Summer Time Projects

Since I am moving grades, my mind will not go into full summer mode and I have been busy doing fun school projects.
First I started with a new word to add to my collection. I was at Hobby Lobby and found these Chipboard letters on sale! So I covered them in patterned paper and VOILA!

Next I made a welcome banner, I had made one for my grade 2 room, but it was old and faded after 7 years, so I bought some wooden banners from Michaels, painted them up and stuck letter stickers on them to spell out "Welcome".

Next, since I was on a banner kick, I made another banner for my writing BB. I used Stampin' Up Banner Framelits and card stock for this version.

I also saw this online and fell in love, but could not justify spending $100 on a planner, so I'm making my own version!!

It's a work in progress but it makes me happy. These are the page dividers. I have 6 sections: Calendars/Schedules, Daily Plans, Class Lists, Records, Student Information, and Unit Overviews

The backs have a fun quote and I may have had too much fun with the embellishments...

The cover and the spine of the binder:

 The monthly dividers for each month's lesson plans and calendar

 A twin pocket folder to hold miscellaneous papers and memos

 A notebook to write down things to remember for next year and for all my brilliant ideas! BAHAHA!

 The last project was adding tags and ribbon to file boxes and wash tape to storage boxes!

I love school supplies, and adding personal touches to them makes me happy! So that was the first few weeks of summer, who knows what will happen next!

A few more things off my list...

I have been busily getting stuff done at school. One week till teacher meetings (gasp), and I am leaving tomorrow for a mini vaca to San Fran!(woot)!

I put my back to school bulletin board up, ARRR you ready for grade 2?". I will add ships with student names once I get my class list.

I also added a border to my chalkboard, which I use as a giant magnet board as I DISLIKE chalk! It looks so colourful now!!

Then I made instruction labels for my kiddos to look at instead of asking me a gazillion times whether they can use markers or not..... This way when they are doing a project they can remember to colour first, then cut (and not ask what to cut their paper with!!!!!), then glue, etc.... It was a great way to use up the BAZILLION school related stickers I have in my scrapbooking drawers!














And the last thing I will leave you with is the new dance I will be doing this year! It's just too fun! My kids will love it!!

Getting my classroom prep on!

Today was a "blah" day, so I decided to turn it into a "get a few things ready for school" day. I worked on a back to school pirate glyph, a little mini first week theme I am doing this year, along with my standard frog theme (no real connection, I just found some cute pirate-y stuff and thought, why not and they both like water?) Anyway, I saw this flannel pirate on pinterest  and thought, I could SO turn that into a glyph. For those who may not know a glyph is basically a picture used to represent information. So for my pirate glyph, I took the parts of the pirate and made them represent different pieces of information I wanted the students to communicate. This is the direction sheet, which I had a lot of fun creating, maybe a little too much fun....

The font I used was "pieces of eight" from daFont . I just have to photocopy and tweak the little pirate guy next week and it will be good to go! I also started making my locker labels, in black chevron, from  a freebie I found on TpT.

If you use my glyph, just let me know in the comments and tell me what you think!
Now it's no longer a blah day!!!

Teachers Don't Really Have a Summer Break...

All those people that say, "It must be nice to have 2 months off...." I say, "we never really leave the classroom behind" When I'm shopping, I look at things and think, "Oh, I can use that for my classroom" I cannot step inside Chapters without going to the kids section to see what new picture books are out and how I can integrate them into my units. I am on Pinterest A LOT looking for new teaching ideas. As one pin put it:

So you see, we really don't have 2 months off, we have hours, or maybe a day or two at a time where we are "off" but good teachers are always thinking about how to make learning come alive. Case in point, this blog. My goal for this blog is to share the things we are doing in my grade two class, and hopefully learn by reflection on how to be a better teacher (which will be hard cause I'm pretty awesome, and modest). So I am hoping that at some point along the way, you will find an idea that starts your teaching juices flowing... and if it does, let me know!