Spending a few days in VEGAS with the Prez and more than 800 teachers at the TpT conference left my garden in desperate need of attention … but that didn’t stop me from making some FRESH SALSA on Monday afternoon with produce plucked right out of the garden.

What do you think? My version has the same ingredients as this yummy version we pay dearly for at Sammy’s Club. After blanching the tomatoes, chopping them along with  jalapeño peppers, onions, and cilantro, I understand the cost! We will make more as we have tomatoes and cilantro. YUM-MY! Can you tell which one is mine???

Speaking of tomatoes, my next Made It involves more fresh food goodness!

Nothing really to show here except I am picking several cherry tomatoes a day now. I pick them and Li’l Bit eats them. 😀 She LOVES fresh tomatoes as much as her Momma! End of story.

And yesterday, the kids and I headed out to pick more blackberries for jam. Sadly, we didn’t find enough for a batch. Not to worry, we had them for dinner with a yummy topping full of cake mix and butter. 😀 While we were out hunting for blackberries, we harvested a 5-gallon bucket of corn! And promptly ate several ears of it for dinner. Yes, I made it in the microwave folks. Just keeping it real.

Anyone who knows me in real life knows that I actually kept our microwave in the GARAGE for 10 years and rarely used it. Ahem. Then we moved and it moved back into the kitchen. And it is so tempting, setting there mocking me, as if to say, Use me. Use me. I am so fast. And I radiate your food. You know you like it! Alas, we ate it and we are all still here. But it wasn’t as good as it would have been if I had cooked it in a rolling boil over time. Next time, I will!

And finally, I got out of the kitchen and made something for our library. Actually, I ordered some things from Tar-get ON SALE last week, printed some things and put it all together! I knew that I had to make some changes to our lovely table I made from cubeicals and a repurposed tabletop. It is a wonderful space, but it just wasn’t working as I envisioned.

I think I have it figured out now. Instead of each of my 3rd grade students having one side, I now have it divided with math bins in one side and ELA bins in the other. Each of my 3rd grade students has 4 bins and we’ll use those along with the rotation ribbons I made a few months ago from {here} and {here}. I printed them out 3 to a page to get the size I wanted, and they are still very readable and work perfectly with my 2 clips for 2 students! The middle cube in green is for ME to use for things I will put in their bins throughout the week and/or upcoming weeks or just for a lesson that day. I think I like it!

I am most excited about the Interactive Word Wall I made using Letter circles I purchased {here} and that blank space above will be housing {this} which I still need to finish printing. I CANNOT WAIT. Then, you may see the vertical magnetic space is next to our math bins and now houses our Calendar a bit lower for my PreKer  to help with and I plan to keep the items on here above the calendar rotating weekly. Again, I think I like it!

Here is a close-up of that Interactive Word Wall. I hope it will help us in our quest for spelling words correctly. They can take these off the wall and to the table or desk across the room. They can add to it and once a circle is full of correctly spelled words, I will laminate it for durability.

I’m linking up with 4th Grade Frolics for Monday Made It!