Archive for September 2009
The Giveaway – you give away!
No Time For Flash Cards doesn’t usually do giveaways, we stick to our crafts and books and silly songs most of the time, but sometimes you have an opportunity to help and you simply can’t say no. When I was approached to help spread the word about Office Max’s ” A Day Made Better” I didn’t even look at my schedule, I just said yes. As a former teacher I know how important this issue is. We simply don’t value our public school teachers near enough and it’s time to show them we care, this campaign is a great way to do that.
OfficeMax joined with Adopt-A-Classroom to create “A Day Made Better“—a national cause event founded to erase teacher-funded classrooms. “A Day Made Better” will be held on October 6th and 1,000 teachers will be surprised in their classrooms each with $1,000 worth of essential supplies from OfficeMax. That’s more than one million dollars donated to help teachers! Principals at needy schools nominated the teachers for demonstrating dedication, innovation, and passion.
To pay-it-forward, OfficeMax and Mom It Forward have teamed up to create awareness about the issue of teacher-funded classrooms and to give you the opportunity to get involved and help a teacher in your community on behalf of the “A Day Made Better.” Here’s how…
Nominate a teacher of your choice to win this giveaway by following the entry requirements. Be sure to check out the prize and criteria!
Prize
One exceptional teacher will receive a ONE HUNDRED DOLLAR gift card to OfficeMax. This can go a long way when it comes to classroom supplies!
Criteria
This is a giveaway that is meant to be given away. What does that mean? You get to nominate a teacher by sharing why this person is exceptional and deserving of this giveaway. The best part, every story told helps raise awareness in an effort to erase teacher-funded classrooms. The winning teacher will be chosen based on the following criteria, so be sure to tell us why your teacher is most deserving:
- Dedication: does everything in his/her power to deliver the best possible education for his/her students.
- Innovation: thinks outside the box and engages his/her students through creative learning activities & programs.
- Passion: expresses a genuine passion for education and shares this enthusiasm in the classroom.
- Need: demonstrates a need for essential classroom supplies.
Entry Requirements
To enter your teacher, you are required to do two things.
(Note: post a separate comment for each entry.)1. Nominate them through a blog post or on Whrrl.
Write a post on your blog.
- You can include photos, video, etc. but please stay under 400 words or 3 minutes.
- Please include these links: http://adaymadebetter.com or @adaymadebetter.
- Include a link to your post in the comments section.
OR
Create a story on Whrrl.com.
- Go to our custom Whrrl page at http://whrrl.com/search?q=omx, click “Start A Story” and upload photos and text about why your teacher is most deserving.
- Be sure to include the #omx hashtag in the text of your story.
- Post a link to your Whrrl story in the comments section.
OR
** Updated to make it easier! Leave a Comment Here
- Simply click on comments and nominate!
- Make sure you address the criteria !
- You must still do the 2nd requirement below and come back leave a link to it!
-
- Teachers spend avg $1200 of own $$ on school supplies annually! Help erase teacher-funded classrooms. http://bit.ly/3VUNvC PLS RT #omx
- Nominate a teacher 2 win $100 in OfficeMax classroom supplies. Enter here: http://www.notimeforflashcards.com/2009/09/help-us-help-teachers.html PLS RT #omx
- Join the “A Day Made Better” movement to end teacher-funded classrooms at http://bit.ly/UJ3LF #omx
2. Post these messages on Facebook and/or Twitter.
More than 30 sites are participating in this campaign between now and Sunday, October 4. Visit http://momitforward.com for a list of all the giveaways! You may enter a different teacher on every site, but you may only win once!
Thanks so much for helping pay-it-forward to teachers in your community! Please join us on Tuesdays, September 22 and 29 from 9 to 11 pm ET for Girls Night Out (#gno) on Twitter if you’d like to meet the team behind the cause: @officemax, @adaymadebetter and @Adopt_Classroom. Hope to see you there!
Fine Print
Entries are due Sunday, October 4 by midnight PDT. No purchase necessary to enter. Winners will be selected by me based on the entry that in my opinion meets the above criteria. OfficeMax, Adopt-A-Classroom and Mom It Forward play no part in choosing the winner of this giveaway. OfficeMax, Adopt-A-Classroom, and Mom It Forward employees are ineligible to enter. In a spirit of fairness, my personal friends and family members are also ineligible. Entries that do not follow all of the entry requirements will not be considered. The winner will be notified and have 24 hours to confirm receipt of the email. If no response is received within 24 hours, another winner will be selected. Open to participants in the U.S. 18 years and older.
by Marie LeBaron
$7 that is all this ebook costs to download, $7 ! Let me tell you it will be $7 you won’t regret spending. This book is packed with Monster activities that you will say ” Oh why didn’t I think of that?” and ” My kid is going to love it! ” and they will. Crafts, learning activities and even fun in the kitchen is covered in the 70 page book with full color photographs, step by step instructions and realistic expectations. When the author Marie LeBaron from Make and Takes sent me a copy to review I couldn’t wait . I love her blog and one thing I have always admired about Marie besides how down to earth she is , are her realistic expectations of the kids doing the activities. I am sure this comes from being a former teacher as well as a mom, she knows what kids can do and doesn’t expect them to make crafts or eat food that is simply not kid friendly. There are crafts you can make to encourage pretend play , my favorite were hairy monster feet! There are magnets and puppets and I am craving some candy after looking at the cupcakes! Something I loved in this book was how she lays out the learning objectives for each activity, so often people don’t recognize the immense amount of tangible learning that arts and crafts offer and to see it spelled out for each of these was helpful and nice. Another awesome thing was the long list of monster books for your little ones to read, if you read No Time For Flash Cards often you know I always like to link in books so this list sealed the deal for me. Great book for kids and parents to have fun and be silly together.
To find out how to get your own copy visit
Disclosure : The product reviewed was provided for me free of charge. I was not compensated in any other way for this review. These opinions are my personal opinions only.
Beautiful Branch
This craft was one of those ideas that I had and hoped I wouldn’t regret. Food coloring , small eye droppers that squirt and a toddler could have been a recipe for disaster but not only did we have fun and survive , how awesome are those leaves? I was planning on posting this next week but couldn’t wait to share. We have been talking a lot about the changing colors we see on our tress but this could also be used for a fun garland if you don’t want to make a branch.
- Gather your materials. You will need some coffee filters, a large piece of construction paper ( white or brown), red, yellow and green food coloring, eye droppers,3 small dishes , water ,crayons, scissors and glue.
- Start by drawing a branch .
- Have your child color the branch they can add more branches if they like too!
- While they do that draw leaves on the coffee filters.
- Pour some water along with the food coloring into the small containers, pop the eye droppers in ( one per color)- a big tip put a thick fabric place mat under your child when they are doing this step. It will absorb the coloring so it doesn’t get on other things. Of course this will stain it so do not use your new William Sonoma ones !
- Using the eye dropper drop the colors onto the coffee filter leaves.
- Use multiple colors for each leaf if you want. Using an eye dropper is intricate and helps develop your child’s fine motor skills.
- Let dry- ours dried over night.
- Cut out the branch
- Cut out the leaves
- Add glue to the branch
- Add your leaves and let dry.
Easy Cut & Paste Flowers
This craft was fast which was perfect for our day. Sometimes my son is all over the place, and a quick sit down activity like this will center him enough that we can go one to something less fun ( like errands) without a fuss. I love using things in my recycle pile and today I had the fall parks and rec brochure that was begging to be turned into art. If you don’t have buttons, pom poms, or even just colored paper could be substituted in their place.
- Gather your materials. You will need 2 pieces of construction paper , some newsprint, buttons, glue, scissors and a marker. I originally was going to have my son use the markers to color the flowers but he had no interests and I am glad he didn’t I liked how they turned out better!
- Start by drawing a flower on the newsprint. If your child is able and willing, have them do this step.
- Cut out
- Cut out some stems and leaves
- Add glue to where you want the flowers to be.
- Add your flowers.
- Add glue to the middle
- Add your buttons.
- Add glue for the stem and leaves
- Add the stem and let dry.
- Add glue for the leaves.
- Add the leaves.
- Share these flowers with someone special- they last longer than real ones.
Song
Feeling musical? Click here to see our “Daisy Song” video with lyrics.
Books
” A Gardener’s Alphabet” by Mary Azarian is a fresh and so richly illustrated alphabet book you will likely have the same thoughts I did while reading it with my son ” I need to frame these pages!” they are that awesome. What I think the main benefit of this book is , is that the words chosen for each letter are not the same old ones you see over and over in alphabet books. The words used are things like Japanese Garden for J, Lawn Ornaments for L and my favorite was Underground for U with a cool illustrations of worms, root vegetables and roots !
“Planting A Rainbow” by Lois Elhert is a wonderful book to use for teaching about flowers and colors. The illustrations are bold and bright, perfect for little curious minds. I have always liked this book because you can sit down and dive into it reading each flowers name on every page , or browse it more casually with a younger child simply noting the colors.
“Chrysanthemum” by Kevin Henkes is a lovely book about having confidence, loosing confidence and regaining it in the end. Chrysanthemum is a little mouse who loves her name until she goes to school and is picked on for it being out of the ordinary. Who can’t relate to this? I know I can . Thankfully my son has yet to experience this all too common, but still so heartbreaking experience . I love that I have a book like this to share with him and open up about it before it happens. Ultimately Chrysanthemum learns to love her name again and regains the confidence she once had. Another fantastic book from a consistently wonderful author.
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Hand Print Hen !
We love The Big Red Barn, it calms me to read it before my son’s nap or bedtime and the more I read it the more I love it. So I wanted to do some sort of farm animal craft to go along with it. This is what we came up with. I love crafts that use personal touches like pictures and hand prints, and so do kids. They enjoy seeing how their hand prints turn into feathers and the crown on this chicken.
- Gather your materials. You will need some cardboard or heavy paper, some markers, 2 sheets white paper, red and orange construction paper, one googly eye, scissors and glue.
- Start by drawing the outline of a chicken .
- Trace your child’s hand on the orange paper- just once, one time is hard enough!
- Have your child color the outline however they please.
- While they color the chicken layer the white and red paper under the hand tracing .
- Cut out. You should have one red, 1-2 orange and 4 white.
- Hand your child the glue and explain that the white and orange hand prints are the chicken’s feathers. Add the glue.
- Add the “feathers”
- While they do that cut a beak and some legs and feet out from the extra orange paper.
- Add your eye
- Add your beak
- Add the glue for the crown.
- Add the red hand print for the crown.
- Add your legs and let dry.
Books
“Big Red Barn” by Margaret Wise Brown is the inspiration for this craft, and an increasingly one of my very favorite books. The story is simple readers see a day in the life of a big red barn and all the animals inside. Each animal is introduced in the seamless text that reads like a melodic poem. It’s calm , soothing and Felicia Bond’s illustrations are perfect, I love how the sky subtly changes as the night beckons. A wonderful book for anytime, but especially poignant before bed.
“One Little Chicken : A Counting Book” by David Elliot was a great library find. You count chickens as they dance all different styles, my favorite being the chickens who dance the hula ! The rhyming text is really fun and the pictures will make you giggle, I mean there are chickens in leotards doing ballet! Totally tickled my funny bone. The best part though is that it gets the reader involved after counting to ten, the chickens turn the tables stare at the reader and implore them to dance! One of my new favorite counting books.
“Silly Chicken” by Ruskhsana Khan is an interesting book about so much more than a chicken. It’s a tale of jealousy and love, and how neither are silly at all. In the story a little girl is jealous of her mother’s attachment to a chicken but things shift when it disappears. I think this book can open up dialogue between parents and kids about saying things you don’t mean , and how they would feel if what they said really did come true. My son read the book with me but the depth of the book was too complex for him. He still enjoyed the surprise ending and book overall either way.
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