Box Tops Container, Complete Sentences, and Cookies {Monday Made It}

How about some cookies to make Monday Sunday night a littler easier? I'm linking up with Tara at 4th Grade Frolics to share a few things I've made lately. 

Even though I've not had tons of time to be crafty, I've missed seeing this linky every week. I love to see what everyone else has been up to. 

Teachers are some amazing recyclers, right? So I was about to throw away the Hawaiian Punch container, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it because I just KNEW I could use it for something! 

A few days later I was inspired to turn it into a container to hold our Box Tops for Education. It is hanging from my kitchen cabinet for this picture because I wanted to show you the cutesy ribbon I attached so it would be easy to carry all the box tops to the office. 

With the juice container being "ribbed" I couldn't use vinyl, so I used the next best thing - letters cut from cardstock and this AMAZING red tape. 

If you want something to stick forever and ever amen use this tape. I had forgotten the name, so I did a quick google search and it is called This to That. I got mine at Hobby Lobby in the scrapbook adhesive section. 

I have a group of kiddos that need a lot of practice on determining whether or not a group of words is a sentence, so I created this fun, carnival themed game and practice sheet.

You can click on the picture to read more about it in my TPT store. 

I did promise cookies at the beginning of this post. I love to cook and cookies are one of my favorite things to make. This super easy recipe is always a hit and you can play around with different combinations. 

Cake Mix Cookies

1 box cake mix 

1 stick butter, softened

2 eggs

Combine all the ingredients, dish 'em out, and bake them up at 350 for around 8 minutes. 

Now, I'm sure you're looking at this recipe and thinking what is so special about that?! For starters it takes mere seconds to produce homemade cookies. But the best thing is you can use any cake mix for these. My personal favorite is devil's food cake mix with peanut butter chips - yum-o!!! The ones pictured above are funfetti cake mix with funfetti icing sandwiched in between. 

I'm thinking of using some orange food coloring in the funfetti cake mix and making little pumpkin cookie sandwiches for our Halloween party. How cute would that be? Or you can make them into spiders with little licorice legs. 

 So there is a look at what I've been making lately. What have you been up to? Head on over to link up! 

Planbook.com and the BEST Pinterest Recipe

Wow, what a weekend! We had our big horse show on Saturday night and didn't get home until 5:00 AM Sunday morning! My husband's class went in the ring at 3:15 AM, but it was all worth it because he won. Sorry for all the nonteaching babble....but I'm awfully darn proud of my boys! Here we are after his show and now on to the teaching stuff.....

After a lot fo sleep I'm starting to feel like I'm coming back to life, so its time for some blogging fun! I'm linking up with two great bloggers today to share what I consider to be two must haves.

First up is Sabra's Must Have Monday linky.

I couldn't make it in my classroom without the Planbook.com site. I've used the site for two years now and I'll never go back to a paper grade book again. 

Here is a screenshot of my planbook earlier this year. You can click on any of the pictures to see a bigger view. 

The classes can be color coded and the times for classes can be easily modified at any time during the year. I like that there is no limit on how many classes I can add, so this year I split up my ELA block on my plans and had a section for writing, vocab, and mini-lessons. 

All my state standards (and a lot of others) are already loaded into the program, so I just go into each plan and add standards that way. There is also a separate section for notes and homework on each tab. I really like the notes feature because I use it to add in little reminders for myself, things I want to say during the lesson, and even links I plan on using. 

I consider Planbook.com to be one of the best finds on my teaching career. I keep it pulled up on my computer during the day so I have easy access to my plans without any clutter. I can quickly save a pdf and email plans to my principal. 

Best of all I can type instead of write and the older I get the worse my handwriting is getting - I can type so much faster than I write. I've also found that because the plans are online I'm more likely to make myself notes of what did/didn't work. 

Next up is my must have recipe from Pinterest. I've tried a lot of recipes from the site, but I'm declaring this one my all time favorite because it is so easy and yummy! 

Source: melskitchencafe.com via Courtney on Pinterest

This one is great for those busy nights! I like to put any leftover chicken I have from another dinner into one cup portions in the freeze and then pull it out for this recipe. I've also added in the rice and peppers and put it all in the freezer! 

I'm linking up with Christy from Teaching Tales from the Yellow Brick Road.