A freebie sandwich during my looong drive ahead!

 

Killer B took this photo of the Atlanta skyline!

So, my long vacation with Killer B to visit family in Georgia is finally at end. Time to head back home, which means a 14 hour drive that will potentially be ended with me coming home to a flooded basement...let's all keep those fingers crossed! 

Despite it being my vacation, I have been SUPER busy working nights on some ongoing projects for my own classroom and TpT store! I love that TpT kind of makes me prettify my stuff. I think the kids benefit because it's more engaging when it's cute. My Monday Made it is my freebie sandwich!

So, what's a freebie sandwich?! If you bear with me, there's a freebie, some jibber-jabber, a deal, and another freebie for you at the end! (Don't skip ahead! I won't know you cheated, but God will!)    ;)

First, a freebie. Before I even have my kids write their first word in  my writing workshop, I have them think and think some more about a nice list of things that they could write about. I don't want to be writing about "Small moments" like Lucy Caulkins says, and the kiddo can't even think about a big topic to get them started! So I usually start by having my kids brainstorm a list of things they love. I made this sheet to put in the front of their writing folders next year. It's "50 things I love..." Of course, I don't expect them to fill out the whole sheet at once, but I wanted them to have space to add things throughout the year. It would be a fun beginning of year activity too! If you download it and like it, I'd love for you to rate it!

Now for the jibber-jabber. I want to show you something I'm proud of. I have been working on this for a while now. I read this book and did these activities with my students this past year and we loved it. Tom Angleberger is the genius behind Origami Yoda. One of his newest books is Fake Mustache. It's all about this kid who has a friend named Casper that buys a fake mustache that has hypnotic powers. Casper eventually uses the power of the mustache to become president of the United States, but is thwarted by the two protagonists of the story, Lenny Flem Jr. and Jodie O'Rodeo. The book is great fun, and presents a lot of learning opportunities.

I especially like that it is really light hearted...which makes a great follow up to one of our more serious read-alouds like Wonder. (Check out my 170 page novel unit on that wonderful book!)

I prepared a lot of activities for Fake Mustache, including a lapbook that students can make and work on while reading the book. I wrote both comprehension and inferring questions for every chapter of the book. This unit also contains some of my more popular reading group activities, including my Theme Defense activity and my Teach Plot Three Ways graphic organizers, which can be used with any book. So you're really getting a deal when you buy the unit! I've got the entire Fake Mustache Novel Unit marked down to just $5 for the whole month of July! That's just 8 cents a page. Spread out over a 30 year teaching career...that's just .2777 of a cent per page! A steal, right?!

If your kids are anything like mine, they are probably obsessed with anything with a mustache on it. Aw, who am I kidding? So am I! So in honor of finishing my fake mustache unit, I made this cute little clip art collection of mustaches, in rainbow colors! I've been working on these for a while now too, and I was happy to finish them just as I wrapped up on my novel unit! Just $5 for all 156 images! (3 cents a mustache! Come on, people!)

Finally, I finished working on this fun little pack of worksheets. I've had my kids do this before, and they loved it. It makes a great math center, morning work activity, or fast finisher activity. I've even had kids ask to do it when we have to do indoor recess! 

Basically, the student rolls dice and then adds or multiplies (depending on the sheet, both are included!) to determine how many body parts their monster should have. Sometimes the things that come out of their minds when they draw are just awesome. Like this little guy in the picture here! 

So here's the deal. I have a 14 hour drive ahead of me. A cha-ching here and there would definitely make that drive more bearable! So, anyone who buys the Fake Mustache Novel Unit between now and when I get home around 8am Monday morning, (and e-mails me to let me know you saw this post!) can have their choice of the Mustaches Clip Art or the Roll and Draw a Monster sheets for free!

Not good enough, you say? Well, just for bearing with me this long, you can head on over to my facebook page and grab up your Fan Freebie for liking my page! Just click on the "Fan Freebie" tab to get your very own copy of my version of the "In Our Class" poster! I don't like the ones that say "We do kindness. We do edit.We do questions. etc." So, I made my own, more grammatically-pleasing-to-my-ears version! Here's what it looks like!

Thanks for taking part in my freebie sandwich! I hope you found something worthwhile! Please come back on Tuesday for info on my first linky ever...Tunes Tuesday! I'd love it if we had a lot of participation!