I Pinned It, I Did It: Homemade Taco Seasoning

I'm not really a creative person in the sense of coming up with my own ideas. I do better to come up with ideas with another person or to take another person's idea and go with it. This is probably the reason I love Pinterest so much. I use ideas I find on there all the time.

Since I do things I find on Pinterest a lot, I figured I should post about my experiences from time to time. Some ideas from Pinterest work great while others don't work out as planned. I know that other people post about trying out Pinterest ideas, and I find them helpful. So, I'm going to do some of my own.

Several months ago, I discussed on the blog how I was beginning a journey towards eating more real food. This journey has had its ups and downs, but I've not given up. I'm trying to get back on the path to eating less processed food. So, this pin I recently tried out came from my Real Food Recipes board. The source of the pin and the place where you can find the recipe is Rachel Cooks.

What is it? 
Homemade Taco Seasoning

Why I pinned it: 
We eat tacos and similar Mexican food a lot. I want to work on eating less processed food and this seemed like something easy to put together. 

Why I did it:
I wanted something simple to cook this past weekend and we had limited ingredients at our house. I figured I could cook tacos. I went to my small spice drawer and remembered that we had no taco seasoning. I purposely didn't buy any the last time I went shopping for groceries because I wanted to make my own. Luckily, I had all the ingredients I needed to make my own.

The process:
I followed the directions from Rachel Cook's blog except I accidentally put 1/2 tablespoon of paprika instead of 1/2 teaspoon-oops! In the end, it didn't make a difference. So, a good thing about this recipe seems to be that the measurements don't have to be exact. This blog has even been updated to include a recipe for a larger batch of taco seasoning so you don't have to do a lot of math and figure it out for yourself.

The verdict:
Tacos tasted fine to me. I couldn't tell a difference between seasoning the meat this way and seasoning it with the store bought packet. The recipe basically makes enough for one pound of meat (you might could get two out of it). So, you can either make it as needed or make a larger batch. This took me less than 5 minutes to do between finding my ingredients, measuring them out, and stirring them together. So, it's really no more difficult than opening a store bought packet. I will definitely do this again.

The finished product:

Yummy quesadilla!

What's something you make yourself rather than buying the premade version?

Pins I Find Inappropriate

We all love Pinterest.  It's a great place to get ideas or a good laugh, but unfortunately some people's sense of humor differs greatly from mine.

I'm not necessarily talking about the completely inappropriate nude pins I've seen (and reported) or the pins containing curse words. Pinning that is your choice. I choose not to, but I can see the humor in the message of most of them.

No, I'm talking about things like this:

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I would never put something like this on my (as of now nonexistent) children. It sends a terrible message. My husband will be the "real dad" of my children. There will be no question of their paternity. I understand that this is meant to be funny and I understand that many women are head over heels for Luke Bryan, but this is going overboard. I also try to put myself in other's shoes. I wouldn't want my husband joking around that someone else was the mother of our children, so I owe him the same respect. 

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This one is usually accompanied by the caption "Make a secret stash of inappropriate pictures and compile for their 18th birthday." You can guess what's behind my censor bar in this picture. First of all, I don't use language like this and don't want to encourage that in my (as of now nonexistent) children. Secondly, your child is not an accessory. If you want to take funny and inappropriate pictures of something buy an Elf on the Shelf. A child is given to you by God to train up and disciple. This isn't a very good start. 

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Again, I understand that this is supposed to be funny. But it is SO inconsiderate of those who can't have children. My heart breaks for people who are unable to have children. I wish that people who can have children would realize that it is not a blessing that everyone gets to experience. 

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Would you be okay with your husband watching porn in order to get turned on to be with you? I wouldn't. This would hurt me a lot. People can say all they want that these books are different, but I disagree. What you put in your mind will affect how you act. God commands us to keep our thoughts pure. I wrote more on this topic here and here if you're interested.

I know there are plenty of inappropriate things people are pinning on Pinterest. These just stuck out to me. Maybe because they involve children. Maybe because they involve people not considering others' feelings. Whatever the reason, these pins bother me. 

Have you seen any of these on Pinterest? Do you have pins that you find inappropriate?

Linking up:

Pinteresting Laughs

Pinterest can often put a smile on my face with the humorous pins people pin and repin.

So, I'm sure we all need a laugh in the middle of the week to get through (halfway to the holiday weekend!). 

Here are some of my favorite pins from my Random Fun board:

How cool would this be to do to your child (if they're a Harry Potter fan of course)?

 

haha...Miley, what are you thinking? Better yet, Liam, what are you thinking?!?

This one made me giggle when I saw it. :)

So true!

These were my exact thought when watching the movie!

Haha...good ole' Napoleon Dynamite...always good for a laugh

Right? Mine was constantly being rearranged.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy Wednesday everyone!

More Pinterest Inspired Classroom

Before my school year started, I posted a blog about my Pinterest Inspired Classroom. It quickly became one of my most popular posts. 

I love finding ideas from other teachers and I love having Pinterest as a way to share and find these ideas. I feel like my catch phrase for this school year is "I saw this idea on Pinterest..."

*realized*conversations* -who edits these things?

So, I am now going on my 3rd week of this new school year. I know that if you're a teacher reading this, you probably have not started the new school year yet. Starting the new school year in July is one of the downsides of being at a year round school, but on the upside...I'm 6 weeks away from a break!

I thought I would share with you some more of my Pinterest Inspired ideas and let you know how they're working for me. 

I saw this idea shortly before school started. I have always wanted a way to have calendar work for older grades like they do for the younger grades. I think this is a great way to practice number sense every day. You'd be surprised at how many kids have such a problem with basic number sense.

 

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You can buy this at Teacher's Pay Teachers, so here's my version that I downloaded and laminated. If I could change one thing, I would have just put them in page protectors rather than laminating them because the dry erase marker doesn't come off my laminating stuff too easily.

I have enjoyed using the idea of being a bucket filler in my classroom. Last year I had a bulletin board set up during the first half of the year for students to write bucket fillers to one another. I saw this idea on Pinterest and decided to give this a try this year.

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The students are always real excited to fill buckets at the beginning of the year, but it always dies off as the year goes on. I need to find a way to keep them filling buckets all year long. Here's my version.
 

I saw this idea on Pinterest for displaying student's work. I thought it was fun because it is relevant to the world outside of school.

Here's my version. This was so easy to make.
 

I found this idea on Pinterest and read the article and watched this teacher's videos. He has some very interesting ideas about using music as a classroom management tool. I thought it was worth giving it a try. I spent a lot of time on a website he links downloading music and I downloaded a few songs from itunes. 

 

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This has worked beautifully for me. The kids transition so quickly because they know they only have until the end of the song to do it. They're still not perfect at it. There's still some kids scrambling at the end of the song, but it makes them move fast. The music gives them something to relate the time frame to rather than saying "you have one minute to clean up." I don't have to say anything. I just start a song and they know what to do. I also play a fun song at the beginning of the day and the end of the day.

I saw this idea on Pinterest several months ago. A couple of the other 4th grade teachers also came across notebooking while they were on the internet.

 

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Our whole 4th grade team is using notebooking for science and social studies. I like that we're all doing it so that we can share ideas and resources. So far, we've only done social studies and I really like it. It gives the students more to do and more ways to express their learning. It will also be a great tool for me to determine their grades in these 2 subjects. Here are some of my students' notebooks.

World Map & geography terms flip book

Title page showing the 3 regions of NC

Another student's title page showing the 3 regions of NC

NC map and chart to fill in for each regions

The last thing I'm going to share with you that I found on Pinterest is this idea for data notebooks.

 

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I love this website because this teacher shares her files that she made for her students' notebooks. I have used data notebooks before, but not very effectively. This year I wanted to use them as a communication tool with the parents as well as a way for the students to see their growth. I am also having my students create 2 goals every quarter. I think the parents like this idea so far and it's too early for the students to really see the benefit of it. Here's some pictures from the data notebooks I put together for my students.

On the first day of school, they got a cover page to color.

This note to the parents is in the front followed by a place for them to sign each week.

Every quarter I am going to have my students make 2 SMART goals.

There are charts for fluency as well as different subjects' tests.

They spend some time reflecting on their week.

This folder is given to us by the school to send home notes, graded papers, etc.

If you're a teacher, good luck on your upcoming school year!

Want to follow me on Pinterest?

 pinterest.com/mdhall88

Thanks for reading!

Pinterest Inspired Classroom

We have officially lived in our current apartment for a year.

I have officially been working at my current school for a year.

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I work at a year round school and I love it. Many people seem skeptical of the year round thing or they don't want to give up their summer. I think it's great because I get breaks all throughout the year. My schedule basically works like this: 9 weeks in school, 3 weeks off. It's great for reevaluating at the end of each quarter to see what works and what didn't. It makes it easy to try something new and to plan. I was not nearly as stressed this past year as I was my first year when I was at a traditional school.

I started back to work this past Monday and this week is our work week. No kids are here. The students start this coming up Monday.

My classroom has been majorly Pinterest inspired. 

I saw this on Pinterest and thought it was a great idea. Instead of spending my time trying to ask and figure out who a "no name" paper belongs to, I will just hang it up here and they're responsible for checking it.

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Here's my version:

 

I saw these on Pinterest and wanted to do something similar because students are constantly in and out of the room for different reasons. I thought this would be great so that I didn't have to try and remember where everyone was. I also liked the idea of clothespin hall passes because it's easy and hopefully won't get as germy or lost as much.

 

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For my version, I changed it up a little bit and decided to use magnets. I also have seen over and over again on Pinterest things that use cookie sheets as magnet boards. So, I bought 2 cookie sheets and I cut out small circles with my Cricut that I glued on magnets. The top one is where all of the students' names will go and it shows that they are in the classroom. When they leave the classroom, they move their magnet to the appropriate area on the bottom one. I hung them by ribbon on hooks so that if there were to be a fire drill and many students were out of the room, I could take it with me and know who was not with me. I made it simple by just hanging the clothespin hall passes on the "out" board so that they can grab one after they move their magnet. Here's my version:

I saw this math rotation idea on a blog I follow first and then I pinned it to Pinterest. I definitely did not do a great job with math centers last year and I wanted to redo how I teach math anyway. This idea seemed very simple and yet effective.

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For my version, I put it on a trifold board. Part of being in a year round school is rotating rooms, so things need to be mobile. My fellow teacher, Mrs. Cusick, came up with the great idea of putting it on a trifold. She also had the great idea to use the cute duct tape as a border. Here's my version:

 

The last thing I want to share with you that I found on Pinterest is my most repinned pin ever. It's a quote I saw and loved. I want to use this quote as our class motto. I want the students to worry less about grades and passing tests (I know those things are important) and more about doing their personal best. I also want them to understand that everyone's best is not going to look the same. My plan is to have us say this every morning and refer to it often. I hope it will make a difference in their work quality and motivation.

 

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Here's my poster version:

I have many other great ideas I've found on Pinterest to use when actually teaching. I hope to keep you updated on what those ideas were and how they are working out for me. 

Want to follow me on Pinterest?

 http://pinterest.com/mdhall88/

Thanks for reading!

Pinterest Inspired Gifts

One day while browsing on Pinterest, I came across this pin:

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Many of you have probably seen it as well. For those of you who don't know, it's an ornament filled with a cut up wedding invitation. 

I LOVED this idea. Over my Christmas break, I made one with our wedding invitation.

Here it is hanging in the Christmas tree, but I thought it needed something else, so I updated it a month or so ago by cutting out our initial with my Cricut. 

Then, this past weekend one of my friends got married, so I made one for her as a gift.

 

I also have a cousin who is graduating from high school this year. We recently got her graduation invitation in the mail, so I thought it would be neat to make an ornament from a graduation invitation as well. 

I love the way these turn out and they're a great keepsake to remember a special day in your life. They're also very simple to make.