Monday Made It

Yay! I made it. I was very upset that I was so busy last week that I missed linking up for Monday Made It! But I am joining Tara today for a real quickie! 

I made the Tracking Progress poster, but haven't decided if I am going to call it that or not. So It is ready and laminated and I am going to use Vis-A-Vis marker to write student names in each square and give it a title once I decide what that will be. It had slid down on the board when I took the picture;)

And lastly those that follow me will love this, but I recreated my failed project of the summer. I know have a working headband holder for my girls. 

So tomorrow is parent meeting and I will get half my class on Wednesday and the other on Thursday, so I am off to bed. 

Please stop by my blog tomorrow or maybe Wednesday as I have taken my classroom pictures and uploaded them into the computer now just have to create my Classroom Tour Post! I am very excited with the way my room turned out.

So I couldn't wait any longer I broke the no more than one post a day rule. You may click HERE IF you want to see pics of my classroom.

Monday Made It~ Seat Crate Party!

It's another Monday and time to link up with Tara for Monday Made It! I am super excited to share my this week's project with you. It was sooooo much fun to make. I am very thankful to a fellow friend and blogger who decided we needed to get together and have a Seat Crate Make It Party! We invited some people from our school and a few others, but only four of us made it to the party. One was a newbie to our school, and we invited her, but since she doesn't know what grade she will be teaching yet... she just helped out! So here are a few pics of the action.

I think it was the 1st time I have used a heavy duty stapler!

They were not hard to make but it took us a few hours, because we did more talking than working!

Here are our finished products.

This is my 2nd grade friend Sarah's. We spray painted a sea green color and added a ribbon. 

This is my 1st grade friend Heather's. She spray painted black then took a variety of round cups, dipped them in paint and put the circles on.

And here is my finished product at my small group table. I LOVE THEM! I intend on using the crate to store small group materials, so whatever I need the students to have I will place in the crates!

I want to thank Heather for planning our party and getting most of the supplies needed and supplies the tools! We had a great time and can't wait to see them in use in all of our classes. 

Well it's time to check out other projects! I am excited to get into my classroom and put up all my projects, can't wait to share completed room pics with everyone!

Quick question: Spiral Bound notebook or the other kind of notebook for math journals and science journals, etc. I have used both in the past and had trouble with both, the spiral ones they uncurl and the others the glue comes undone and they begin to fall apart, just curious what you all use. I also get them cut in half so we don't waste that much.

Don't forget EAST TN blogger meetup this Wednesday, August 1st @ 1:00 @ Jack's City Grill in Johnson City, TN! Can't wait to see you there.

Monday Made IT!

It's Monday! I am of course linking up with Tara for Monday Made It! I have been quite busy this week. I was able to work in my classroom for a day and get everything setup furniture wise. I am going to be making another trip to Charlotte to IKEA for another bookcase. The one I got a few weeks back fits my math station boxes perfectly and while trying to figure out where my book boxes were going to go they fit perfectly too! So the amazing hubby said we could go back. Love going with the hubby but going to see if I can get a group of coworkers or friends and do a girls trip!

On to Monday Made It!

My 1st project is this cutie! I made numbers 1-5 to hang above my student tables. I haven't put them together yet, I figure I will do that when I get to school. Don't want to ruin them before I get to use it!

My 2nd project was a management chart to keep up with who is where during daily 5! I put pictures to go with it, for my visual students and since my k's can read the words they can read the pictures.

I just loved the transportation chart. My kids are always changing and I think this is an easy way to manage how they are going to get home. I will use clothespins with student names and if they are a bus rider, it will also have their bus number. This will be very beneficial when a sub is in the room as well.

My last project is still a working one as I could NOT get it to print on blue paper. I spent over an hour with the Kodak tech lady trying to figure out why my printer would not print on blue. It printed on all these colors, but I tried 2 different colors of blue paper and nothing! I was not a very happy person and still am not, since it is not finished! 

Disclaimer: None of the above are my original ideas. I pinned them on Pinterest of course. In creating this post honestly forgot to go back and link up where I found them. 

I have also been super busy printing, laminating, and cutting! Not the best job, but someone has to do it. Thanks for stopping by I will see you again next week. 

Sorry just wanted to throw this out there also. My sweet friend Heather over at First Grade Rocks.......Kindergarten Was So Last Year and I are teaming up to plan an East TN meetup! It will be in Johnson City, TN, so if you live in Western NC, or Western VA. You might be close enough to join us! If you have any questions just let me know. higgystyx@yahoo.com. Hope to see you there!

Monday Made It # 7

So happy it's Monday and time for Tara's Monday Made It! I swear I don't think I would have accomplished near as much as I have had it not been for this linky. But at the same time, I also don't think my to-do list would have kept growing the way it has with everyone's awesome ideas and creations. This week I have a lot of irons in the fire but not much completed. So hopefully next week will have more completed projects!

This week I was inspired by Jennifer at Kindertips: Lunch Clips. My kids get a clothespin with their name and lunch number on it and wear it to lunch until the memorize their number. Sometimes by the time you write the kid's name there is not much room left for the number. Problem solved by taking the wooden spoons and hot gluing it on top of the clothespin! So while I was at school working today and it came a downpour right before I was getting ready to leave I quickly prepared these. Now when I get my roster all I have to do is fill them out! 

So sorry for the super short post but now I am going to see if I can find any new projects to work on. 

Don't forget to enter my 100 Follower giveaway! Chick here to enter! 

I am at 127 followers!

Monday Made It Week 6

I can not believe that we are already on Monday Made It Week 6! I once again am joining Tara for this amazing linky! I would not have been able to accomplish everything I have and still intend on doing prior to school starting had it not been for wanting to join Tara every Monday and share with everyone what I am doing.

I look forward to Mondays, and we all know that it is very rare for anyone to enjoy a Monday. When school starts we will have to attempt to look forward to Mondays like we do now. Ummmmm.......... who am I kidding Monday's when school starts not a happy thing! Anyways here we go with this week's project.

I printed my Thematic File Folders that I had previously purchased from Erica Bohrer on TPT. I got my supplies ready...colored file folders, glue stick, paper cutter (to trim them up to fit) and I got busy. This while the kiddos were actually taking a nap.

So here is a couple pics of my finished product. I intend on using them mainly for inspiration with writing, but I also thought it will be great to use some(Cooking, Junk Food, Fruits and Vegetables) in housekeeping during play centers and get them to write grocery lists, or who knows what.  I intend on trying to pull out the Birthday one on days when a student in the class has a birthday! Teeth for when someone comes in wanting to share their story. I see tons of possibilities!

I am very excited about these. I am hopeful it will help get some of my students writing better because of the help with words they want to write but are afraid to try to sound out. We shall see.

Now I want to share an EPIC FAIL!!!!!

So I had seen this really cute headband holder on Pinterest(not sure where couldn't find the link), but I remembered it was made of an empty oatmeal container. I just finished a container and was excited to get my scrapbook paper, measure, cut, and tape it into place and have a cute holder for the girls headbands. So I did just that!

But.......................................

I did not test my container out prior to doing all the work. Thank goodness that it wasn't too hard or I would have SCREAMED, because when I gathered up the girls headbands and placed them on the container they all fell down. My container was too small:( The headbands didn't fit at all, so when I picked my container up the headbands went everywhere. So just a side note, but measure before you start a project! Had I done this I would not have a cute purple container that now I am just going to give the girls to play with.

Well I am off to see what I can add to my to-do list as I look at everyone else's Monday Made It's! Have a great week. See you next Monday!

****With this post I now have 100+ followers! I have a giveaway that will start tomorrow, you won't want to miss it!****

Monday Made It on a Tuesday!

So I am linking up with Tara's Monday Made It a day late, due to not being home last night to post. I was busy though I went to a painting class and made a picture for my oldest daughter room. I had a blast and can't wait to take a class to make a painting for my youngest room! So here is what I painted!

I haven't been really busy with classroom stuff, but I have created a welcome sign for my door and signs for my word wall and math wall. I took the picture of them laying on my yellow table, so the colors are not very good but they are lime green and bright blue shadow. I used my mom's circuit to make the letters and the circles! Now I just have to laminate them and put them on the wall. Trying to decide if I want to add ribbon to it or leave it plain and post it on the wall.

The other thing that I have worked most of the week on is ATTEMPT to organize my jump drive! I have come to the conclusion that it is going to be impossible to get everything where I want it, due to having so much and that many things can go in more than one place. I did get all the Teacher's Appreciation Day Blog Freebies filed where they should go, but I still have a ton of things that I am weeding through.

So a big question for you is...... How to you organize your jump drive?

 

Well, now it's time to go attempt to look at what everyone else has been up to. I never finished checking out all the links last week and this week is even more. Love this linky! See you next Monday (I hope)!

Monday Made It

Yay! Another week and more school projects completed or in the works! I am once again linking up with Tara at 4th Grade Frolics to share what I have been working on.

I am changing my color scheme to green, blue, and yellow this fall, so this week I dug into that more. I have bright yellow tables you can see in one of the pics below. I bought some fabric and asked my amazing assistant if she would sew me what I had envisioned in my head. I can not sew, do not own an iron, completely clueless with anything to do with sewing. But I knew what I wanted and my assistant was able to take the fabric and create just what I wanted! I LOVE IT! 

   

My next project in pinterest inspired from She's Crafty! She made it look so easy, I thought I could do it! I had gotten extra fabric and planned on doing it myself, but my assistant being as amazing as she is, took it and is helping fix them as well. I am super lucky! So as you can see this is still a work in progress, but with the rest of my room posts, I didn't want to leave this one out. I will post pics of the completed project once it's done. 

    

I redid my classroom borders with advice from School Girl Style. She has a great post on how to decorate without upsetting the fire marshal. I use fabric on my bulletin boards and decided to attempt the double borders with green and black. I LOVE the way it looks. Only sad part is I ran out of green, so I have to go back and get more to finish it.

Here is Michelle from Apples and ABC's she guest posted at Kindergarten Lifestyle with her cork board displays. I made mine this week. I plan on putting each student's name on the center of it to easily identify work once I get my roster in the fall. I plan on putting them on my back wall storage. Very similar to the way she did. 

So my next project is my love/hate one. I love how Maria at Kinder-Craze redid her Sterlite containers. So I decided to give it a try. I first had the hubby spray paint them blue! Easy! Next I attempted to do the scrapbook paper cutting and taping. It took forever and did not turn out the way I really wanted. She was not kidding when she said you will need a lot of time and tape. So for now they have just been painted, I might attempt the scrapbooking again. But for now happy with the blue. Not really but tired of trying to get it right and it not work!

Lastly I went by Dollar Tree one day this week searching for green and blue baskets to redo my library boxes. I didn't find what I was looking for but I did find the exact boxes I had bought some yellow and green back in the spring and they had ran out when I went to get more. So this time I got all they had 25! I know as teachers we have issues with any type of container. So with my new color scheme, I plan on using them for word work storage and maybe library boxes. 

The last thing I want to share is that I started my first linky party. I have a friend who recently found out she is moving from 2nd to Kindergarten and she was asked me a really good question. And with all the great teachers out here, I thought this could be very useful to someone moving to K or starting fresh out of college in Kindergarten. So I would enjoy it if you could link up with your advice! 


You may click here to check it out or link up! 

So I am making big gains in my projects, I hope you are too! The sad/good thing is that for everything on my to-do list I mark off as completed, I check out everyone else's post and add to my list. But that's ok. We are going to have great looking rooms in the fall. See you back next week.

Monday Made It

It's that time again! Time for Tara's with 4th Grade Frolics Monday Made It Linky! I have a few projects in the works, but not finished yet. They will debut another week! And after looking at everyone else's projects this week my to-do list keeps GROWING! 

So a biggie for me this week was creating a Donors Choose project for my classroom. I was inspired by Mrs. Stanford's Class. She did a guest blog for Kindergarten Lifestyle and it was on Donors Choose projects she has created and that have been funded! I have wanted to do a project for some time but never really decided what I needed. I mean come on we are teachers we need EVERYTHING! I really loved her ball chairs, so I decided I would attempt to get three for my classroom because I know that my kinders sometimes  okay most of the time have a difficult time to sit still to learn. So by creating this project which I hope gets funded, I will get 3 ball chairs for my classroom for the students to share using. It's my 1st try and I hope it works!

You can click here to see my project!


I also updated my kindergarten team's behavior charts for the upcoming school year. Changes the dates and vacation days. The only thing I will have to do is update the library day once I find out the schedules and know when everyone has it! 


We all slowly converted to the clip behavior chart throughout the year last year and LOVED it! I enjoy the fact that students can move up for good behavior or down for negative behavior. I saw an improvement almost immediately when I made the switch! Plus NO more TREASURE BOX! I hated despised that thing!

Here is a pic of the one we use. A 1st grade friend originally created it, and I just took over updating it when she moved to 1st. She was our computer genius and I learned everything I basically know from sitting and watching her when I should have been working on something else.


This stays in our students communication folder that goes home and returns to school daily.  At the end of the day we look at the chart and record the number that goes with the color they ended the day on. At 1st I didn't have the colors on it, but the kids went home saying I ended on purple and parents were clueless as to exactly what that meant without reading the chart. So I added the colors on one side and the number on the other, so parents can easily see what kind of day their child has had. 

So one more thing! I am THRILLED to have been nominated for the Most Fascinating Blog of 2012. I was extremely surprised by it!


I am off to check out everyone else's Monday Made It's. If you are working on school projects, you should join the fun! 


Have a great week, see you back next Monday!

Monday Made It Linky

I am sooo excited to be able to link up with Tara at 4th Grade Frolics again for this week's Monday Made It! I honestly didn't think I was going to be able to since last week was CRAZY for me, but here I am with a completed project. I just finished it about 10 minutes ago! After looking at the projects from this week, looks like Lowe's and Home Depot are getting a lot of teacher business! So here is my Teacher Toolkit!

Of course inspired by Create*Teach*Share. I chose to go with bright blue spray paint and yellow and green scrapbook paper. I am going to attempt to redecorate my classroom and go with blues, greens, and light yellows as a color scheme. So this is my 1st step!

I don't have any pics of me actually making it due to the fact that hubby decided he was going to spray paint for me and already had a coat on it before I was able to start snapping pics. 

I was unable to make a home project this week because I was super busy with starting teaching upcoming kindergarten 19 day summer school and taking my girls to vacation bible school at church. I am going to share a picture of the crafts they made and the super cute jellyfish that was a decoration. Wish I would have taken pics of ALL the decorations as they were over the top this year!

Well, I am off to try to decide what fun project I need to get started on for next week.