Monday Made It FREEBIE!- What?! What?!

Bah! My first Monday Made It! I’m linking up with Tara at 4th Grade Frolics today AND Classroom Freebies. LOVE BOTH BLOGS. And it's multi-tasking!

  

My Monday Made it can be described in two words: WRITING COPS.  The easiest way for me to explain this craft is to briefly describe how this idea came to be.

-         Weeks ago, while talking school ideas on the phone to my mom, she mentioned something about “Grammar Police”.  I decided this was GENIUS and I needed to incorporate this idea into my classroom. Wasn't sure how it would work, though... 

-         A few days later, I found Police Badges at the Dollar Store and decided I would have my “Grammar Police” patrol during writing. Their job would be like mine: checking to make sure students stay on task, answering questions, helping with format (since most of my darlings NEVER indent…), etc. At this point the idea is still forming.... 

-       Yesterday, AMAZINGLY ON PINTEREST (I’m claiming divine intervention here) I found this little beaut’ (pictured at left) which links to this awesome COPS writing activity & poster pack, all by The Eager Teacher. It's the final piece of my half-finished-idea!! I was STOKED! I'm STILL stoked!! 

-         Since the freebie poster said COPS and my dollar store badges said POLICE (and I’m extremely anal), I decided to ditch the dollar store badges and make my own. ENTER MONDAY MADE IT & FINALIZED IDEA! The “Grammar Police” are now dubbed the “Writing Cops” and they wear sweet badges while patrolling the room. The "job" is earned by showing your knowledge about capitalization, order & organization, punctuation and spelling. Basically the whole thing is superbly legit and rockin’.

Seriously!! Check out the awesomeness on the right!! That hardcore model is my adorable 9 year old who’s going into 4th grade this year!

Since this idea came full circle thanks to a freebie, I making my badges (pictured below) a free download as well.  Just click HERE, print these bad boys out, laminate** them, then hot glue a safety pin on the back. If you don’t want to use pins, you could put these on lanyards, magnets, whatevs.

             

** Do you own a laminator?? I DO! And I’m in love with it! I have the Scotch brand and I use it to laminate everything! Price is reasonable & it’s SO much sturdier than our school laminator WHICH PEELS, I might add… I found mine on Amazon around Christmas for $16.99 but I’ve seen them at Walmart for $25. Laminating sheets come in legal and regular sized and are around $10-15 a pack.  Worth. Every. Penny.

Thanks to Tara for hosting MONDAY MADE IT!
And Classroom Freebies for MANIC MONDAY! 
And thanks to The Eager Teacher for awesome writing goodies!!

Rock on, peeps!