Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Writing Area Organization

The #create2educate #sweepstakes by Michael's has been just the incentive I've needed to get to work on some classroom projects. I've seen so many fun organization ideas that have made me want to re-vamp my writing area. I have some bins there already that I love and fit perfect, but I don't have enough of them :(

Insert new organization idea here. How often do we see these photo boxes on sale at Michaels? Shelves just full of them in fun adorable little patterns. They just HAVE to be usable for something other than photos right?
Photo from Google Image Search
I decided they would make some perfect writing area containers. I wasn't sure how I felt about the lids, probably just because it's a different idea. I went with it. I figured I could always take them off later. 

My Michael's has them on sale 5/$10 and they had a great selection. I loved the polka dotted ones, but they only had them in pink and yellow- wouldn't match my theme. I thought, well hey, I can just decorate my own! They had solid white ones and solid brown paper ones. I decided to go with white.


And I bought some Craft Smart paint. I probably had colors I needed around, but just in case I didn't I decided to pick some up while I was there. Plus they were 50% off! I paid .34cents for each bottle! And last but not least, I needed some fun circle sponge painters since I decided I was going to do polka dots on mine.


Honestly, I wish that the circles turned out a little more "solid" in color. If I was really that concerned I suppose I could have gone back over the dots with a paint brush. Ain't nobody got time for that.



I did my lids first, then the bottoms of the boxes. Overall, I'm happy with them! I also printed labels for the fronts. I used images for my labels since my pre-k kiddos don't read yet ;)


I'm planning on placing a larger label picture on the top of the lids, but I want to spray my boxes with a sealant first so nothing happens to the polka dots!

I wish I could show you a picture of how they look in my writing area, but I can't get into my classroom until next Monday. I'm impatiently waiting though, that's for sure!

These boxes really can be used for all sorts of organization ideas. I don't know why they've never dawned on me sooner! And I have the space to add 10 more to my writing area! (hahah it's quite the shelf)
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Saturday, July 27, 2013

Were you a Winner?

Hear ye, hear ye! We have an announcement! 


Rebecca, you have won a pack of 12 flair pens from ME! Be sure to check your e-mail, I will need to get your mailing address so I can put these puppies in the mail for you! 

WHO WON THE HUGE PRIZE PACKS?!

Announcement is on it's way. Head over to Freebielicious for the exciting unveiling of the winners!

Freebielicious
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Thursday, July 25, 2013

{Christmas in July} --and it's a giveaway hop with Freebielicious!

Hello freebie-lovers! The Freebielicious ladies know how much teachers appreciate good freebies, but we know that teachers are downright OBSESSED with new school supplies. In honor of the back to school season that is quickly approaching, Freebielicious is hosting a MEGA Christmas in July Giveaway. {Like seriously, I'm thinking about making a fake name so I can enter to win}

School Supply Giveaway Blog Hop

We have selected our very favorite school supplies and each blogger is hosting a mini-giveaway for a chance to win our favorite supply. For me, once you go flair pen, you never go back! Seriously--flair pens make this OCD heart very happy. I love color coordinating somethings everything in my planner and these pens are perfect because they don't bleed through the paper! For Christmas in July I'm giving one lucky reader their very own pack of 12 different colors for, you guessed it, FREE. 

Use the Rafflecopter for your chance to win a 12 color pack of flair pens to use in your favorite planner!
 

WAIT--There's Even MORE!

In addition to the School Supply Giveaway Blog Hop, we also have a few amazing grand prizes over on the Freebielicious blog. First of all, you could win an entire set of ALL the favorite school supplies of the Freebielicious bloggers! {yes, you could win everything pictured below! eek!}

Favorite School Supplies Giveaway


We also have a special Grand Prize of Back to School goodies from Santa's Helpers (aka our sponsors). You won't BELIEVE the amazing lineup of prizes in this collection. 

Santas Helpers Grand Prize

Make sure you stop by the Freebielicious blog for your chance to enter to win both of these MEGA grand prize collections! If you see me over there incognito trying to enter, don't tell anyone!

Keep Hopping {Don't Tell me You're Tired Already!}

Follow the giveaway hop and enter to win a special treat from all of Santa's blogging elves! Your next stop on the Christmas hop is First Grade Blue Skies. Click on the image below for your chance to win a set of Mr. Sketch Smelly markers!



Merry Christmas in July from Santa's elves at Freebielicious!
Thank you to Santa's Helpers for being such generous sponsors:

Isn't this the best giveaway EVER? 
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Wednesday, July 24, 2013

Desk Organization- #create2educate

Finding something to better organize my desk has been in the back of my mind since the end of the year. I currently have a super cute pen cup but I like to keep pens, markers, scissors, and every other completely unnecessary necessary item on my desk in. But at this point it's pretty much crammed full. Raise your hand if you can relate.

My explorations of classroom photos, for maybe the 500th time, had me stumble upon this one, for maybe the 500th time, from Fabulous in First.

 

I just love that she used the pen/crayon/marker holder from Lakeshore on her desk to store her needed items. And I love how it allowed everything to have it's own section. After this I knew I was on the hunt for something with sections.

While perusing the isles of Micheal's {like we all do at least once a week} I came across some awesome photo containers. Even better, they were on clearance! Woo hoo! So don't forget to walk down those frame isles even if you know that is not what you are in the store for! I knew they would be perfect. Wasn't quite sure what I was going to decorate them with besides primary colors to match my theme for the year, but knew they were the ones.


I'm kinda pom-pom obsessed at the moment. I came across these will looking digging through my craft supplies (seriously, if I showed you a picture of my "craft area" you'd deny that you even knew me. It's THAT bad) and just KNEW they were going to be perfect. I already have more ideas to incorporate more poms in my classroom!


Tell me those poms aren't absolutely adorable. I dare you.


I am seriously beyond pleased with how they turned out! I bought this paper tray at Target for like $3 to hold my cups on my desk. There's extra space to place my post it notes and other odds and ends as well. And hopefully it doesn't become a catch all for clutter! 

I thought about step by step photos, but let's be honest. This ain't rocket science. Just don't try and print your labels out on your patterned paper like I did. DOES NOT work out like one might think. Since my paper is card stock I printed my labels on regular paper and attached on top. The paper is a little small to fit around the cup so I had to add an extra piece in. It's in the back though so you can't see it.

I used a hot glue gun to add my pom-poms. I would suggest gluing these on with the cup completely apart. This way you won't glue your two pieces together by accident!

If you follow me on instagram (@creatingteaching) you'll find this photo with the hashtags #create2educate and #sweepstakes for an entry into Micheal's creating sweepstakes!

And since you're here, I'll go ahead and let you in on a little secret from a little elf....

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Monday, July 22, 2013

{10} Things I've Learned

I read Hadar's post of 10 things she's learned from teaching and thought, hmm...well, what HAVE I learned?! I know there has been ton, but what stands out the most to me and what's worth sharing?!


1. DON"T EAT THE SNACKS! Seriously, just don't do it. My pre-k kiddos eat snack, and this year, had breakfast, lunch, and snack in the classroom. Thanks to starting clean eating I was able to stop eating all the snacks! None of it's clean, imagine that, right? It's a surefire way to pack on a few extra lbs. Every extra mini pancake and chicken nugget counts!




2. DON"T EAT THE REINFORCEMENT! One for you, one for me, is NOT the way to go. Along with that, don't buy things that you LOVE to give out. [i.e. jelly beans, candy corn, skittles- I think I ate more than I gave out!} 

3. DON"T LET THEM GET BORED! Big no, no, especially with the little ones. Boredom leads to behaviors. Save yourself the time and energy. Pay attention to their interests. If they stop playing with the materials in a center, CHANGE THEM! Don't always keep your centers the same. This will be crucial to your classroom management whether you realize it or not.

4. TIME. Either decide to get there early, or stay later. My first year teaching I was either the 1st or 2nd person there and usually the last to leave. I should have just moved in. As the years have gone on, I now get there about 30-15 min before the students do. {30 on a good day, 10 on a not so good day} and then commit to just staying til 4-4:30, unless I have something big to work on like an IEP.
 

5. COLLABORATE & SHARE. Don't stay in your room, reach out! Find a few teachers in your grade level, or maybe just at least one if your team is small, who you can collaborate with and exchange ideas. Make sure it's a give & take. Don't let a teacher take advantage of your willingness to share if they aren't going to share back. That might sound harsh, but we all put in a lot of hard work and a lot of our own time. I don't mind sharing, in fact, I LOVE to, but I don't someone to "mooch" off of me either.

6. BE ORGANIZED. Like I really needed to point that out. I am pretty organized, but I've learned that classroom organization takes time and adjustment and that's okay. Every year I am purging files, or creating new binders to find the best way to organize my files and keep them handy. 

7. TIME FILLERS. No matter how well you plan you may find yourself with a few minutes here and there to fill up. I have several activities that I keep on hand near our carpet area. These are great if we are waiting for our SLP to come in, but have a few minutes to spare. Waiting to line up? "hands on your head, hands on your feet, hands on your hips" works like a charm! 

8. PRAISE AROUND. I love this technique. Have 1 student not doing what they are supposed to be doing? Or maybe 4 or 5? Start praising the ones who are doing what they should be. Usually those not following directions will catch on because they want to be recognized too. Give high fives, stickers, a goldfish, etc. For me this also helps to balance out for the students who may have a behavior plan that requires them to receive more frequent reinforcement. If other students get them every now and then too, they are less likely to "complain" about it "being unfair"
 
9. CHOOSE YOUR WORDS. Don't ask a yes or no question if you don't want a yes or no answer. I'm so guilty of this and just want to face palm myself every.time. it happens!



10. MOMMY. You're going to be called Mommy. You can't avoid that, or change it, it happens.

What are some of the things you have learned? These are lessons I've learned to apply to my teaching. Things I may have known about before, but once I was on my own, I really knew how important they were!

Link up your lessons learned with Miss Kindergarten! And check out all the other link ups!
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Friday, July 19, 2013

Letter of the Day

Last Winter I made this letter of the day activity to incorporate into our greeting time routine. We differentiate our greeting time so this was used with a small group of students who were ready for letter practice/awareness.


We took the letter from our messages that day and completed the page in our Letter of the Day Book.

Students had to look among letter choices to find the correct capital and correct lowercase. They would then Velcro it on the page.

Next, we found pictures that started with that letter. Students could use the clues provided in the image to see the first letter, or use letter sound knowledge to identify the correct picture. Depending on the student, present them with a different number of options to choose from. I first started with 2 pictures and they had to find the correct one. Then increase the amount from there when that becomes easy.

 
Next we each practiced writing a capital and a lowercase. Each student got a turn with the expo marker to practice writing. In the one pictured above, I added dots for my students to trace because that was appropriate for all of them. The file you are purchasing has handwriting lines with the first letter and space for the students to write on their own.

Then voila, the page is done. As a group we review back through what the letter is, where the capital is, where the lowercase is, and what pictures we found that start with that letter.

I chose to put mine in a binder so that it's quick and easy to grab during our greeting time. You could laminate the pages and have students use expo markers, or insert them in page dividers like I did. Again, they can use the expo markers to write on top. 

This could easily be given to a student to complete independently as well. (That's what was being done in the pictures)

I used the cover pages of the product as the cover pages for my binders too. These are sold in a 2 part pack due to licensing reasons with Boardmaker images. Part 1 has everything for letters A-M and Part 2 has everything for letters N-Z.


Both items are available on TpT and TN for $3.50 each.


Do you use Boardmaker images with your students? I LOVE them.
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Thursday, July 18, 2013

Throwback Thursday! #tbt

{who can resist a hashtag nowadays!?}

This is actually my FIRST throwback Thursday blog post. Can you believe that?! I'm all about #tbt on Instagram!


After you enjoy my throwback, make sure you click the picture to head over to The First Grade Parade. You can link up too, and checkout all of the other TBT posts!

Thought I'd pull something out of the archives that maybe a lot of your haven't seen before. It's one of my faves! If you have seen it, it's been in the "background" of my classroom pictures. Now you can find out more!

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Original Post on 7/3/11

This is a throwback post to before I had a blog (HA, a throwback within a throwback! who knew?!) Last summer I painted the entire alphabet for my classroom. I found paper mache letters at Jo-Anns and couldn't wait to start my alphabet. How fun would it have been to blog about each letter as it was finished?! I thought you might enjoy seeing them & be inspired to paint your own set for your classroom!


A is for apple.
B is for blue.
C is for cow.
D is for doughnut. 


E is for egg.
F is for flower.
G is for green.
H is for heart.


I is for ice cream.
J is for jelly fish.
K is for kite.
L is for ladybug.

No, I did not paint Nemo. I mod podged photos on. I'm not THAT good.

M is for moon.
N is for Nemo.
O is for orange.
P is for purple.


Q is for quilt.
R is for red.
S is for sun.
T is for turtle. 
(boyfriend said they looked like toasters. thanks.)


U is for umbrella.
V is for vine.
W is for watermelon.
X is for xylophone.


Y is for yellow.
Z is for zebra.

I gradually made these over the summer months last year. I was fortunate that my classroom conveniently already had hooks around the wall and it was PERFECT for hanging these. If you look at the picture below, you can see them hanging around the ceiling.


I varied the heights that I hung them at so I didn't have to stress over them being even or not. 

Have you taken on any large projects for your classroom recently?
 
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P.S. What do yall think about my HORRIBLE photos for each letter?!? AHhHHhhhh! I'd love to prop those babies up in some natural daylight and get better pictures. (But that would mean taking them down from the wall....)
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Sunday, July 14, 2013

Facebook Fan Freebies!

I FINALLY did it! I set up a facebook fan freebie!

I heard this was a near nightmare to do so I book marked a tutorial that Ashley posted from The School Supply Addict and decided I would wait until I was ready to tackle it. Last night that time finally came. I must say, this was actually much easier than what I was anticipating. If you're doubting yourself about being able to do this, don't. Chances are you most definitely can!

Now I bet you wanna know how you can get the freebie for yourself! 

First, if you don't know whether or not you like Creating & Teaching on Facebook, look to the right and find the "Facebook" circle. Click it. Then you want to make sure you "like" my page.


If you don't like my page, you can't get the freebie! Or any other future freebies! And you don't want to miss this one!

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Saturday, July 13, 2013

Classroom Pillows

Do you have pillows in your classroom? I started out just using some extra old ones I had laying around. They never matched my classroom but it was so expensive to buy pillows! This year I checked into Lakeshore to consider ordering some out of my classroom budget.

Comfy Pillows - Set of 5
photo from Lakeshore
 
I thought these would have been perfect. But their $129.00 price tag would have been a large chunk of my budget. My next thought was to go with these...
 
Soft Seats
photo from Lakeshore

But they are just so small I decided I didn't just want to settle on them. I decided I would just get fabric and make my own over the summer. It would probably be cheaper anyway and I would have pillows that matched my room.

WELL, a better idea came to mind. GroopDealz and VeryJane always have pillow covers on their sites and they are pretty cheap. I looked up the price of the pillows to see what they would cost me and when I found 18 x 18 pillows for $5.99 I was sold! I could get 3 large pillows for my classroom for around $50 including shipping and handling. I can take the covers off and wash them as needed and they'll be mine if I ever switch schools.

I'm bummed I missed out on these at VeryJane. Tons of great patterns, and they had green too!

CLEARANCE Outdoor 18 x 18 Pillow Covers – Quick Ship!
photo from VeryJane
 
But I headed over to GroopDealz and found these for an even better price. I ordered royal blue, yellow, and red since I have decided to go primary colors with my classroom "theme" this year.

photo from GroopDealz

They didn't have any green options, but that's okay. The green in my classroom is a pretty dark green. It would probably be pretty hard to find similiar green in pillows. I think I like this pattern a little more because it has more of the color than white, making the design seem more subtle.

Oh! And I found the 18 x 18 pillow inserts at sears.com for only $5.99 each. 

Do you have pillows in your classroom? I'd love to see what you have found or what you've used to find inexpensive pillow options for your classroom library. I might be the most excited teacher ever about starting to decorate and set up my classroom this year. I have big plans.
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Friday, July 12, 2013

It's Circus Time!

Do you have a circus theme in your classroom? I BRIEFLY considered it when I saw Melanie's adorable classroom theme and knowing I had a lot of red already, but I changed my mind. I have too much royal blue instead of turquoise, but this look is still SO adorable!

I know there is at least 1 of you out there with a circus theme because you requested a circus theme sub binder! It's now complete and in my store if you are interested in purchasing it.


*In case you've never seen any of my sub binders before they include the following pages for you to use to create dividers for setting up your binder:

- The "basic" stuff
- Important Procedures
- Behavior Management
- Daily Routine
- Lesson Plans

There is also a "While you Were Out" page that you can make multiple copies of and have the sub fill it in for the day. There are binder spines for sizes 1in through 3in.


I also went ahead and made matching alphabet cards that can be used as flash cards or for your word wall.



And a birthday pack too! These three items seem to be popular in my stores. Place student names on the name tags included in the pack {now editable!} On your board place the monthly tents, then the students names underneath each month!



If you are interested in all 3 items make sure you purchase them in the bundle to save!
Separately you would spend $5.00, bundled you will spend $4.00




Have you chosen your classroom theme for 2013-2014? I wasn't going to change mine but after reading Melanie's ebook: Decorate Like a Pro, I was easily swayed. I've decided to go with a primary colors theme and I can't wait to get in there and get started! Oh- and shop the supply catalogs! 
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