Fabulous find!

So I don't know if your school has laminator drama, but ours has some serious drama when it comes to the laminator.  Until last year teachers were not allowed to use the laminator, you had to turn your stuff in and the media para would laminate when she got a chance and you would get your materials back in around a week.  Not cool!
Last year we began the year being able to laminate ourselves, problem being that most of the teachers did not know how to use it and constantly broke it.  And they never received any training on it.  I knew how to use it from my previous job.  Long story short, after the first week of school we were not allowed to laminate.
This year we have been able to use it ourselves again, but who knows how long that'll last!  Anyways, when I was at Costco, I saw this snazzy little laminator for, get this, $19.99!!!!  It came with a million laminating pouches, thick laminating pouches.
AMAZING investment if your school has laminator drama!

DIY lampshade makeover

I have ways hated florescent lighting and have tried to have as much alternative lighting as possible, but it has been hard to have enough light in my lovely room covered in carpet. On sunny days it is possible to keep the lights off. However this past week we had some gloomy weather. We had one day where I kept the lights off.  Last year my kids did not like the lights off and would ask for them to be turned back on.  This year, my kids are begging for me to keep them off!  So I am very pumped up!  It motivated me to add some additional lighting to our room so that we will use as little fluorescent lighting as possible.
So, on Firday afternoon I ran by IKEA and had some great finds!!  I got two table lamps for $1.99 each and two lampshades for $3 each.  My total was less than $10 for to lamps!   Both the lamps and shades were ugly, hence the price.  So I had to do a makeover.  I had brown polka dot fabric leftover from some other classroom crafting projects and some spray paint.  I spray painted one lamp hot pink and one green.  Then I made over the shades.  I did not do the best job, but they are perfect for the classroom!  I hope my kids are as pumped as I am tomorrow to see these lamps in action!

Here's what I did:

This is the ugly shade from IKEA.

I carefully took the fabric off, which coincidentally dismembered the entire shade.

Next, I traced the shade on my brown fabric (I would have used the fabric I took off the shade, but I ripped both pieces).

Then I cut it out and left a little edge all of the way around for folding over.

Then I hot glues the metal rims back to the shade.

Lastly I used hot glue again and folded the fabric tightly around the shade and...

Here is the finished product!  Next to the before.  Not too bad if I don't say so myself!

Bragging a little about our AMAZING Parents!

So I want to being by saying we have VERY strong parent and community involvement at our school. It truly is what makes our school such a gem and known as the best kept secret in the city ( in addition to the spectacular teachers :)  Anyways, our PTA and foundation are so wonderful.  We get a very generous classroom budget for ANYTHING we need for the classroom, which is more than I could ever ask for.  But today I got an amazing surprise.  Near the end of the year we filled out forms for classroom wish lists in case they had extra money.  I was thinking nothing would come of it, so I put that I would like 20 really useful boxes for classroom storage.  I don't know if you have heard of these, you ususally see them at Office Depot.  They are virtually indestructible and come in a variety of really useful sizes, hence the name :), They are very pricey and I would never purchase them on my own...I just dream of them.  Anyways, today all 20 boxes were delivered to my room.  I don't think I have been that happy since we bought our house 2 years ago!

I am so fortunate to have such wonderful support!

Thanks for reading.   I just had to share this glow!

Preplanning begins!!

So I don't know about y'all, but summer went wayyy too fast! I cannot believe preplanning began Monday, in July in my district. In a nearby district the kids went back this past Monday, once again in July! It is so early! What happened to going back after labor day? Haha
Anyways, after finally getting organized, my room is nearly done, keyword nearly. Here are some pics of my progress:

Here is the back corner of my room that has narrow open shelving that can look very cluttered as you can see by the opening in the curtains.  I put my old Kindergarten stuff, teachers manuals not in use, and other things I do not use often, in this area.  Then I bought a full bed flat sheet from Wal-Mart for $6 (way cheaper than any curtain!) and used a no sew iron on adhesive to add the ribbon loops at the top.  Then used a tension rod t hold it up.  This makes a word of difference.  The boxes and things on the floor still need to find a home:)

This is right by where you enter the room.  I took the idea from here on pinterest and instead of a teacher box, I made a student supply box.  This is a place where they can independently get a color crayon they are missing or new glue sticks, etc.  Next to it is a cute sign found here.  Then the owl cork board I painted for reminders.  Then the blue and yellow are school required.  I am not pleased with the appearance of this area...too cluttered.  I will rearrange it tomorrow.

Dull and sharp pencil bins.  I've got my work cut out with those new pencils!

My hallway bulletin board.  The rockets my kids made last year about the joys of first grade.  Then I will put little astronauts with the new kids names on them at the bottom or next to each rocket.

My great ikea find...my chair cushion was only $2.99.  It makes it so much more comfy and is a cute color!

One wall of my classroom library.  It has the ways we cn partner talk sign, found here.  

Bulletin board on the side of the cabinet in my teacher corner.  I am going to use this to display star student work.

My chart tablet is help up by these wonderful suction hooks from Dollar Tree.  You get 9 for $1.  These are awesome!!

Here is a close up of the little suction hooks.  Such a great investment, I need to get more!

My teacher area.  These cabinets will be used for info for me.  I love covering cabinet doors with paper and border...it just makes everything nicer!

Word Wall.

Bookshelf by the door.  Not sure what I am going to put here yet.

Curtains I made.  Brown with white polka dots.  No sew and fabric from Hobby Lobby...my favorite place!!

One view of the room.  As you can see, still a lot to do!

Objective and teacher question area.  Frames from Dollar Tree

No name sign.  I am so excited about this!!!  This has always been a problem.  It will be nice to post the no name work and have the students claim it when they get a chance.  Inspiration found here.

Close up of transportation signs.

How we get home.  I will use clothespins with students names to track their transportation.

Books we love area is above the bookshelves in the library.  This is a culmination of a few ideas I have seen in the blogging world.  I put a box with post its and pens for the students to write their favorites.   I need to fix the line, I ran out of staples.

Birthday wall.  Inspiration found here.  I will take photos of kids and place next to their birthday month.

Another proud moment.  I made these wall shelves out of wood.  They mount on the wall and turned out really nicely!

My classroom library. Still a work in progress.  I ordered the colored bins from really good stuff.  I ordered 2 kinds and didnt like the other type I ordered, so I sent them back for more of the kind you see above.  I am waiting for them to come in so my library matches!

Another library view.

Outside the door to display student names.

One of my organizational notebooks.

My door.  I made the wreath and the sign below is a poem I found on another blog that I cannot remember.



I will post more tomorrow as I finish up as well as some back to school items!

Cute owl cork board craft!

So I am partially obsessed with the target dollar section... I am sure I am not alone on that one! Anyways a recent adventure led me to these adorable owl quark boards. So I decided to paint them. And not to toot my own horn, but I think they turned out really cute! I also found the cute little ceramic owl for my desk!

What a mess!!

So, it didn't end up working out for me to move to the larger room, so I am back in the carpet room for one more year. We start renovations in the fall of 2013 and will be moving campuses while the renovations take place.
I had to move my things back in the carpet room and I did so quickly... below is the result. I didnt have time to put anything away. I don't think my kids could have made a bigger mess if I would have given them permission to do whatever they wanted with the classroom! I have been working on it a lot over the past week and it looks much better now! I will post more pictures soon.

Randomness from 2011-2012!

I was bad about taking photos this year.  I lost my camera charger and always forgot to use my phone.  Here are a few pictures of things we did.  Most photos I took, have kids faces in them and I am still trying to figure out how to fuzz kids faces out in photos since I did not have parents sign a release. 

I am taking pictures of other things we have done and will post later this week.

"First Grade is a Blast"  

These were done this past week, reflecting on the past year.  They will be on the bulletin board for Open House for next year.  They were kind of funny.  The things they remember! haha  These are hard to read because of the camera on my phone, and they had not edited at this point, so these are very rough.

 I had a battle with this child over her handwriting.  Her handwriting has come SO FAR this year.  I am so proud of her.  So on her reflection she wrote, "And here's some advice, you have to write really neat. Ok? You will do good.  I promise!"  haha. So sweet!

 This one ends with, "Here's some advise, do your homework!  Probably by the twentieth day you will know everybodys name."  Love the estimation of time for learning peers names :)

Birthday graph.

100 things we have done in 100 days.

 Ways to make a dollar using post its.  I just had them write different ways to make a dollar.  No one could use the same way as another student.  They LOVE doing anything with post its!

 Adjectives web.

Christmas gift from the room moms.   They know me too well.  I had just pinned this on pinterest.  So Cute!!

Back where all the kids signed.

 A gift made for me on the playground by my lovelies.

 Our symmetry Christmas ornaments.

 Our school has a christmas tree sale every year.  We were very fortunate to have a family donate a tree to our classroom.  So of course we made symmetrical ornaments.  (Don't worry, we have menorah's, dreidels and kinaras all over the room also:)

 Christmas contractions.

 Our first acrostic poem from the very beginning of the year.

 Here is one of the notes from a student about the promethean board after they took it to fifth grade.  These kids crack me up!

Roll the dice, add and graph.  Beginning of the year.

Common/Proper Nouns

 We did a draw a rhyme about monsters and then wrote about the monster.

 Snakey Subtraction game I made.  They LOVED it.

 Another monster.

 Recording sheet from Math War game.  "I love adding,"  what a great note!

 Group chart from our landforms project.

 What makes a good friend.

 100th day count down.  A calendar favorite.  Turned into a countdown after the 100th day.  We are down to 1 day!

 Cut and past map of the world.

 Landforms flip chart inside.

 Landforms flip chart outdide

 Where in the World am I? booklet.  It begins with your city then expands to county, then state, then country, then continent and finally world

 Last page of booklet.

 Who what when where foldable.

 Addition strategies flipbook.

 Punctuation chart.  Once again they love stickies!

 Noun Town!  A favorite!

 Beginning of the year graphing unit with skittles.  Each group graphed their skittles using a different graphing method, then presented their findings to the class.  And of course a skittle treat at the end!

 Fairytale illustration of the fairytale they wrote as a group.

I can verbs.