Monday Made It (a little late this week)

After a week long trip to Oregon to visit family, I am back and have started slowly working on things for next school year. We have linked up with 4th Grade Frolics for the weekly "Monday Made It".

Sign Make-Over

This is a sign I made for my last classroom. I decorated with turquoise and lime green. I had those colors for a few years, so I decided to change for next year. I have decided on a Sports theme. The colors will be mostly black, white, green, blue, and orange. The blue and orange are for our local college football team. Go Gators! 

So, I am trying to reuse items in my classroom. I decided to just paint this since I enjoy using it to hang up pictures during the year. This is what it looked like last year.

I painted it blue. The "H" was painted orange.I put Gator ribbon and a logo in the corner. The clothespins were already dark blue, so I just painted around them. Here it is now:

  

         
                                                     

Fast and Easy White Board Change

This took less than five minutes to do. I bought this cute small white board at Target last year. I hung it above where I displayed student work and changed the titles of the work. The trim was turquoise.

I hot glued black ribbon over the turquoise, and now it will match my new room.

                                                      

Tropical Fun Themed Welcome Sign

I have seen the cutest tropical themed items this summer! If I had seen them earlier, I may have chosen that as a theme for my classroom next year. A teacher friend of mine is doing this theme- with an emphasis on flamingos. So, I have been designing things for her. 

Here is a FREE Welcome sign I have posted on Teachers Pay Teachers. The letters come in both pink and green. You can click here (or on the picture) to download your own banner.

Tropical Fun Themed Calendar Set

This Calendar Set matches the Welcome Banner. It comes in 4 different fonts and colors. Thee are 5 different sets of calendar numbers so you can choose which clip art to use. It also has year cards for the next four years. You can click here to go to the Teachers Pay Teachers page for this or click on the picture below.

                                                         

Whimsical Succulent Garden

I saw this cute little pot for planting succulents. It's from Amazon. It was very easy. I just bought soil for succulents and three succulent plants. Here are the pictures:

Lesson Plan Book for 2017-2018

This year, I planned ahead and ordered an Erin Condren Lesson Plan book for next school year at the beginning of June. I discovered them last Summer. Before then, I was in a district where we didn't have a choice of what to use for lesson plans. I ordered my Lesson Plan book in late July last year and it took a little while to arrive, so I didn't have it the first week of school.

I was excited when I returned from my trip to Oregon and my new book was waiting for me. I think I received it 1 1/2 weeks after I ordered it. This is the cover I chose for next year:

For the inside pages, I like to use whole sheet stickers and print out the headers instead of writing them in the boxes. I don't put the times at the top of the columns, so I just type the subjects. 

This is what the page looks like in the book when it comes:

I add stickers to the top of each column:

Here is the Lesson Planner I used last year. I uploaded pictures and they made the cover for me.

Here is a picture of one of the weekly spreads. 

I decided to make the Headers for next year with just a white background to save on printer ink. If you would like to use the Headers I made, I have uploaded them to Teachers Pay Teachers here for free. Unfortunately, you can't edit them. (I am still learning how to do that.) You could print one out and use it as a size template if the words aren't exactly what you need. Enjoy!

Stephanie

Summer Begins with "Monday Made It"

We have linked up with 4th Grade Frolics to start the Summer off with our Monday Made Its.

I have decided to change my classroom theme to "Sports" next year. I have had a color-theme for the past few years of turquoise and lime green. I am ready for a change. Since I will still be doing 3rd grade next year, and sports are big in our college town, I have decided on a Sports theme. 

I finished painting the letters for the top of my cabinets. Here they are:

The letters are made of cardboard. I think I will use velcro to help them stay straight on the cabinets, especially for the "P" , which is top heavy. 

I printed out a "Welcome" sign from Schoolgirl Style (set: Team Spirit). I'm not sure yet if I will hang it horizontally or vertically but I will attach the letters to a ribbon. I am going to use the black and white striped border and green scalloped border on my bulletin boards. 

This is the latest Magic Tree House Reading Comprehension packet I have made. It is available in our Teachers Pay Teachers store (You can click on the picture.) Packet #1 is available for FREE. 

Now, for a couple of "Made Its" for the house. My husband and I made planter areas for in front of a small shed behind the house. We decided to use wood around the area because when it rains hard, the water runs to the front of the shed since it is at the bottom of the hill. Since it decided to flood last week, they have already been useful. The plants were fine and the wood helped the water go on either side of the shed.

Here's a fun "Made It". I found this tray at Hobby Lobby. We have a lot of squirrels in the woods around our house and I like to feed them corn. I was looking for a low feeder I could use. My husband drilled holes in the metal tray to drain any rain and I fill it with corn for the animals. They seem to enjoy it.

Stephanie

End-of-Year Packets

I finished 2 end-of-the-year packets for third and fourth grade students. I wanted a packet that the students could keep as a record of some of their learning and activities. Since I previously taught second grade, the end-of-year packets I already have are too simple for my students this year.

I included 39 pages in these packets. You can pick and choose which pages to use with your students. There are multiple pages for each subject (Math, Science, Writing, Reading, and Social Studies). I included places for them to record concepts that were easy for them this year and areas they needed to be persistent in to learn the concepts. They get to record their favorite learning strategies, as well as, their memories of class/school activities. There are pages for each Special Area class (PE, Music, Art, Computer Lab, Media, Library, Guidance) and a page for Autographs.

I have posted the packets on Teachers Pay Teachers. They are having a Sale beginning tomorrow for two days (May 9th-10th).

The image above will take you to our store- "Education Whimsy" and it shows the code for the discount. The images below link to the individual packets.

Wednesday Whimsy

My grandson, Ben, is now 13 months old. He was born on March 17, 2016- a St. Patrick's Day baby. I was looking through some pictures and I found the one below. It was taken on March 18th last year. We live on a very wooded 5 acres in the country. When we came home that day from seeing Benjamin at the hospital, there were literally, hundreds of these plants with purple flowers that had popped up all around the side yard. They were not there the day before. 

At first, I thought they must have been from seeds of previous flowers I had planted, but we realized they were not similar to any we had in the yard. 

The "whimsical" part is that purple was my mother's favorite color. (She passed away in November 2013) Was this her way of celebrating Benjamin's birth? I like to think so.

The interesting thing is that these flowers showed back up this year on Ben's birthday and stayed around for a couple of weeks. Hmmm...it makes me wonder.

Stephanie

TES

Have you visited TES yet? This is a Teacher Resource site. It s based out of the UK, but also serves the United States and other countries. They sell teacher-made resources, but they have A LOT of other things on their site. There are a lot of articles, videos, and educator forums. Be sure to check it out!

TES Shop

Monday: Making crafts

I loooove making crafts and painting! It is very relaxing for me. So, I have already been thinking about my classroom decor next year so I can start working on the crafts.

I have decided on a "Sports" theme. I will most likely be teaching third grade, but may be moving up to fourth grade. I think "Sports" is a good theme for the older kids. The city I teach in also has a local college team that is very popular so I will be incorporating the Gators also in my room.

I have a space above my cabinets where I currently have the word "DREAM". For next year, I want to put the word "PLAY" up there. I have started painting the cardboard letters and I want each one to be painted int he style of a sports ball.

So far, I have the "P" painted in a baseball style.

I'm still working on the other letters. The "L" will be a basketball. The "A" will be a soccer ball. The "Y" will be a football. I bought the "P" first- at Hobby Lobby. I bought the other letters at JoAnn Fabrics. I thought they were all the same size,but I think I like the "P" being larger.

I'll post a new picture when I get them done. With everything else going on right now, I can only work on crafts for a short amount of time at once.

Stephanie