Five for Friday

This is my fourth week to do Five for Friday and I am kind of hooked. It has been a great way for me to sit back and reflect on my week. It is not always easy to do that when you are constantly being pulled in every single direction possible so this has almost turned into something therapeutic. Ha 

Don’t forget about my March Madness giveaway. There are only a few days left. All you have to do is type in your name to be eligible. You can even do it daily if you would like! It is for my Phoneme Segmentation Unit. This is one of my all time favorite products. You cannot go wrong with cute font, cute clipart, and fun & engaging activities. Go here to enter to win it for FREE.

So I have decided this week that I am going to start my first ever Whole 30 on Monday. I have struggled with food for as long as I can remember and I do not want that to be a part of my life anymore. I want freedom from it - especially now that I have two little girls watching every single thing that I do. I owe it to them and to myself. I love peanut butter, sushi, & cheese and I always have a glass of wine at night. Not having those fourthings (all at once AND for 30 whole days) is going to be a little bit of a challenge, but I am willing to give this a proper try. We eat really healthy in the main, but it is going to be those Friday night pizza urges or I am too tired to cook so lets get take out that will be difficult.  Do you have any tips on how to conquer this Whole 30?

We went to our first trampoline park this week and had so much fun. There is one right by our swim class so we had a little play date with some friends from swim. They have toddler time in the morning during the week which is great for the littles. You can see how that place would be SO crazy when it was packed. Molly had a blast! She loves jumping, music, and balls and this place had all three. She was in heaven. She was so upset when it was time to head home for lunch and nap. We will definitely be going back again.

I have been super busy this week getting together an Instagram Loop Giveaway that will be coming your way the week after Easter. I have never hosted anything like this so it was a bit of a learning curve and took some time for me to figure out all of the logistics, but we are finally getting there. I am especially grateful for Sara at Sara J. Creations and Elissa at Mrs. Jones Creation Station whom have spent countless hours shooting around ideas and editing various things I have been sending them for the giveaway. We will have two separate giveaways going simultaneously both for Target gift cards valued at $150. Who couldn't use some extra change for Target?! Follow my instagram account @adabofgluewilldo and be on the lookout in two weeks time for some more information on how you can be one of the lucky winners!

Do you ever work on a product and then you finish it only to think of another activity/game/printable that you can make to go along with it. That is me this week with my Popcorn Word bundles. I was FINISHED with them all and ready to get the last of them uploaded to Teachers Pay Teachers and somehow I went from that to adding two new activities for all five units. Needless to say, I am still working on them and there still has not been a giveaway. Here’s to hoping they will get finished and uploaded this week so that I can get on to the next thing on my list! {This could also be why my list is never all done} Please tell me I am not the only one that does this….

Hope everyone has such a great and restful weekend, 

Pom Pom Cross Activity

I have a TON of pom poms leftover from when I was teaching and I saw a picture of kids using pom poms as a painting tool so I thought this would be a fun way for Molly to decorate a cross after we read a book about The Easter Story. 

We have been talking about Jesus and the story of Easter using my printables over the past few weeks, but I also wanted a book that Molly would enjoy about the same topic. She loves the Bernstein Bears so I thought that 'The Bernstein Bears and the Easter Story' might be a safe bet. The reviews on Amazon were great so I bought it and Molly and I have been reading it the past few days. She loves it and it! After reading the book all morning, we did to do the craft after nap time. 

What you need: 

1) paint paper 2) template 3) large pom poms 4) clothespins 5) scissors 6) paper plate 7) paint

Instructions:

1) Print off cross template 

2) Clip the pom poms to the clothespins

3) Put a dab of each color of paint you will be using on plate

4) Set pom pom in each color

5) Dab away and paint the cross!

A lot of the painting activities that we do Molly will want to spend no more than five minutes actively engaged in it before she says 'all done', but this activity she could have done FOREVER. She loved it. I do not know if it was the novelty of painting with pom poms or the clothespins or the combination. Either way she was definitely a fan of this. She loved the pom poms so much. In fact, she has been carrying them around ever since (clean ones). She even had to go to bed with them. Ha!

Molly is too young for these, but I made an extension for older kids. You can get five Easter writing paper for FREE on my Teachers Pay Teachers Store.

Hope you enjoy 'pom pom'ing!

Sticky Rabbit Fine Motor & Sensory Activity

I am continuing on with my random Easter crafts and activities for at home or in the classroom. Today I am showing you a sticky rabbit fine motor and sensory activity. It is very easy to get ready and provides hours of entertainment for your kiddos. It is also great because kids of all ages can participate! 

What you need:

1) contact paper 2) tape 3) white & pink construction paper, torn up 4) random craft decorations 5) permanent marker

Instructions:

1) Draw a rabbit onto the contact paper. I printed off clipart that I purchased and used it to trace the rabbit. You can also freehand it or search online for rabbit clipart. There will be A TON of rabbit clipart available. 

2) Tape the contact paper, sticky side out, onto a window.

3) Set the torn up pieces of construction paper out. {and any other random craft stuff you have around the house}

4) Let your kiddo(s) play with the contact paper and decorate the rabbit.

Molly LOVED this activity. She played with it for a good amount of time initially and then she has randomly gone back to it throughout the day whenever she feels like it. We have had it up for a week now and she still enjoys playing with it. I thought considering it was our first time to play with contact paper, it was a success. It will be fun to watch how she evolves with this particular activity as she gets older because she will be able to do so much more as time goes on.

Tomorrow I will post an Easter painting activity that you can do!

Have a great day, 

Magic Eggs Science Experiment

Molly loves all things that involve bubbles so I thought that these magic eggs would be something that would grab her attention for sure! 

What you Need:

1) baking soda 2) food coloring 3) water 4) paper towel 5) bowl 6) dish soap 7) vinegar

Instructions:

1) Pour 1/3 cup of baking soda into a bowl.

2) Get 1 tablespoon of water and add a generous amount of food coloring. 

3) Pour into bowl with baking soda and mix. 

4) Form half of the mixture into the bottom half of an egg shape.

5) Using your finger make a small hole in the dough. 

6) Pour a small amount of dish soap into the hole {the website linked above says 1/8 teaspoon - I just poured a little bit into the hole}

7) Grab the remainder of the dough and form the other half of the egg. 

8) Lay on paper towel and let dry overnight. {I went back after about an hour of sitting and reshaped them a little bit. This was a little easier because the egg had started hardening}

9) Have a small container with white vinegar inside. Place on a pan or inside a larger bowl because this stuff will expand and make a mess. {I filled up a plastic container a little less than half way with white vinegar. That seemed to work just fine}

10) Place the egg inside the vinegar and prepare to be amazed! {You can let your kids play with the bubbles or take the egg out and inspect what is happening to it. 

I made a half dozen magic eggs so that way Molly could have some leftover for her to play with over the next few weeks {assuming she would like it - and she did!}. Molly thought this was the coolest. As soon as she threw the first egg in and it started bubbling over she said "again! again!"  For my little girl who does not like to get her hands dirty, she was having a blast playing with the bubbles and watching the egg disintegrate and expand. I definitely recommend doing this experiment. It was a big success.  

Molly is too young to complete this, but I went ahead and made an observation page for students to fill out when doing this experiment.

Click below to download it for FREE! I have two versions: 1) one that takes up an entire page and 2) one that has two per page that can easily fit into a composition folder for a science notebook. 

Hope you enjoy!

I lost, but you won!

Being involved in the March Blogger Match-up has been so much fun, but it all came to an end tonight for me. My team, the Dayton Flyers, played much like my Texas Tech Raiders did last football season. They could not keep it together when it really mattered. I am glad I was matched up against The Whole Wheat Class so now I can cheer her on to victory {even if her team is a HUGE Texas Tech rival}. 

Because my team could not pull it together and lost, you, my friends, WON! One lucky winner has the chance to get my Phoneme Segmentation Unit. This unit is on its way to becoming my best seller. I love everything about this packet: the activities, the font, the clipart. It is all pretty grand. 

Here is a snippet from the description for the Phoneme Segmentation Unit on my Teachers Pay Teachers Store.  

This document has 169 pages that provide the teacher a variety of ways of introducing and reinforcing the material in whole group, small group, or centers. There are five different activities included in this file, focusing on words with 2,3,4, and 5 phonemes. It is recommended that you laminate the materials for durability before using. 

This zip file contains:
-96 colored ‘Stretch it Out’ cards with picture and dots (33 pages)
-96 colored ‘Stretch it Out’ cards with picture, word, and dots (33 pages) 
-96 Sectioned Phoneme Sound cards (16 pages)
-96 Elkin Boxes cards with picture (48 pages)
-96 Count the Sounds cards with picture (16 pages)
-96 Pocket Chart Sorting Phoneme cards with picture (8 pages)
-96 Pocket Chart Sorting Phoneme cards with picture and word (8 pages)
-Phoneme Sort labels for pocket chart (2 formats)
-Directions (5 pages)

You have nothing to lose. All you have to do is sign in and enter your name. SUPER EASY! 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

May the odds be ever in your favor!

Five for Friday

I first joined TPT about four years ago. I made several things at that time and did not touch any of it again until about a month ago. I decided that I want to pursue this seriously so here I am trying to get back into it. I have been busy trying to update all of the products in my Teachers Pay Teachers store the past month. My hope is to have everything updated within the month so I can put my focus on making new things for the next school year. As I update or put new products on my blog, they will be listed as 50% off for the first 48 hours. Yall have been amazing with the support each of you has shown me so far.  Please follow me on any of these social media outlets that you are a part of: TPT, Facebook, Instagram, Google +, Bloglovin, and Pinterest. Leave a comment with your details and I will be happy to follow you too! 

I am participating in the March Blogger Match-up. Each of the 64 participating bloggers was randomly paired with a 2015 NCAA tournament team. Two bloggers will compete head to head with each game played. Like the tournament, once you lose you are out. The blogger of the winning team will go to the next round. The blogger of the losing team will have to share a chosen product from his or her TPT store {minimum $5 value} with the blogger they just competed against. The BEST part is that the losing blogger also has to share this product with one lucky follower! Check out my post to see what I will be giving away!

I reached 500 followers on Instagram!!! You guys are amazing and I am thankful for each and every one of you. It has been a lot of fun to share this journey with such an fabulous group of teachers, parents, bloggers, educators, etc. This has been such a supportive  and encouraging community to be a part of and I look forward to meeting many more people along the way. To celebrate 500 followers, I am going to have a BIG giveaway. I was thinking of giving away ALL FOUR of my Dolch Popcorn Word products to one lucky winner. What do you think? Be watching for more information once I have my giveaway for the March Blogger Match-up. Here is a picture that shows what is included in each product. 

I got my flights and hotel booked for the Teachers Pay TeachersConference in Vegas this summer. I am so excited for this event. It will be such an amazing opportunity to learn how I can better my business and meet all kinds of talented bloggers, teachers, and/or creators.  My Vegas roomie, Elissa Jones (from Mrs. Jones Creation Station), and I will be hosting a Stay at Home Moms on TPT luncheon Wednesday, July 8 at Grand Luxe Café in the Venetian Hotel. If you are a stay at home or work at home mom and are on TPT you should join us. You can RSVP here for the event. 

We did a very fun science experiment this week with ‘magic eggs’. Here is a little peek into what happened. I will be sharing how to make your very own magic eggs on Monday. I will even have a FREEBIE observation page that can be added into your science notebook so students can document what happened before, during, and after.

Well those are my highlights from my week. I look forward to reading what you were up to this week over the next few days. I hope you have a great weekend and see you next Friday!