Monday Made It and Read Read Read

It's Monday and that means I'm linking up with two wonderful gals:  Fourth Grade Frolics and Kellee at Unleashing Readers for their linky parties.  This is a quick week on both accounts.  We are in FULL on SOFTBALL mode and spending our weekends traveling to tournaments.  Nine games of softball in four days takes a little recovery, and I'm too tired to be super crafty!

This week I made some cute push pins for my bulletin boards.  

I found these wooden school shapes at AC Moore, and simply glued them to the back of a push pin.... real creative, I  know.  One of the bulletin boards in the front of my room stays basically the same all year long.  This is where I will be placing agendas, and work for absent students, and I'll be using it for my math group board and ticket out the door.  The push pins just simply make it more fun.  They were easy to create, and I may make a few more using magnets for the rest of my walls.  Be sure to use a high heat glue gun so they stay on.

I also made a Common Core Checklist for my math standards that will hopefully save me a little time and keep me on track in the classroom.  You can go {HERE} to check them out in my TpT Store, or {HERE} to see the blogpost I wrote.

To Link up with Kellee at Unleasing Readers, I read Gingersnap by Patricia Riley Giff.

Here is the summary from Good Reads:

It's 1944, W.W. II is raging. Jayna's big brother Rob is her only family. When Rob is called to duty on a destroyer, Jayna is left in their small town in upstate New York with their cranky landlady. But right before he leaves, Rob tells Jayna a secret: they may have a grandmother in Brooklyn. Rob found a little blue recipe book with her name and an address for a bakery. When Jayna learns that Rob is missing in action, she's devastated. Along with her turtle Theresa, the recipe book, and an encouraging, ghostly voice as her guide, Jayna sets out for Brooklyn in hopes of finding the family she so desperately needs.

Honestly, This book didn't do much for me.  I was interested because WWII was the setting, and I am teaching that this year.  I was looking for a few books that I could recommend to students while I was teaching this part of history.  I will still mention it to my students, and I may have a few girls who pick it up because it shares recipes that Jayna's cooks as she is waiting for her brother, but overall, I felt the writing was quick and forced.  I didn't really connect with the characters, and as much as Giff was attempting to draw me in to rooting for this family to come together,  I felt there could have been better connections and back stories told.

Stop by and visit these two wonderful ladies to get your craft on AND find a few good books to lose yourself in this week!