  Then two out of the six student comptuers in the Media Center decided to stop working.  Next, the Activboard projector bulb blew.  And the worst was saved for last.  As I was finishing up some work on my comptuer this afternoon a virus scan started going off.  Granted, I am using a new computer this year, but I had never seen this scan before.  The county did an overnight update, so I thought it might be something to do with that.  Suddenly I began getting messages that my comptuer had been infected with several worms and trojan viruses. 

AHHHHHH!!!! 

I immediately shut down the computer and disconnected it from the Internet, which probably did absolutely nothing to stop it but that's about all I could think to do at that point.  I am afraid of what damage has been done, provided that this was a real virus scan and not some hoax to get me to type in my credit card information to be able to remove the offending files.  And of course, this is the only computer that has a working printer connected to it.  Oh what fun tomorrow will be!   I sent an email to our Tech goddess and have my fingers crossed that she will be able to do something for me tomorrow as she had already left for the day. Again, just my luck.  So I decided to shut the Media Center down and head home early today, well, early for me anyway.  I can only hope that tomorrow will be better.