Wow...

I haven't blogged in awhile! School started last Monday (the 22nd) and it has been BUSY! The weekend before school started we traveled to Louisiana (about 7 hours away)for my friends wedding reception. It was not a good weekend to go seeing as school started on Monday, but we had a blast.

After a long weekend we left early Sunday morning and came home. 

I have 19 kids in class right now. Due to class size being 18, we are all over by 1. We will have a new teacher starting next week and 4 of my kiddos will go on to the other class. It will be nice to only have 15 kids! 

Also, Limeades for learning. started yesterday. Please vote for my project! 

Kindergarteners Can Read Too!

www.limeadesforlearning.com

I just voted for this project at LimeadesForLearning.com. Limeades for Learning is a partnership between SONIC and DonorsChoose.org that supports public school teachers across the U.S. Just visit the site now and vote daily. SONIC will fund projects with the highest votes each week, Aug 29-Sept 30.

Back to School

I started back to school on Monday. In our county we have a week to get ready until the kids come. The kiddos will start on Monday. My room is finished as of today! Yay! I just have to work on lesson plans. We have orientation tomorrow night, so I am excited to meet the kids. I took a few pictures of my room (with my phone so they aren't the best). I will take better pictures tomorrow.

This is my listening center area. The colorful desk was given to me last summer and my husband and I redid it to make it colorful and into a listening center. You can see the original one HERE!

The container on top is my pointers for the kids to use when they "read around the room". To the right is my blender of blends. I found the original on Tales of a Teacherista!

Close up of my cute shelf that was given to me. 

This is in my reading area. These two cute chairs were given to me when I first started teaching.

My super cute behavior tree my mom made me. The kids will "climb" the tree with their gorilla to get treasure box. Each day they are on green they will move up the tree. After 5 greens they get treasure box!

The board on the right is my calendar and Question of the Day graph that we use daily.

This is pretty hard to visualize just looking at it. This will house pictures for the kids reading and math centers. The zebra, lion, gorilla and giraffe on the left will be the different groups. When I know which group the kids will be in I will write their names on it. I will velcro the picture of the centers each group will go to so they know without asking. I will take a picture of it in use once school starts :)

My Chicka Chicka Boom Boom board my mom made. It is pretty hard to see. It says "Chicka Chicka Boom Book Look Who's in our Room". The letters going down the tree have each kids name on them. I cut out the beginning letter of their name and wrote the rest on the letter. 

This is my reading small group table. My mom purchased the green entertainment center from a local thrift store for $20.00. We painted it green and put in a shelf to house my reading materials. I love it!

This is the view from my room standing next to my reading table. I am very excited with the way my room turned out. As I am looking at these pictures I see many things I forgot to take picture of. Cubbies, word wall, whole group reading area, Etc. Those will come later :)

Cubbies

My dad and I took on the mission to build some cubbies for my classroom. I previously had hooks on the wall. They are close together and too tall for many of the smaller kids. It just didn't work! It took us 2 days to actually build them and another 2 days to varnish them. I forgot to take a finished product picture so I will have to do that tomorrow at school.

 My fabulous dad helping build them!

This is the closest picture I have of them being done. We still had to add another row in this picture as well as the back. 

Acts of Kindness

Today my grandmother and I went to a fabric store to purchase some heavy duty upholstery to make chair covers for my kiddos. The place we went to is closing (the couple that owns it is retiring) so all their upholstery was $2.00 a yard. My mom made me some chair pockets last year, but they fell apart because the fabric was too thin. This year mom wanted to buy the thicker stuff in hopes that it will make it more than one year. We get there and there wasn't much to choose from. I found a blue pattern that I liked and it ended up being only 7 1/2 yards. We thought we needed around 10 yards. I found another one that I liked as well and had the man cut me off 10 yards. We figured since it was so cheap we could buy more for next time they needed to be made.
 The whole time I was talking to the couple about teaching, they asked what grade I taught, how long I had been teaching, what I was going to use the fabric for etc. Basic talk, nothing special.
When he had finished he said he would put it in the car. I stayed behind with his wife and asked how much. She said nothing. I was confused and asked again. She said "I know it will be put to good use". I was so happy I gave her a huge hug and almost cried right there. I walked outside and gave her husband a hug and told him how grateful I was. All he said was "I can't thank my kindergarten teacher". It's amazing how nice some people are. I am extremely grateful for this sweet couple.

Chicka Chicka Cowboy...

Over the summer I have been working on different center ideas. This cowboy center was an idea from our teacher assistant Mrs. Paula. I had fun making it, but ran out of laminate fast. I ordered some at the beginning of June and it has yet to arrive. :( 

 This is the container that it will all be stored in.

 This is one of the craft activities. They will use a paper plate, yarn for the hair, googly eyes, and a cowboy hat and bandanna pattern. All of these supplies are kept in the box so that they all stay together. 

 This is a game where the children roll dice and cover the circles with how many they roll. I purchased the clear transparency colored markers for them to cover the circles with.

 These are some of the fun activities I found on makinglearningfun.com. I absolutely LOVE that website. 

 This is a game where they have to figure out the answer on their beans and put it in the correct corral. Sounds easy huh? Did I mention they can't use their hands? I have purchased straws from the Dollar Tree for them to use to complete this activity

. 

 These were also found on makinglearningfun.com. They will use clothespins to mark the correct answer. 

This is  a cute horse addition idea. They have to find the two clothespins that equal the number on the horse. Once they find the correct numbers they clip them on to make legs. 

Now for some Chicka Chicka Boom Boom!

 This is the container I will store it all in.

 I found a TON of this in my room that someone had left. I couldn't figure out what to do with it. A lady that was in my cake decorating class teacher KG as well (she is retiring after this year) and she brought me some items to have. Some of the items were Chicka Chicka Boom Boom related. 

This is one of the crafts she did in her class (sorry it's crooked). So I decided to cut out the trunk and the leaved from the border I had.

Here are the leaves.

 Here are the trunks.

 This is another activity from makinglearningfun.com. 

 This activity they will use dry erase markers to write the beginning letter of the picture. 

 Some other cute crafts. The one on the right will be perfect for teacher trapezoids!

This is some of the pages I pulled from makinglearningfun.com

I still have a lot to do before returning to school on Monday. We have a week of pre planning and then the kids will arrive the following Monday. 

Now to go finish staining the cubbies. Be on the look out for these!

Crafts

Over the past couple of days I have been working on things for my classroom. I can't believe I go back to work Monday! Here is a few things I have done/made. I got this ice cream center from Herding Kats in Kindergarten. You can check out the original post HERE. 

I had to go to two different dollar stores to find the ice cream bowls. I will use pom poms for the scoops like she did, however they are at school. Also, I purchased a cute ice cream bag to keep them in (which is also at school).

This next idea came from Controlling my Chaos. I saw these on her sight and loved them! You can see the original post HERE.


I used two empty cans, painted them black, and put scrapbook paper and letters on them. I used Mod Podge ( A TON) all over the whole thing. Then I glued buttons to it to jazz it up.

Now to get back to making more things for the room. Next up, CUBBIES!

Cakes!

My mom and I have been taking a fondant cake class for the past month. It was a lot of fun. Last Tuesday we had to do our "final" cake.

Here is what mine looked like...

And this is what mom's looked like. 

I would say they turned out pretty cute :)

Crayon artwork....

As I was browsing on Pinterest, I came across a really awesome crayon project that I wanted to try to make to put in the classroom. You can find the original idea HERE . Needless to say mine did NOT turn out quite like that.

First we had to choose the colors and the order we wanted them in. We took out the black, brown, white, tan, pink and red violet crayons. We also used two packs of crayons.

I let the husband decide on where to put the colors and such. He is good at things like that.

I hot glued all the crayons down on a piece of canvas board. (color word side up)

 Then I put it in the sun. This picture is taken after being in the sun for 2 1/2 hours.

 Picture again at about 4 hours in the sun. Right after I took this picture one of the purple crayons slid out of the wrapper and down the board :(

I was over leaving it in the sun so I busted out the blow dryer. I put it on low heat and pointed it ONLY at the wrappers. The purple crayons went crazy and slid all over the place, but the rest looked pretty good. 

Here is the finished product...

 All but the purple looks good. 

Guess what I will be doing tomorrow?!?

That's right! Another one. Maybe this one will turn out better? I am going to leave it in the sun the entire day and let it melt naturally. The husband didn't like the previous one, so we will try again tomorrow. Thank goodness it's a cheap project.

Cost Breakdown for one project

2 packs of crayons- .25cents each= .50 cents

canvas boards $6.49 for 5= $1.30 each

I already had the hot glue, and the sun comes FREE in Florida! 

Let me know if you try to make one.

 I will post the project after I do the other one tomorrow.