Classroom Setup

My classroom is finally finished! Well for now at least.......

This is the back wall of the classroom. I put on black contact paper and absolutely love how it looks! The far left will hold our class promise and the students self portraits. The next session is for my daily objectives. I Lamont's four pieces of paper so I can easily write on and wipe off every day. The class data part will help us keep track of how well we are doing on our sight words, spelling words, phonograms, and math facts. The last section on the right is where I will post our weekly spelling words, phonograms, and sight words. After we study the words, I love them over to my work wall.

This is the front of the classroom. I covered one one white boards with black contact paper and made it into myth calendar board. If any of you use Saxon math, you might notice that I cut off all of the yellow on the calendar pieces. I could not stand the yellow last year, so I did something about it this year!

Below the boards I have laminated scrapbook paper. Each one has a child's name on it where they can hang up work they are proud of. I love how much color this added to my room!

This is my desk area. I use the wicket baskets to hold my materials for each day of the week. The large blue frame with chicken wire is where I will put all of throes lovely pictures that students for me! You can also see all of my Pinterest projects that I made over the summer.

These are the students coat racks. I used. Old book pages to make a pennant banner with their names. This is a cute, simple way to label their space.

This is a picture of a table all ready for the first day of school. I LOVE the wire locker baskets that I have to hold books (thanks mom and Nancy)! Students will decorate their privacy folders when they arrive.

I'm very excited for school to start this year! I think it's going to be a good year!

Common Core Workbooks

Have you heard of these awesome workbooks for the common core by Have Fun Teaching? If not, you should definitely check them out. The workbooks come with tons of ready to use lessons for every common core standard in your grade level. They are sorted by standard, so it is super easy to just look up a standard you need to teach and make copies of the lesson. Easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy!

I am excited for the assessment workbook that they also have available. After using the lessons from the workbook for mini-lessons, I can find an assessment to see if my class has mastered the standard. These books will be so helpful to ensure that I am teaching to the standards. They will also make it easy to see which standards we have down pat and which ones we need a little more practice with.

If you haven't checked this out yet, head on over to Have Fun Teaching and order your Common Core Workbooks today!

Write Pennant

I spent my afternoon watching Harry Potter while making this adorable banner for my classroom. I have seen this project all over Pinterest for sale, but I thought it couldn't be that hard to make. And it wasn't- a trip to Joanne's and hour with Harry were all I needed to complete this project.

You will need:

Burlap (1/2 yard will be plenty, I bought 2 since it was on sale of Joanne's)

Yellow acrylic paint

Black paint marker (or acrylic paint if you don't have one)

Scissors

Cardboard or cardstock

Hot glue gun

Marker

Twine or string

I started by making a pencil template on cardboard. You can see the template I used above. I used the template to trace the shape into the burlap. 

 

Apparently I should have actually measured since my length of fabric only fit four templates... But I just used the remaining fabric below for the last one. I kept a fold on the end so I could have a slot to slide the string through.

Using the hot glue gun, I secured the fold on the back leaving enough open space at the top of the fold for the string.

Then I got my paint on. I used the large foam brush to paint the majority of the pencil. I switched to a small paintbrush to make the jagged edges at the bottom. By the time I finished the last one, the first one had dried. I used the paint marker to make the points black and for the letters in 'write'. 

Finally, I put the string through the top of the banner.  I tied a paperclip to the end the end to make the stringing super easy- an old trick my mom taught me!

And you're done! This was one of the quickest projects I have tackled awhile and it is sooo cute! Great for the classroom or craft area for kids.

4th of July- DIY

Today I decided to get my craft on. With my moms birthday party coming up next week, I thought I would do some crafting for the occasion. I started with these cute Mason jars- they are all over Pinterest! If you know my family, then you know that my mom is BIG into canning. She cans everything: pickles, sauerkraut, salsa, peaches, tomatoes, and our new favorite- dilly beans! So naturally, I have oodles of jars lying around just asking to be painted.

I started by gathering my materials:

Acrylic paint in red, white, and blue

3 mason jars

A paintbrush

Newspaper 

Paper plate

Washi tape (tip I found on Pinterest- painters tape peeled off the paint-eek!)

Modge podge

Then I painted two of the jars white and one jr blue. I did two coats on each jar.

Next, I painted the stars on the blue jar. I attempted to make a stamp, but I could not find any foam in the house, so I ended up free handing the stars. I used a watercolor brush to do this. (As I was posting pictures I realized I used foam plates- oh man!)

When the stars were finished, I put washi tape on the white jars to prepare for the red stripes.

And I painted red over all of it!

Let it dry and then I slowly pulled off the washi tape.

When I was certain everything was dry, I put a clear coat on top using modge podge. And voila! Handpainted Mason jars!

While I was working on these, I dug olio an old pair of jean shorts. In between steps when the paint was drying, I painted the pockets of the shorts. I painted the left pocket blue and the right pocket white. Using a 'stamp' that made out of cardboard and a paper clip, I added the stars to the blue pocket with white paint.

That is one pathetic looking stamp- but it worked!

I free handed the red stripes into the other pocket and I was done. Pretty simple since I already had all of the materials out!

Enjoy crafting!

Chalkboard Invitations

Next month, my lovely mother is turning 50.  She and her friend Nancy are celebrating their birthdays together with a bash on the 4th of July.  I made the postcard invitations using word and by downloading some great free fonts. You can grab these fonts for yourself here.

Happy Sunday!

Anna

Children with Hair loss Charity

I have had long hair for a very long time now. When I was trying to decide when to cut it last year, my brother mentioned that he was going to donate his. So we thought it would be awesome to donate our hair together. Only problem- his hair was not nearly long enough! So fast forward a year later and his hair was finally ready to be chopped off! I found the charity Children with Hair Loss online, (http://www.childrenwithhairloss.us) and saw that they only required 8 inches to donate your hair. I called up my brother to see where we were going for our cuts. He had another brilliant idea- let's cut each other's hair!

While many people thought I was insane for allowing him to do this, I figured "how can he really screw this up?" And I thought it would be fun to cut his hair!

So we gathered at our parents house and did the cuts! Naturally, we had to go to a professional afterwards! Check out the process below!

DIY stick horses

For the twins 2nd birthday I decided to make them stick horses using socks. $20 and about 2 hours later, I had these cute suckers! These are so easy, you can do it to!

Materials:

Tube socks-$2.50  (target)

Wooden dowel-$5 (home depot- I cut one stick in half to make two)

Buttons-$0.99 (Joann fabrics- or use what you have at home)

Yarn-$3.50 (Joann fabrics- I got fuzzy yarn to add texture to the mane)

Stuffing- $5 (Joann Fabrics)

Ribbon- free (at home- or you can buy some for $1 at Joann's)

Tacks- free ( you can find at any office store or target)

String- free (at home- but originally from the dollar spot at target)

Scrap of fabric-free (seriously any scrap will work- or cut up an old t-shirt)

Step 1: Take your sock and stuff it! A lot.... You can fit more in there than you would think! I only stuffed the head first and then moved to step 2.

Step 2: Attach some stuffing to the top of your dowel. I just used some tape. Put the dowel inside the sock and finish stuffing. With all that stuffing my sock started looking a little thin, so I doubled up on the socks.

Step 3: Secure the socks with some string. I also used some thumb tacks (with flat ends) to secure the sock to the dowel. This prevents the horse head from moving around. I covered the tacks with extra string.

Step 4: Shape your head! Use your hands to make it just the way you want it.

Step 5: Add the mane. I used a plastic yarn needle to thread the yarn through the sock. Then I tied each piece into a knot.

Step 6: Add the buttons for eyes. I used larger white buttons with smaller colored buttons placed on top.

Step 7: Sew on the ears. I cut triangles out of fabric and attached them as ears.

Step 8: Tie on the reigns. I cut a piece of ribbon and tied it around the mouth. Then cut a longer piece and tied it to each side of the 'muzzle' for the handles or reigns if you will.

Step 9: The tube socks I bought were super long, so I folded under the extra fabric and quickly hand stitched around so it would say folded up. You could also cut off the fabric- but if you do, I would recommend sewing the ends so they don't unravel.

Step 10- Admire your handi-work and give them away!

Here is Noah lovig his new pony! I sang 'dun da dun dun dun da dun dun dun da dun dada' (you know... The horse racing music!) And he kept saying 'again, again!' 

Enjoy!