Monday Made It #2

I'm so excited to be participating in another Monday Made it!!  I'm going to try to be a little less wordy and keep my random thoughts inside my head.  I can't make any promises that it will happen, but I'll try!  If you want to link up, head over to Tara's blog at 4th Grade Frolics.

Monday Made It Item #1: Dr. Seuss Quote Poster (and you can have it, too!)

This is a poster I made for my reading area.  I just printed it out like normal and used the poster-maker at school to enlarge it.  It turned out great!  One of the first grade teachers asked if she could have one, too!  If you would like a copy, I've uploaded it to google docs.  Just click here.  Enjoy! :)

Monday Made It Item #2: Binder Covers!

I just realized... I know my OCD is a bit extreme, but I did a really good job of eye-balling those labels... I didn't even compare them as I was gluing them on.  Huh, I'm impressed. :)

I'm in love with these.  I got the frame from Michelle at The 3AM Teacher.  They were not fun to cut out but I think it was worth the effort!  For the spine, I just played with the length and width making sure not to distort it too much.  I used my paper slicer to cut 1" off the top of the scrapbook paper (so it will not hang out) and then I cut 2" off the side to use for the spine.  I slapped on a little rubber cement on both labels, and voilà!  I think the colors are bright and fun!  What do you think?
P.S. If you have a Sam's Membership or know anyone who does, go there for your binders.  I got an 4-pack of 2-inch binders for $11!

Monday Made It Item #3: Hall Pass Sign and Tags!

I'm sure I've said this before, but I have a big need for instant gratification when it comes to some things.  Pinterest and blogs feed that need.  I've had Tara's (at 4th Grade Frolics) hall pass sign pinned for months knowing that I would eventually get around to it.  Then, last Monday, I saw THE CUTEST hall passes on Rie's blog (Hip, Hop, Hooray!).  They are genius!  It absolutely grosses me out that students have to carry hall passes to the bathroom.  And when they come back wet.... BARF!!!  With these, the kids can clip the hall pass to their shirts no matter where they're going!!  Again, genius!  So, I got up from my couch, found my keys and wallet, and headed to Walmart for a wood sign ($6?), paint (bottles and paint pens - $6), ribbon ($3), badge clips and holders ($1.88 for a 12 pack of each - so a little less than $4).  Aww, man, I wish I hadn't put those prices down... I didn't realize how much I'd spent! Poo!  I'm not going to go into detail about how I painted the board... You can figure it out, but I will mention that the green and gold paint are metallic! It looks pretty neat!  And I did put a coat of varnish on top.  I, also, got this frame for the hall passes from The 3AM Teacher.  I'm not sure if you can read the hall passes, but they include: Boy's Pass, Girl's Pass, Office Pass, Nurse Pass, Counselor Pass, Library Pass, and 2 Hall Passes.  These Hall Passes are available at my TpT Store.

Monday Made It Item #4: Hallway Clip Board

Why:   To keep kids accountable for meeting hallway expectations, a student (different student every day) monitors behavior and gives classmates either a check (meets expectations) or dot (does not meet expectations).  The number of dots will determine how much time is spent walking laps at recess (no worries, they still have time to play).  At the end of the day, the number of checks will determine if a student gets to clip-up (behavior chart).  It's amazing how well this seems to work.  I saw the quote on Pinterest (from Technology Rocks. Seriously.  Also, if you have trouble downloading her posters, she is very nice about emailing them to you.) and I just thought it was perfect!

How:  I'm going to go into a little more detail on this one.  The first picture shows my first TWO attempts...  Complete Failure.  What I did was use a spray adhesive to adhere the scrapbook paper to the back of the clipboard. Then, I printed this "poster" on translucent scrapbook paper.  The first time, I used more of the adhesive to stick the translucent paper to the other and then used Mod Podge on top... It bubbled.  The second time, I used Mod Podge to stick the two together... It bubbled. AHHHH!!!  So, I went and bought another clipboard and had the BRIGHT idea to just forget the translucent paper and print directly on the scrapbook paper.  SUCCESS!!  I still used the spray adhesive to stick the scrapbook paper to the clipboard.  I made sure to get all the bubbles out (using my drivers license), and put two coats of Mod Podge on top.  I'm in love with it, personally.

Monday Made It Item #5: Pencil Cans

I found these cans in the Target dollar bins.  They aren't spectacular.  My handwriting and paint pens were not at their best!  It will work, though!

That's all for this week!

Monday Made It: Sorting Papers

This is my first time participating in Monday Made It!  Let me tell you, I have been bursting at the seams since Friday wanting to share my creation, but I made myself wait! :)  So, anyone connected to the educational pinning world has probably seen the plastic drawer system for sorting papers.  Let me find the picture...  Can I just go off topic for a second and mention that it drives me NuTs!! when only a blog is pinned and not the actual blog post.  It's so frustrating having to search through entries to find the picture that I saw on Pinterest!  Ok, back to my Monday Made It... So I'm sure you've seen this on Pinterest.  It's a SUPER great idea, but I must say, it's not very pretty.  I was reading The Help, on Friday and all of a sudden it hit me!  SCRAPBOOK PAPER AND MOD PODGE!!!  Now let me say, I had never, ever used Mod Podge before (unless you consider the Mod Podge for puzzles as a kid).  It was a new, wonderful experience!  :)  I tried to take pictures as I went along, but I was sort of [messy] with the Mod Podge and really didn't want to ruin the iPhone, so there are only a few.  BUT I'm excited to share.

I should also mention that I got my idea from a pin I saw about two years ago.  Let me go find that one... I want everyone getting credit!!  So, Jen's blog was really helpful.  Like I said, I'd never used Mod Podge before and I had no idea what to do with it!  You gotta love clear, step by step directions!  I'm going to go off topic again...  Blogger sometimes really annoys me with where it wants to put pictures and where it doesn't want to put them.  Thankfully, I have a bit of knowledge with HTML.  Ugh!!  Back on topic... I'm so glad Mod Podge dries clear.  I applied the initial coat of Mod Podge haphazardly!  I could see pockets where there was too much.  I'll just caption the pictures from on out...

I used my "paper slicer" to cut the scrapbook paper down to the right size, and I printed the labels on regular computer paper.  Then I used my spiffy, decorative scissors to put out the labels.  Finally, I used rubber cement (LOVE) to glue the labels to the pieces of scrapbook paper.

You can see where I had too much Mod Podge.

Next, I tried to smooth out the air bubbles and wrinkles and applied 3 coats of Mod Podge to the back side letting it dry between coats.

Final product!  The first drawer I did was the top one.  You can see that I went to the left with the paper on that and to the right with the paper on the other two.  That's the only flaw that stands out to me, but I'm pretty proud!  I think it turned out really cute! :)

I hope you all like it!  Let me know what you think!  Also head over to Fourth Grade Frolics and view other Monday Made It ideas!  :)

It's Official!!

Unless numbers change drastically (and really emphasize drastically), I will be teaching 5th grade next year!  Hallelujah!  I just got the call from my principal!  My anxiety level has already lowered quite a bit!  Woot woot!! :)

That's all for now.  I just wanted to quickly share my happiness! :)

Laminating... Ugh!

I finally decided to tackle the laminating I've had sitting on my dining table since our last work day.  I got about half-way through before I quit, but I thought I'd share.  One of our 5th grade teachers made great dividers.  I think she originally got the initial idea from Pinterest, but she improved it.

These are the dividers... aren't they great?  What I did was cut out the circles and tape them to the back of the divider page.  Simple, right.  Yes, but time consuming.  Next, they were laminated and need to be cut out.  Simple, right?  NOOOO!!!!  Aggravating and frustrating!  :)

So, this is for my planning notebook.  What I did was copy a piece of notebook paper onto card stock.  I can use a Vis-a-Vis marker to make notes, or something like that.

This one is for my Social Studies notebook.  Again, I can use a Vis-a-Vis  write any Related Books, Games, Things to do/make, Technology, Resources, and Notes I can think of... 

And this is all that I still have to cut out... Boo!  I'll get to it eventually.

In other news, I finished the Shades of Grey Series day before last.  The last book is definitely the best...more mystery and less romance.  I FINALLY started The Help last night.  Once I finish it, I can watch the movie... I am a HUGE fan of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, so a year or so ago, I bought Mansfield Park to read.  I started it yesterday morning and I must say, after 75 pages, it was the most boring book I've ever tried to read.  I don't abandon books often, but I just couldn't take it anymore.

In a completely different direction, I'm sure you've heard by now that Andy Griffith died this morning.  I am so incredibly saddened by this news.  Growing up, I would watch The Andy Griffith Show with my Daddy.  I still watch it daily.  :(

I hate to end it on a sad note, but that's all for now.

Behavior Clip Chart

Today has been a day of crafting!  First, I finished up the bottle caps, and now I've just completed my behavior clip chart!  I've included a picture of the clip chart to the right.  I can't take complete credit for how cute it is.  One of the 5th grade teachers had a really cute chart this year, so I've kind of taken her idea.  You can see hers here.  As far as I know, every classroom at my school uses this behavior management system.  For the most part, it works.  There will always be those "once in a blue moon" situations where the clip chart will be useless, but I like it!  I know it's a bit fuzzy (I was standing on a stole with my phone above my head trying to get the whole thing in the picture!), so click on the picture if you need help reading the labels!  :)  I wish I knew who originally came up with this idea, so I could credit them.  ...  I forgot what I was about to say.  Oh well, I still need to get this laminated, so I'm trying to keep it as flat as possible until then.  Monday will be the last day our media assistant will be laminating until we come back in the fall.  One of the first grade teachers came up with the idea of getting things done for next year before we leave for the summer.  How genius is that?  Unfortunately, the idea has spread like a wild fire, and our poor media assistant has been super busy!  I'm sure she won't mind too much in the fall, though.  ...  Oh yeah!  I remember what I was going to say.  Every classroom at my school uses this behavior management system, so if we have any trouble with students who don't belong to us, we just tell the student to clip down or ask the teacher to have the student clip down.  It's great!  The last picture I'm going to include is a close-up of what looks like solid colors.  They're actually polka dots!  I thought that would be a cute idea. :)  BTW, I was really OCD about this (as with most things).  I used a ruler to measure 6 inches down on all of the "smaller" pieces of scrapbook paper.  I wouldn't have been able to handle it not being uniform.  I eye-balled the labels...  I think they're pretty darn close to center!  :) Enjoy!  (PS if you're wondering, I've been using instagram to take my pictures.)

Here We Go Again

Now that I've wasted about 4 hours getting this blog set up how I like it, I thought I might as well make a post.  Hopefully, I'll update this blog regularly unlike my past blogs.  This blog will primarily revolve around the education world (specifically, elementary); however, I cannot guarantee that I won't throw in a random post... probably about food. :)  I'm going to end this post now, because I just realized that I'm starving.  It's 3:10 pm and I have only had a cup of coffee today.  I suppose it's needless to say I can get caught up in things pretty easily and forget to eat.  Until next time...

*Update*

Now that I have been fed, I can now, properly, continue my first blog post.  Let me tell you a little bit about me.  I have just completed my first year of teaching in a small town in North Carolina.  The area where I teach has a very low socioeconomic status.  This past year, we had 1 student in 5th grade who paid for his/her lunch.  I work at a challenging school, but I do know that I would have it any other way.  I love these kids.  Enough about the kids and more about me! :)  My first year consisted of me teaching reading to 5th graders...  ALL DAY!  It wasn't a glamorous first year, but I learned a TON!!  I'm thankful for the learning experience.

This past week, I signed my contract for the 2012-2013 school year.  I don't know what I will be teaching, but I was told that my principal is 99% sure I will be a classroom teacher.  There is a 5th grade position that I am, crossing my fingers and toes, hoping to get.   5th grade is where I'm most comfortable and happy.  I have an amazing team that I don't want to leave.  Who knows.... maybe I'll get lucky!

I have so many great ideas and I've started making tons of cool things!  I will begin sharing some of those things in the following entries.  Again, I hope I stay with 5th grade; otherwise, I'll have to rethink some of my great ideas!

Stay tuned!