First Days of School!

Okay so I feel like I've started the year (my 7th...Wow!) on a really good note.  I've been really busy with paper work and the usual getting all of, the student routines established, charts, rules, along with many other things that are hard to remember without a list, lol! I took a few pictures of my classroom, before I left on the first day after putting away mounds of supplies.  I was exhausted and excited after a great first day!  I was so exhausted that I fell asleep at 7:00 p.m!  Okay now to the pictures!  We decided to stick to the monster theme once again...We LOVE monsters!  First I want to show you our awesome behavior chart.  We do a color changing system at our school that uses different emoticon faces to tell the students behavior for the day.  Sandra and I had talked about doing something "cool" instead of the same simple faces, lol!  I came up with this and we love it!

My favorite face is the red one, I find it to be hilarious!  It totally shows how the kids feel if and when they get put on red.  All that is missing are the pictures of my students on the chart to stick on with Velcro, those will start at the green face and either move up to the star when they do something that is beyond awesome or down when they get in trouble.

Here are a few pictures of my classroom, its still a little bare, but it will start taking shape as we move along through the year.  I feel that this year I really do have the best layout for this classroom, it feels really spacious!  These first few are of my new teacher space, words walls, writing center, Wow!-wall and the listening center area.

 Next is my math area which is still a little messy and my library area.

 In the back of the room is where I have my calendar, alphabet and interactive board.  I also have a shot of my kitchen center, which for the first time ever is big enough for the students to be able to explore comfortably.

As I was walking out the door I took a picture of my outside welcome board and door.  My cousin Jennifer made the monsters on my door and my sis cut them out after I laminated them.  Thanks, sis and Fer!  Without you two they would probably not be on my door.  ;) 

I'm so ready to really get this year going!!!

-Cindy

Teacher tool box

After seeing how some teachers are jazzing up their teacher toolboxes, I decided to try to jazz mine up too! First, I spray painted my toolboxes in my favorite color...PURPLE!! This was really easy and it dried fairly quickly.

Then I added pink and white zebra duct tape to the drawers and VIOLA I was almost done. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE duct tape! It was super easy to work with and this project didn't take as long as I thought it would.

 

 All I need to do now is add my labels and it'll be completely finished. I think they look awesome! I love how duct tape comes in such awesome colors now. I can't wait to see what else I can do with it.
 Sandra
 

Time to get my room ready!!

 On Tuesday we were finally able to get in our classroom for a few hours and set up our furniture. My room looks so BIG with all the furniture pushed against the wall, but in reality it's one of the smallest rooms in the school. The custodians did an awesome job cleaning the rooms this summer. My area rugs look like new. They even removed the blinds and we are waiting to get the new ones. How exciting!! I always love the beginning of the year, everything is fresh and new. 

 

 My room looks a little overwhelming with everything stacked up and waiting for me to move it, but I did it. I needed a little Ben-gay after all that furniture moving but so far I'm happy with the results. I'll post pictures as soon as it's finished.

 

 Sandra ;)

Hooray for the Cricut!

Well let's start with the fact that I have wanted a Cricut for a long time...this summer I finally got one on...Craig's List...EEEEK!  I know! Well, before I went out and spent hundreds on a new one and then hundreds more on cartridges, my good friend Emerald suggested I try Craig's List.  I ended up getting a great deal!!!  A gently used Cricut and 5 cartridges for $130!  Tonight I finally decided to try it out and I LOVE IT!  So for my first project I decided to make a simple banner with my name to hang in my classroom.  I wanted the layers to look nice so I cut out a square in the each setting size, so I could stack them and see what sizes to make the cut outs.



Next I chose what paper I wanted to use.  I had turquoise card stock for the background, hot pink patterned scrapbook paper for the middle layer and black card stock for the letters.

To put it together, I used small dots of Elmer's on the corners to glue the layers, remember, "a dot is a lot!" ;)

Here is the finished product, well minus the ribbon I want to tie them together with, they need to be laminated!  I absolutely love it!  I'm going to make some awesome stuff for our classroom!  Sandra wants zebra print, I'll post a pic as soon as I make it!



College For Kids Activities

This summer Cindy and I worked at TCC's College for kids and it was amazing!! We worked with students that we don't normally get to work with since we teach Kindergarten. The students were in 3rd - 6th grade and we actually had full conversations with them lol. They created some awesome self portraits.They used construction paper and felt for the self portrait and then we created a list of adjectives they could use to describe themselves.

We also made yarn balls!! They were a lot harder then they look. Pinterest made them look so easy. They were super messy and they took forever to dry but the final product was really cool.

 

Our next project was Sock Puppets! They students were so creative. They used felt, buttons, pipe cleaners, wiggle eyes and anything else they wanted for their puppets.They turned out great!

 

Our next project was a painting project that we found on Pinterest. It took 2 days to finish but I think the end result was worth the extra day.

 One of our last projects was a mosaic made from small construction paper.