I'm on a roll...with pin fails and a sale...

I'm on a roll...with pin fails.

Read about the first one here.

I'm sure everyone needs a little more humor.

I tried to redeem myself with this to get the Thanksgivin' decor ready
and for dinner guests this evenin'.

I used leaves from my mother's tree in the backyard.  

Poor tree. 

It still doesn't look like the original pin, but it's better than the fake leaves.

The leaves didn't hang out in there too long before fallin' off...another fail.

I know you have seen these...cloves in oranges.

I'm not sure this project was meant for Cuties. 

It wasn't as fun as the pins look all over Pinterest.

I didn't bother searchin' for the original source...there are billions.

I know you've seen these.
If not, here is my Thanksgivin' board I created.

Juice squirted all over me.

Fail.

Looks so nice and festive...yes?

It really gave some pops of color on the counter for our guests to admire.

I guess the sayin' "All good things eventually come to an end" is true in this case.

Yep...another fail.

Can you guess what this one is?

My Dad:  "Is that a hermit crab?"  

My Nitty: "What is that?  Is that a rainbow or a dead turkey?"

While it tasted yum, nobody knew what it was except mom, Jerm and I since we

were the pin planners.

Another fail...this is gettin' embarrassin'.

These little Cuties made a cute lil' decoration.  After two hours of hangin' out naked on a plate, they were hard as a rock.  I had to take them out to the backyard for some birds to snack on.

Fail, fail, fail!

I've decided to give up recreatin' pins until Christmas.  

I'm goin' to focus the rest of my trip on these real life cuties.

My 92 year old Nitty.  I scooped her up in the Atlanta airport.
Definitely not a fail.

It's super strange to watch football in the mornin' here while eatin' breakfast with my 'rents.

We've found a fun lil' place that shows all of the games, has a yummy breakfast buffet and Build Your Own Bloody Mary table. Score! 

Helped my mommy decorate the monster tree.  

I only got through two big containers of ornaments and gave up.

I'll add more when I come back in a few weeks.

It felt too early to be thinkin' about Christmas for me...that's my story...

  Jerm and I have gone off on some adventures to Moss Landing and Santa Cruz.

We prefer to stick locally in Carmel, Monterey, Salinas, and the couch.

The couch is where it's at.

I wrote one of my college exam papers all about my livin' room & couch at my 'rents house. 

 No lie.

Family time + couch=not fail.

This is the poor tree I robbed leaves from.  

At least I got in a few pretty pictures before I ran off with its' clothin'.

Yay for me.  Fail for the tree!

If you haven't heard...there is a SALE comin' to TpT.  

My Wish List is already F-U-L-L!

My bank account is just now recoverin' from the Back 2 School sale.

My Alison Rose TpT store is on sale on 12/2 & 12/3 for 20% off.

Miss Nelson and I have also put our Double Trouble TpT store on sale durin' that time.

Be sure to use the code "CYBER" for a total of 28% off on your purchases.

Remember to always leave thoughtful feedback to earn credits back for yourself 

to go towards other purchases. 

Thank you to Hello Literacy Designs for the cute graphic.

Happy Thanksgiving y'all.

Five for Friday...'Twas the week before Thanksgivin'...

Today I am linkin' up again with Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday.  I had so much fun with this last week that I thought I'd try it again!  

Let's do this!

This afternoon I'll be flyin' on an airplane to CA to see my Mommy & Daddy...for one whole week!

Jerm and I will meet my Nitty in Atlanta and fly her out there with us.

I haven't seen my parents since January.  

The anticipation of seein' them is killin' me.

Today we will be watchin' Despicable Me in class.  This will be my first time watchin'.  I'm sure your reaction must be much like the kids' when I told them I had never seen it.  

We will also be doin' a fun activity called the Minion Maker that I scooped up from my buddy Matt at Digital Divide and Conquer.  Be sure to stop by Matt's store to get your very own copy and be sure to show him some love.

I've had a great response from my Christmas Behavior Beads (Special Edition) this week.  I am so thankful for TpT and the little bit of extra spendin' money I will have on my trips out to California durin' the holidays.  I enjoy makin' items for others as much as I enjoy purchasin' items from other people.  I love all of the creativity everyone has and it definitely makes plannin' easier on me!

Read about them here and scoop up a Thanksgivin' Behavior Beads FREEBIE.

I am in LOVE with Kate Peila's website/blog.  I am learnin' so many new techy things from her.  If you have not checked out her blog, Purely Paperless...click here...now!  This week I learned how to use "Split Screen" from the Google Chrome extensions and it's pretty much uh-mazin'!  How I have lived without this, I'm unsure.

Stephanie from Forever in Fifth Grade wrote an awesome blog post titled: 

"It's Beginning to Sound a lot like Christmas(and it's giving me a headache!)"

She has some great ideas to keep the holiday craziness to the minimum in the classroom and I will also be doin' this in my room.  I don't want to reveal too much because I have little eyes that read my blog sometimes.  More to come later; be sure to check back.

It's not too late for you to link up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday, 

if you haven't already.

It's not even Thanksgivin'...why Christmas already?

You may be thinkin' to yourself, "It's not even Thanksgivin'....why is Alison postin' about Christmas?"  Why are there Christmas displays out already at the stores?  Why do my neighbors have Christmas lights up and I still have Halloween decorations out?  These are all valid thoughts.

Maybe you are like me and you might be goin' out of town for the holidays. You might be in a panic about your lesson plans for the return of Thanksgivin' because you don't want to fly by the seat of your pants after break(at least I can't with 5th graders).  I already have a plan in place on what I am goin' to be doin' to manage the "Christmas Crazies" aka the "Behavior Banshees" for the 14 1/2 days between breaks.

I have put together a special edition set of Christmas Behavior Beads.

My sweet model, Morgs showin' off the Christmas Behavior Beads!  She doesn't know yet that her 2nd grade teacher will be usin' them also.  She just kept sayin' "These are so cute!"  Love her!

Here is the official list of the 12 Christmas Behavior Beads:

~Jingle Bell Rockin' and Following Directions
~I'm a Joy to the World
~I'm Happy for the Holidays
~I'm on the Nice List!
~Spreading Cheer to Others
~Sleigh Bells Ring and I'm Listening
~Work, Work as fast as I can
~I Believe I can Shine
~Up on the Rooftop of my A.R. goal
~Santa's Little Helper
~'Tis the Season to be Awesome
~O' Christmas Tree, My Teacher is Proud of Me

For those of you that made it all the way down the post...here is a FREEBIE for you
a Thanksgiving Behavior Bead that says "My teacher is thankful for me!"

Tried It Tuesday...Let's talk turkey...

It's Tuesday...It's Tuesday...It's Tuesday...time for Tried It Tuesday with my buddy, Holly, from Fourth Grade Flipper.  I just love, love, love readin' about everyone's awesomeness on Tuesdays.

 

I'm sure many of you communicate with your friends and loved ones about your "bloggin' life" and they may or may not tune out when you start speakin' "bloggy language".  Yes?  I had to share somethin' funny that happened on Sunday night...Monday mornin' in the wee hours.  I couldn't sleep...I had woken up and was restless, so I decided to post my Monday Made It and am pretty sure I woke up the neighborhood with the brightness of the computer screen.  I later told Jerm I was so tired and was super jealous that he slept so soundly the night before.  I mean...he really should have been awake, sufferin' like I was. Anyways...he said, "What's the matter?  You couldn't sleep?  Did you put up your TRIED IT MONDAY?"   I busted out laughin'...it was just too much and so very funny.  At least he half listens. 

My one and only awesomeness:Let's Talk Turkey
I happened upon this activity on TpT and knew immediately that my boys and girls needed to do this activity as a home task because one of the choices is to go to a grocery store.  Although we have a Publix right down the road, it's too late for me to get a field trip organized.  Bonus...it's free and you can grab it here. 

Here is the product description:

Reinforce your students' knowledge of estimating and addition with decimals with this "delicious" assignment! Students estimate the price of a Thanksgiving meal for a family of four people. They have four choices on how to gather the data, and then prepare presentation boards. This assignment is a perfect fit for classrooms with gifted and talented cluster groupings of students. A rubric is included that assesses all components of the assignments and ability levels.

Samples:

Thanksgiving Day feast at a restaurant.

 Estimated cost of the meal.

Actual cost of the meal.

 

Menu for the Thanksgiving feast @ Old Mill Restaurant in Pigeon Forge, TN.

This student only has three members in her family.  Since you have to have four people, she added me as her pretend guest...a pretend "child" guest.

  Thanksgiving Dinner Essentials from Publix Super Market.  This sweet student has six people in her family.  She got to choose which four members actually got to eat the pretend meal and who did not.  She chose her parents and her sister.  Her brothers had to eat cereal outside.  She was goin' to give them leftovers, but they wouldn't eat them.

 Estimated and actual cost of the meal for a family of four.

 Estimated Cost of a meal to cook at home.

Actual cost for a family of four to eat at a restaurant buffet.

 I love how all the pictures are in a pumpkin pie design.

 This student went to the grocery store to get the estimated and actual cost.

I like how he chose to add the difference between the estimated and actual cost and how much over the estimate the meal actually turned out to be.

Love this place setting of a turkey dinner.

 The turkey is at the table.

 Actual photos from the items at the grocery store. 

This one cracked me up!

 The tabs have the estimate on one side and the actual cost on the other.

The pilgrim has all of his food in his mouth.

Lots of color and detail on this one.

Leaves glued on a shiny poster.

Love the hand-drawn leaf designs on this poster.

The items are on the tables.

Up close of the table.

This family decided to actually make the meal.

Dad enjoyed modeling for the picture.  

I will be addin' more pictures as more projects come in.  I can't wait to see what the kids come up with.  This is a great review for them as we continue our adventures with decimals and they get to have some fun with their family on this project.

Be sure to check out the rest of the Tried it Tuesdays on Holly's blog.