Saturday, July 20, 2013

Back to School Projects

 
 As many of you know (or may not know) we have been melting here in Chicago. The last few days has been in the high 90's with the heat index in the 100's. So I decided to use my indoor time wisely and get busy creating.  This upcoming school year is going to be a challenging one behavior wise for me. I have been scouring the blogs for classroom management ideas and wowie, wow, wow!! Everyone seems to be using the clip chart idea in their rooms. I have always used one very similar to this but the children only moved down and the well behaved kiddies weren't really acknowledged. This clipchart system sounds awesome and I am definitiely going to give it a try this year.


 
Here are two special banners I made for the room this year. The welcome banner was from Aimee over at Primarily Speaking and I used my cricut to create the other one. Our classrooms were painted this summer in this blue and yellow and I thought these would make a good color scheme for the year. I know the banner with my name and grade doesn't have a blue bow on the end, I ran out of ribbon and have to make another trip to Hobby Lobby, insn't that ashame!

 
After spending alot of time on Pinterest and seeing this picture frame I wanted to make one. Here is my frame I made using supplies from the Dollar Tree. It's amazing what they have for teachers. If you are in the market for baskets for your class they have an awesome selection of them. Now, if the heat continues I guess I will have to just make more for the room. Thanks for stopping by and enjoy the rest of the weekend!

Saturday, July 13, 2013

Thursday, July 11, 2013

School Shopping (already)

 
I know, you are probably looking at these pics and thinking, this isn't very much, right? Well this is only a sampling of each item. I got these awesome clipboards at Target's dollar spot and when I was paying for them they rang up for 30 cents each (they were on clearance). Do you believe it? So of course I had to go back for all of them. I ended up with 15. My kiddies love using them during centers. Well worth the 30 cents!

 
 These stickers were also in the dollar bin at Target (but not on sale). Gotta love'm!

 
Dollar bin again. Sorry, I just noticed they are upside down. These erasers are perfect for the mini white boards we use. The kiddies love using them. I had some last year and they used them also to erase the daily calendar activities (we use Saxon Math).
 
 
 
Once again, this is just a sampling of supplies.  Walmart and Target both have the crayons for 50 cents each so once again, time to stock up. I bought 50 packs of crayons and 26 pencil boxes. I give my kiddies the box with crayons in it the first day of school to use for math. With our Saxon math there is alot of coloring and they get a jillion ( a Junie B. word) flashcards. I usually use the boxes for 3years and now was the time to replenish with new ones. They were only $1 and are perfect for our math.

 
Now on to the Dollar Tree. The little blue and yellow cones are so cute. They each say "awesome" or "wonderful" or other words of praises. I thought they would be great to put on a student's desk who is behaving good and following directions. I've been warned I may need some extra incentives this year. The rubber dice are perfect for our spelling. Once a week my kiddies write their spelling words in rainbow colors and this a great way to make it fun. They roll a die and each number will determine what color to write their words. It's all on a spelling chart. The last group of kiddies loved to do it this way so I'm hoping this new group will too. The alligator clips will be used somehow for greater and less than math. I'm not sure how yet but my wheels are turning. Any suggestions?

 
Here are some great books I just had to have. I have seen some awesome activities using these books so when I came across them at the local book store I snatched them up.

 
This is just one cute sign I was busy making this summer It came from Aimee over at Primarily Speaking. I'm going to decorate my room this year in the zebra print and these colors. Over the summer we had some wonderful moms and dads come in and paint our rooms in bright blues and yellows. The rooms look great so far. I'm not too sure about the chalkboard closet door, though. We did away with chalkboards about ten years ago because of allergies and I really don't want to bring chalk back into the room. If anyone has any suggestions on what else we can use on it that would be great.
 
That's it for now. I'll be posting more in the next several days with all the goodies I either made or bought. Thanks for stopping by!!


Thursday, July 4, 2013

Happy 4th of July!!

 
Just like many of you wonderful teachers out there, I am a huge scrapbooker. I have a wonderful group of friends who do our darndest to scrap once a month together. We even have been known to go away for long weekends scrapbooking. My sides always hurt from laughing when the weekend is over. Anyway, have you ever heard the saying, "If it's not in the books it didn't happen"?  That is so true for us. This top picture was taken because we found the funniest Red Solo Cup scrapbook paper and we had to have it. For that reason we just had to take the picture. You scrappers out there know what I'm talking about.
 
Here are some of my favorite Americans. My son is the one on crutches (torn ACL). The other guys in the picture are all my nephews (a good lookin' bunch, huh) and my neice in law ( if that's how you say it).


 
Another neice and cutie!!

 
More neices enjoying the parade!

 
My daughter (the hippie) and her girlfriend (the flapper).

 
Waiting for the firework show to begin. We are extremely lucky because our town does their firework show directly across the street from our house. Therefore, we have a huge crowd of friends and family who come every year for some great eats and treats and a great firework show.
 
Sorry I don't have any school related stuff to post. However, I have been making tons of new center games, decorations, and what not from teacher blogs or TPT since getting out of school. A teacher's job is never done!!
 
Enjoy the 4th!!