Every Day I'm Pinterestin'

I'm starting to realize just how little is left of my summer. Since I'm new at my school, I have to report on July 23rd, a week earlier than the other teachers. That leaves me with only 28 days left of summer! Yikes!

I'd like to introduce you to my new best friend, Mr. Laminator.

I picked this guy up for about $28 bucks at Walmart. He's fantastic! My favorite part is that it uses pouches to laminate. You just put your stuff inside and run them through. Since all the machine does it heat up the plastic pouch, you can run it through more than once if there are any gaps or air bubbles. The quality of the film is much better too.

So anyone who knows me could tell you that I am in love with Pinterest. It's such a great way to get your creative juices flowing! Between jury duty and babysitting this past week I have been busy completing a bunch of DIY projects. Behold the cuteness...

So as you can see, I've been very busy! Here are a few specifics if you'd like to make some of these things yourself.

 I got the idea for the teacher toolbox here. I love how it turned out! I got my box at Home depot for about $17 and spray painted it. Then printed out my labels, laminated them and attached them with clear tape to the inside of the drawers. If you'd like to use the labels I made I've uploaded them for you here. I've also included some blank ones if you'd like to print them out on colored paper instead. I've added them as images so all you need to do is insert text boxes to add your own text.

The framed signs are some internet finds that I love put in document frames from Dollar Tree. I got the first one here and the second one here. I downloaded them and tweaked the colors to match my classroom using Photoshop.

I hope that you all are having a great start to your week. Happy Pinteresting!

I'm Still Here + Freebies!

 Hello all! I've been enjoying some much needed R&R time but I'm back and ready to share some of what I've been up to! The first few weeks of break were dominated by a lot of sleeping in, baking, sewing, & hours of watching my new obsession, Game of Thrones. Unfortunately it's also included many hours of jury duty which has not been as enjoyable. I'm a little over halfway finished with my 8 days so I'm thankful for that!

As of right now, I don't know a whole lot about next year so my main focus has been mostly organizing my stuff and undertaking little craft projects. I'm supposed to be having lunch with my new division team sometime soon so I'll be able to know more about the meat & potatoes of what I'll be teaching next year.  

 

I've been wanting one of those 10 drawer carts for quite some time but I haven't been willing to drop the $70-$100 that some places charge for them. So you can imagine my delight when I found one for $30 at Walmart! When I got it home, I wasn't too impressed with the colors so I decided to use some spray paint to make the drawers match my new classroom color scheme.

 Pretty cute huh?

I'm all about affordable storage so I use copy paper boxes to store a lot of my things. I love them because I get them free from the teacher's lounge and they are nice and sturdy. What I don't love about them is that they are pretty ugly.

 See what I mean?

So as I was sitting in my apt. one night I was looking at the boxes and decided to try to use a little craft paint to make them cuter. I love the way they turned out!

I am seriously in love with how cute & organized everything is now. 

So to make up for my absence, I've got some freebies for you! The first is a few line up songs and rhymes I found around the internet that I plan to use with my kiddos. I'm gonna glue these to scrapbook paper and hang them a ring by my door for line up time. The second freebie is some animal goodbye rhymes. I'm going to put these on scrapbook paper and make a poster to use at the end of the day. I hope you enjoy them!

Line Up Songs

Animal Goodbye Rhymes

Well, I'm off to do a bit of pinning and blog hopping while I wait to be released from jury duty for the day. Happy Tuesday everyone!

Free At Last!

So this song has been running through my mind today as I was trying to get through our last day...

Today was a little bittersweet as many last days are, but overall I'm happy that summer has finally arrived! I'm definitely ready for sleeping late, lazy mornings, craft projects, babysitting my favorite kiddos, and spending more time on Pinterest and blogging!

I've finally moved everything out of my classroom and into my apartment. This is what it looks like now. Yikes!

So as of right now I'm off eat some junk food, watch some Arrested Development and do some spray painting! I hope everyone is having a lovely start to their summer/weekend!

A Crafty Memorial Day!

Warning: This post contains lots of pictures!

So things have been a little crazy around here lately but it's the good kind of crazy! This past week I signed my contract at my new school and got to walk around and check out the part of the building that 1st and 2nd is going to be in. It's so exciting! I think next year is going to be awesome!

As excited as I am for next year there is still the reality of ending this year to deal with. We have 4 more days of school which means I have 4 more days to pack up all of my stuff - which I have a lot of! Since I won't be able to get into my new room until at least mid July, I'm storing all my stuff in my apartment for the time being. As of right now it looks like this.

 Sadly, I still have a bunch more stuff to move. Yikes!

Having all my classroom stuff at home was a big help today as I tackled several craft projects. I spent most of my day out on my front stoop painting, gluing, and glittering. It was a nice way to spend the day off!

 

Mia, my trusty sidekick. 

One of my first projects of the day was to turn some brown flats I got for $3 at the Salvation Army into glitter flats! I love the freedom of thrifting. It was so nice to undertake a project and know that if I screwed it up I'd only be out a few bucks! They turned out great. I found the idea through Pinterest. You can get all the instructions here .

 

 As I was walking through Walmart this morning getting supplies for crafts I came upon these precious pre-painted wooden shapes and just had to have them! I'd been wanting to make some pointers after seeing Sarah Cooley's post about them. I just added them to a bucket with a little tissue in the bottom so they would stand up higher, tied on some scrap ribbon. They turned out pretty cute don't you think?

Of course I just had to cutesy them up a bit by spray painting the dowels and adding lots of glitter. I think the guitar is my favorite!

I found this poster on Pinterest last week and just fell in love with it. I decided to create my own to hang in my room. I think it's such a great message to send to kiddos.

 Another non school related project was a magnetic makeup board for my bathroom. Again, this was an idea I found on Pinterest that I really wanted to try. I used a metal magnetic board I got from Ikea years ago, sanded it a bit and painted it with chalkboard paint. I picked up a a paper pencil cup and some magnets and put everything together. I love having everything in one place! I think I'll get some chalk markers so I can write messages and change up how it's decorated.

Last but not least, I spray painted a bunch of clothespins in my colors of orange, green and pink to use in my classroom next year. I really want to make these super cute clips to hold student work.

I even painted some with chalkboard paint to use for my clip chart. I plan on writing student's names on them with chalk pens so that I can reuse them!

 So that's all the fun stuff I got done today. Can you tell that I am completely addicted to Pinterest? 

Hope you all are having a restful Memorial Day. I'm off to wash all the paint and glue and glitter off and work on my report cards! Only 4 more days until summer!

First Grade Here I Come!

So, as my post title would suggest, I got a job for next year! I'll be teaching 1st grade at a charter school and I could not be more excited! I've been co-teaching Kindergarten at a private school for the last 4 years so I am so ready to make the move to public school and to have my own classroom!

My feelings are a little like this...

 

 Mixed with these...

 With just a touch of..

 

I've wanted to have a classroom of my own since I decided to be a teacher on my first day of Kindergarten. I can't wait to share with you all the awesome things I'll be doing over the summer & next school year. Hope you are having a restful Sunday!

Money, Money, Money... Money!

 I have had the O'Jays - For The Love Of Money stuck in my head for the last 3 days as we've started learning about money this week! 

We started the unit by talking about the coins using the adorable poems pictured below. They really help! My favorite part of the lesson was when I was discussing why we have coins with my kiddos. I explained that coins were a way to break down the 100¢ that equals a dollar. I asked why I couldn't just use half a dollar to pay for something that costs 50¢ since they are worth the same. I pulled out a fake paper dollar and ripped it in half and they went crazy! There were lots of surprised looks and hushed whispers along with shouts of "She really ripped it! She ripped a dollar!" It was too funny!

 To practice coin recognition we played a fun game where I gave the kids a 5x5 grid and a handful of play money. They placed one coin in each square. I rolled a number cube with pictures of the coins and they removed whichever coin I landed on. The first one to clear off their board wins! I used the following cards to help those who had some trouble distinguishing the coins. I printed mine on colored card stock and attached coin die cuts from Dollar Tree.

You can get the blank cards here.

Next week we are going to play money bingo. This game is bingo with a twist. Kids who still need help matching coins with their values will randomly choose a coin and place it with it's amount to get 4 in a row. Those kids who have this down will roll a number cube to determine the number of coins they can choose and add them together to match to the values & get 4 in a row. You can find the file in my TPT store here.

I hope all of you are having a fabulous Friday! TGIF!

Glitter, To-Do Lists, & Freebies!

As I'm driving home today, the sunlight hits me just right and I realize that I am just covered in glitter. I mean like creepy sparkly vampire covered. I was working on a project today so I figured I probably had some on me but I had no idea! Thank God I didn't have any after work errands to run. Has that ever happened to y'all? It never fails for me: after work errand + close proximity to a cute guy = definite smudge of paint, marker, glitter, or some other kind of crafty schmutz on my face that I find after the fact. It just comes with the job I guess.

So, they say that a clear desk equals a clear mind. I'm not so sure my mind is all that clear but man, look at my desk!

(Insert chorus of angels here.) I've been in hyper organization mode lately and my desk was a recent project.  My desk is usually pretty neat but of course I've been in the mood to streamline everything so now it's uber neat!. So that brings me to what I have for you today. More freebies! If you look closely at my desk you will see my to do list. Its just a piece of paper I printed and put in a frame from Dollar Tree. I just use a dry erase marker to write stuff and erase when I'm done! 

The one you see is what I made at the beginning of this school year. I've recently revamped it to match my new color scheme and cute labels. Now, if only I could pick which one I want to use first! You will find the one pictured above as well as the new ones below. Enjoy!

Black & White To Do List

Green To Do List

Orange To Do List

Pink To Do List

All four are also in my TPT store here.

Oh, and before I forget, the super awesome digital paper I've been using to create my stuff can be found at Mel Stampz awesome blog here. Happy Wednesday!