Covered Goods = Must Have

With Christmas around the corner and baby showers popping up if your looking for the perfect gift I highly recommend Covered Goods 4 - in - 1 nursing cover. It truly is the best gift to receive or to give. Why, you may ask? Well because it is so multi-functional it will be used by mom or baby in some form or another. 

Ok,Ok, Ok, I know your first thought. She isn't planning on breastfeeding or you have know clue how she plans on feeding her baby. Well, here again is why it's the best present to give. No matter the time of year the nursing cover can be used as a car seat canopy. This helps shield baby from germs and nosy shoppers at the store and also the weather. Score right. This helps ease Mama's mind and not feeling rude that she has to say please don't touch or get to close to our new bundle of joy. There is an opening at the top that you can peak through and see the baby.  You can also use it as a blanket when wearing your baby in a carrier.( new tip I found on their Instagram) 

If worse comes to worse who doesn't love a new scarf. Scarves are always in style and getting something new for you is always a plus when every other gift at the shower is for baby. It's nice to get pampered once in awhile and plus you can totally rock it as a shawl too. 

This gift keeps on giving let me tell you. Once baby gets a little older you can use it as a shopping cart cover when you are out and about. Like I said earlier this thing as a million functions. 

Right now they are offering 15% off with code OFFER15 at checkout until 11/15/2016. Great time to snag a gift that keeps on giving! 

Covered Goods

Some pictures that where used on this post came from Covered Goods website and I give full credit to them. 

Modern Minnie

Well it's almost Halloween weekend and if your like me you wait until the last minute to get a costume. Then you realize its a little to late so you better being getting your hot glue gun out and making something fast. I decided that I would do a litte DIY with a modern twist on a classic, Minnie Mouse. I love LuLaRoe and have a ton of piece already hanging in my closet. So when I'm able to take things I already have ( go cheap or go home lol) and make them into something else it makes me happy. I knew I had this super cute polka dotted Imra and white leggings that I could use for the base of my costume. The only thing I was missing was the famous ears. Since I live like 3829567381 miles away from Disney or the closest mall I knew I was going to have to make them. So of course I went to good ole Pinterest and gathered some ideas. I decided I was going to make wire Minnie Mouse ears and here is how I did it.

What you will need

• Hot Glue Gun & Sticks
• Head Band
• Jewelry Wire  
• Ribbon
• Scissors
• Candle 
• Plastic Hair Rubber-bands 

I started out by using a candle for the model and shape of the ears. I simply wrapped the wire around the candle and cut the wire. I did this two times to get both of my ears. 

I then hot glued them onto my headband. To cover the ugly glue I decided to cover the wire that attaches to the head band with the same color ribbon as the headband. All I did was tack the ribbon with hot glue and wrapped it all the way around. 

The last thing I did was make a simple bow. All you do is cut the ribbon as long as you want and loop it together attaching it with hot glue. Once you have made it into a loop hot glue it in half. Then where you just glued pinch it in half and I put a little plastic hair rubber-band to secure it into place. Then I took a small piece of ribbon and glued it over top of the hair band to hide it. Once my bow was done I glued into the position I wanted it on my head band. 

It took my probably 25 to 30 minutes to complete the head band. I didn't think it was too shaby for never making one before. 

This new take on Minnie was a success and only costed me about 10 bucks. I think that is pretty good considering I'm only going to wear it once. I hope this helps all those procrastination folks like me. Happy Halloween!

Library Pokemon Edition

October is start of a new theme here in the library. Of course your first guess would be a Halloween theme right? Wrong, well kind of wrong, I chose to do a Pokemon theme with my 3rd and 4th graders and Halloween for kindergarten through 2nd grade. Pokemon is the total craze right now with our students. So, I thought why not try to incorporate something these kids like with something they can learn. I decided that the first week of October would be dedicated to learning more about our library. The game plan was to come up with a scavenger hunt with a Pokemon twist. 

Each grade was divided into groups of four. Each team then was given the clues to find the hidden creatures. First group that found all the Pokemon won a trip to my prize box. Every group that found ten or more got a point for their team. 
4th grade drew team instinct and 3rd then got team mystic. There are two posters in front of the library that has team's point on them. This way its a good reminder to students who is winning and what they need to do beat the other grade. It's only up to help motivate my students to succeed.  

The rest of the month I was a little sneaky and hopefully my students haven't figured it out yet but we are reading and taking AR( Accelerated Reader) test to gain more points for their teams. We went over different genres and what type of books would fit into them. Each student was then given almost like a bingo card full of different genres. The goal is for each student to read one book from each genre for the rest of the month and pass their AR test on each book. For each AR test taken and passed they get to write their book title that they read along with their name on another poster outside the library. Every time they get to do that they get to add a point for their team. Other times when I try to get students to read for pleasure or for class its like pulling teeth but making this into a game has totally changed their eagerness to read. That is where my sneakiness has come into play, they are reading more because they think it is a game. 

Down below you can find my scavenger hunt worksheet along with my genre card that I used for my classes. Please feel free to use them! Let me know if you did any Pokemon activities in your class and how they turned out. Remember you have got to read them all! 


Scavenger Hunt Worksheet 

There are 15 Pokemon hiding in the library. Can you find them all? Each student will take a turn finding the hidden Pokemon. Write what book or object the Pokemon is hiding in to get credit. First group done wins.

11.     Caterpie is a bookworm and is reading the library’s newest books.

_____________________________________________________________

22.     Bulbasaur is reading all of the Dork Diaries series.

_____________________________________________________________

33.     Squirtle likes to read magazines.

_____________________________________________________________

44.     Charmander likes reading mystery novels and tries to solve the mystery before the end of the book.

_____________________________________________________________

55.     Jigglypuff likes to listen to books on CDs.

_____________________________________________________________

66.     Meowth is reading a comic book.

_____________________________________________________________

77.     Eevee wants to learn how to start a garden.

_____________________________________________________________

88.     Snorlax is relaxing on one of the comfy reading seats in the library.

_____________________________________________________________

99.     Onix is reading through all the encyclopedia entries, starting with aardvark.

_____________________________________________________________

110.  Bellsprout is using one of the computers for research.

_____________________________________________________________

111. Pikachu wants to be a librarian and is hanging out at the checkout counter.

_____________________________________________________________

112.  Krabby is hungry and is looking up recipes in the cook books.

_____________________________________________________________

113.    Gastly is looking for a Goosebumps book.

_____________________________________________________________

114.  Gyarados is readying a West Virginia Author novel.

_____________________________________________________________

115.  Zubat wants to create Halloween crafts using all of Mrs. Nestor’s supplies.

_____________________________________________________________

Genre Card 

Science Fiction	Autobiography	Mystery
Fairy Tale	Free Choice	Biography
Tall Tales	Nonfiction	Realistic Fiction

Thackery Binx's Fan Club

Halloween is right around the corner and I'm so excited for it. One of my all time favorite Halloween movies is Hocus Pocus. I always thought Thackery Binx was the cats meow. When I came across Huckleberry Threads I knew I had found a store that I would fall in love with. Not only did they have the PURRRfect shirt for me they also had crazy cheap shirts for my son. Truthfully that's one of the major reasons why I love this company, their prices. I hate when you are scrolling through IG come across the most adorable shirt go to their website and see it's priced outrageously.  I think you cat to be kitten me right now! Come on I know your trying to make money but for real?

I promise you won't be saying that or have that look of disgust on your face when you go to their website. The quality of the shirt is PAWsitively amazing.  I have washed and dried it several times because in all honestly I wear this shirt year round. The color is yet to fade. Ok all of the cat jokes aside you really need to check out Huckleberry Threads.  If your in the need for the perfect Halloween shirt I highly recommend Huckleberry Thread's Thackery Binx Fan Club shirt. Link down below.

Huckleberry Threads

Cayden & Co.

I stumbled upon Cayden & Co. one day while scrolling through IG and thought to myself why haven't I been following them? I absolutely fell in love with this brand and the cute mom and son duo behind the scene. I originally found this store while searching for shirts for my son to wear to Disney. I automatically knew I was going to order about six different shirts off of her when I pulled up her Etsy store. Each shirt is perfectly cleaver and represents everything I love about Disney. The awesome part was she also has Harry Potter shirts. I can't help myself I'm a Potter head( I blame it on the librarian side of me) and with Halloween coming up I knew I had to get my hands on some of these shirts. So of course I went on a little shopping spree.

A few short weeks later I got my package in the mail. I love mail days. I feel like its Christmas all over again. When I opened my package I could not get over the quality of these shirts. Kace's shirts are sooooo soft. I literally can't get over it. It has been the best feeling/ quality shirt for my son that I have bought off the internet. For real though I can not get over the feel of his shirts.

I'm so excited though to use his shirt as part of his Halloween costume. Weather here in the mountain state is really unpredictable especially around Halloween. It's always a challenge to find a costume that can keep your child warm while out trick or treating. That's why this year I decided to use this amazing gold lettered shirt as the base of his costume. I'll post a blog soon about his Halloween costume but until then make sure you check out Cayden & Co. on IG and her Etsy shop: CaydenAndCo

Fall to Us

Pumpkin spiced everything is finally acceptable and I couldn't be any happier! I'm so glad that it is technically fall but Mother Nature around here believes we need a heat wave of upper 80's everyday. So to try to put us all in the fall spirit my little man and I did a little arts and crafts. So I looked at the word fall and tried to come up with words that we like but that also represents the meaning of fall to us.

Let's start with the letter "F". This one was a little tricky to come up with at first but then it hit me like a ton of bricks. I'm out number two to one and when football is on tv you better believe that's what we are watching. Even though my little man is only two he loves football. Him and his dad can play for hours running around the house saying hike or hut hut and the ball being thrown everywhere. I'm just sooo looking forward to when he becomes older and all my house decor becomes broke from said game. No really I hope he continues to love the sport like he does now. It's a great bonding time between the most important men in my life. So to make this first letter I decided to get a brown stamp pad for him to use his fingers with. I let him get all messy and honestly that's what makes it fun. After he was done stamping with his fingers I turned his thumb prints into footballs. 

Now we are on to letter "A" which was quite simple, apples. Little man loves to eat apples anytime he can. Oh and apple juice don't even get my started on. Let's just say right now his favorite flavor of anything is apple. This was my favorite letter to create. I took an apple and cut in half and brought red and green paint outside. Instead of using a traditional paint brush he used the apple to paint with. His painting turned out really cute but I butchered it when I tried making it into the letter "A". You would think after how many years of school that I would be able to draw a block or bubble letter but nope. Still can't and don't think I ever will be able to. So please over look my horrible letters. 

Then we come to down to the last two letters "L". One of my personal favorite things about fall is all the leaves changing color and falling to the ground. So Kace and I went out on the hunt for leaves one afternoon and gathered as many as our hands could hold. After we got back we broke out the good ole glue and started glueing leaves to his paper. We talked about colors as we glued them on. 

In the end we came up with what fall meant to us football, apples, and leaves. Now Kace has a new door sign for his bedroom but the best part is that he made it and learned while doing it. Hope you all enjoy fall as much as we do. 

Apple Butter For All

Since we have been talking about Johnny Appleseed I decided to make apple butter for my classes for them to sample. I was amazed of the amount of students that had never tasted it before. Of course I checked to see if anyone was allergic and if so they had an alternative sample of apple juice. I went through the process of how I made the apple butter with them and preservative measures we use to ensure a life of a product. Here is the recipe I used. 

Ingredients

• 6 pounds apples (A mixture of sweet apples, such as honey crisp, pink lady, gala or golden delicious works best)
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1 Tablespoon cinnamon
• ½ teaspoon nutmeg
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 1 Tablespoon vanilla extract

Instructions

1. Core, peel and slice apples and place in a pot on the stove.
2. Mix together sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt.
3. Toss apple slices with with sugar mixture.
4. Crush large apple pieces with a spoon while the apples cook down.
5. Cook on low for about 7 to 10 hours depending on the amount of liquid in the pot.
6. Stir in vanilla extract.
7. Allow apples to cool slightly and then puree with an blender (or transfer in batches to a food processor.)
8. Transfer to air tight containers and store in refrigerator for up to two weeks or store in the freezer for up to 2 months.

The kids loved it and enjoyed taste testing. Let me know how yours turned out if you decide to give it a try. It's the perfect recipe for a rainy day when your stuck inside with not a lot to do. 

Best Job Ever shirt is from one of my favorite stores on Instagram. Go check them out! Ezra and Eli