March Favorites

When I am looking for new books to read or new makeup to try, I always look online to read reviews or watch a youtube video review. I love that places like sephora, target, and ulta will let me return products I try that just don't work for me, but I don't like the time wasted with trips back to the stores to have to return something.

Easy DIY Essential Oils Rollers

If you are relatively new to using essential oils then you will love this post and video! This was something that was so simple yet I didn't think about doing it until after I had used oils for a few months. Mixing my own roller bottles was so helpful to me and allowed me make the most of my awesome starter kit! I loved being able to keep the bottle of Thieves that came in the starter kit in my kitchen but also have roller bottles with diluted theives in each of my daughters' rooms which was so convenient. So...watch the video and then check out the roller bottle "recipes" or mixes below to give you some ideas to get you started!

Latest Beauty Favs

Do you ever watch makeup tutorials on youtube? A couple times a year I'll get in the mood to freshen up my makeup routine or see what new products are popular and I'll get hooked watching videos online for a few hours. I find I only ever have time to do this over a long break from school and usually during the winter. So over winter break last month I got the itch to try a few new products after I received a gift card to Sephora for Christmas.

Essential Oils: December ER Order

Here's a quick video I made to share what I purchased last month on my Young Living Essential Rewards order. I signed up for essential rewards over a year ago and each month I earn reward points back that I can use just like cash to purchase other products. A few months after I ordered my starter kit, I realized Young Living had so many different products I wanted to try AND I would be reordering some of the oils I had started using a lot {like lavender and lemon} quite frequently so it just made sense to order through Essential Rewards to earn FREE product! I hope to keep up with making a video each month to share everything I order. I LOVE getting to peek inside other people's orders to see what they love and are using. If you have any questions about essential oils or the video feel free to email me or comment below. Thanks for watching!

<< check out all my posts on essential oils here or to order your own starter kit click here >>

Get Organized: Printable Calendars

I'm excited to share these printable calendars you can use to start off twenty-sixteen prepared (even though its already the 10th!) and organized. I changed the look of this black and white calendar just a smidge but overall it looks pretty much the same! There is a landscape and a portrait version so just choose what works best for you and your notebook/binder setup or purpose for the calendar (meal planning, activity schedules, etc.)

I prefer the landscape version even though I put it in my 8.5 x 11" notebook. I just prefer the date boxes to be more square than rectangular so I don't mind turning my notebook to the side when I'm writing on it. I use a disc-bound notebook (find these here) so I can fold the entire notebook in half which makes it easy to write on without my fist/arm bumping into typical binder rings.

I also keep a copy of this calendar when scheduling my long-range plans for my classroom. I like to have a master copy that I can refer back to during the year to see when I taught different units/concepts.

Another copy hangs on my fridge for meal-planning like in the picture. I don't always plan out our meals like this every month, but its something I try to do as much as possible.

You can use these printable calendars so many different ways which is why I update them every year because I use them so much. Check out my these calendars in my Etsy shop HERE!

Free Christmas and Holiday Card Printable

I needed {and wanted} to make new Christmas cards to print and have ready to go for coworkers, my students, and to attach to a few gifts so these are what I came up with. I've been all about switching some of my home decor from a maroon/deep red to more of a "true" red this season. Just been my personal preference this year so that's what I went for on these cards as well. Click on the pics below to download from google drive or in my TpT store HERE for free. Enjoy!

Map Skills with a Holiday Twist

Last week we were reading all about maps and learning about how to use them. I came across a great map making activity by Kindergarten Corps. and I loved how simple it would be to prepare and that the kids would get to create their own maps! She even included a free printable legend. Since the holidays are just around the corner, I knew my students would love this activity but wanted to put a little holiday twist! We made "Christmas Village Maps" by using holiday scrapbook paper, stickers, and foam shapes. My students had a blast and I will definitely be including this activity next year. Go check out Kindergarten Corps post HERE about her activity and check out the pictures below to see how we changed it up for the holidays! 

Keep reading until the end to see what I'm teaching this week! :)

I grabbed the stickers, foam shapes, and washi tape at Michael's craft store. I already had the scrapbook paper on hand so I cut it into small squares (3x3) and cut triangles for the roofs to match. We used washi tape for the lines on the roads...thought that turned out especially cute!

As a class, we decided on 6 things to put on our legends. They chose lake, forest, my house, restaurant, toy store, and streets. We created the legend first and then they got busy creating their maps based off of the legend.

This week, we're reading The Legend of the Poinsettia, which is one of my favorite Christmas books! Most of my students don't know what a poinsettia is and they think its so cool to find out how they came to be...well, at least according to the legend. ;)

I'm using the Legend of the Poinsettia printables from my Sticky Note Holiday pack to work on making predictions and summarizing. I always have my students make a poinsettia out of red construction paper so if I get a chance I'll post about that later this week. You can check out my Sticky Note Holiday pack by clicking on the picture below. I have LOTS printables included in it for several favorite holiday books!