Monday Made It Week 10

I'm joining Tara @4th Grade Frolics for her weekly linky party Monday Made It. I really should be working on lesson plans, but crafting is so much more fun!

First is is more of a recycle. My sister gave me this really cute cup. I love the design on it. When the cup broke, I just hated to throw it in the trash. The design was printed on some sort of plastic film, so I decided to take it out and try to frame it. 

Here's the finished product, I think it turned out really cute and it matches the colors in my classroom. :) 

Someone at school discarded some shelves ( I forgot to take a before picture). I really liked them except they hadn't ever been painted. I decided to go with some super glossy black paint. 

I've been working on a few signs for the classroom. The colors in the pictures are off for some reason.

After making the one above, I wasn't sure I liked it so I made another set.

That's it for this week. I had a couple of things I was working on, but did not finish. Hopefully you will be seeing this stool totally transformed next week! 

We almost finished painting the classroom. We have only worked about 5-6 hours total, but as you can see in the photos, I've had a lot of help. We are going to put the finishing touches on Monday. 

These two pictures are the same wall. They sure don't look the same color do they? 

Don't forget to check out your favorite TPT sellers today and tomorrow. There is a big Back To School sale. I found some terrific items from The Science Penguin that are going to make it a lot easier to get ready for the beginning of the year. :)

Five For Friday August 1, 2014

I'm joining Kacey @Doodle Bugs for her weekly linky party Five for Friday.

Delaney and I went up to our old school on Tuesday. Her 4th grade teacher spent last year teaching in South Korea. She got back home on July 25 and was supposed to report back to work on July 30. We went up to help her work on her room, as you can imagine, she was suffering from a pretty serious case of jet lag. She was moving into a room that had been vacant last year so there were no bookshelves in the room. So the scavenger that I am helped find a couple of bookshelves that another teacher discarded. lol

When we got home that night, it was such a nice cool evening, we decided to paint a shelf thing someone at my new school had discarded. We were using some black, oil-based paint. The only problem was I didn't have anything to use to clean our hands and  one pair of gloves, if you have ever used oil-based paint you know it doesn't come off with soap and water. After about scrubbing my skin off with Lava soap and then using some nail polish remover here is what my hand still looks like.

I guess it was cool for a reason, I woke the next morning to rain, it poured all day long on the shelf. I think the paint had dried enough to hopefully not be a problem, as hard as the paint was to get off my hands, I think it will be OK. Now I'm waiting for it to dry out so I can finish it.

Wednesday, I spent the day running errands. I had to go to the social security office to get a new card. I was really surprised how quickly we got in and out of there. I had brought Delaney's Kindle to use while we waited what I thought would be an hour or so. I don't think we were even there 20 minutes. I also had to get a background check and drug test for my new job so we were driving all over town in the pouring rain to get them done. I was pleasantly surprised that we finished all three in less than 2 and 1/2 hours. I didn't realize changing districts was going to involve so much. A lot of the things were taken care of when I signed my contract, but I have had to contact the people about my disability insurance and an added retirement policy.

I got this book this week. I'm hoping it will help me to as they say work smarter not harder.

Yesterday, a family from my old school came to help me paint my room. I like to paint, but I'm one of those people that kind of need a little nudge to get me going. I'm so thankful that they came to help me today and since we haven't quite finished, they're coming back tomorrow. So far, I like what I'm seeing.

We decided to paint the coat rack red. I just put a little bit of paint on to see what it was going to look like.

Show and Tell Tuesday

I'm joining Barb @Ruby Slippers Blog Design for her weekly linky party Show and Tell Tuesday.

I have been in my new room sorting out my library books. I thought I had my baskets all sorted, but I guess they got messed up in the move. Since I am wanting to paint, I can't do too much to get my room together until it's finished. The classroom I have used to be a computer lab. It had a lot of chairs, a beat up file cabinet and a couple of tables in it. Several of the teachers are going to use tables next year, so I am going to get desks from them. I found an extra teacher's chair (YES!),a nice rolling cabinet that just needed a good cleaning and a couple of other pieces that I think will be everything I need.

My new school has a science lab which is pretty neat! There, of course, are all kinds of materials for teaching science, but I was pleasantly surprised to see that it has a fridge and a full-size stove/oven. I was going to take a picture, but there are a lot of teaching materials on the tables, so I'll wait until later.

I want to share a terrific science blog I happened onto the other day. You may have heard of her blog "The Science Penguin". she is fantastic! She has lots of excellent articles on interactive notebooks. I think between the books I posted last week and her blog, I'll make it through my first year of being departmentalized and teaching science. :)

Monday Made It Week 9

I'm linking up with Tara from 4th Grade Frolics for her linky Monday Made It. It has taken me a while to get myself started making things. Now I'm almost out of time. Hopefully, I'll get a few more things finished this week. ;)

First up, I bought this chalkboard at Hobby Lobby and decided to paint it to match my classroom colors.

After a little spray paint and chalk marker...I love it!!! 

The best part is I can change the message. Just erase with a damp cloth and write a new message. :)

A couple of years ago, I bought three brightly colored boxes that were different sizes. None of them went with my new color scheme. Here is the middle-sized one. I am going to paint it black or maybe red.

I painted the biggest and smallest ones turquoise. they are much brighter that the photograph.

I found this foam pennant at Hobby Lobby, I used a Sharpie marker to color the edge which was white. Then I used some stickers I already had to decorate it.

I saved my favorite thing for last. I made a banner for my classroom. I really loved the way it turned out. If you can't read it, it says "Welcome to 3rd Grade". I decided to make it a two tier banner this year for something different. No, I wasn't trying to put the letters on straight. ;P

I loved it the way it was. Then when I was going through boxes trying to figure out what I needed to take to my new room, I found these little sock monkeys. Now I love it even more!!! I can't wait to get it hung in my room!!!

Have a great week!!!

Five for Friday, July 25, 2014

I'm linking up with Kasey @ Doodle Bugs Teaching for her weekly linky Five for Friday.

I had this post almost finished and then I completely lost it...here goes again.

Shopping!!!

I went shopping with Delaney the other day and found these. Can you tell I love owls? They came from Catos...I love that place!

    

Later I was at Hobby Lobby and found this picture I thought I would use in my classroom. I thought it would be a good reminder that they can make their day what they want it to be. The only problem is, I like it so much, I want to keep it for home. Hahaha

Thanks Kohls Care for these cute Little Critter and Little Sister! Delaney loved these books when she was younger.

On Wednesday, my new principal had a Visionary Meeting, it wasn't mandatory for you to go, but I thought it would be a good way to meet some of the staff. she wanted us to discuss what the school's vision should be. She went to a  presentation this summer based on Stephen Covey's book The Leader in Me. 

She was very excited to share what she had learned and wanted to see if the staff would be on board to adopting ideas from The Leader in Me and The Seven Habits of Happy Kids. Her enthusiasm was infectious every one in attendance was on board! So we are going to work to make every student a leader in our school. We are going to start slowly this year while the staff is being trained and then try to go full force next year.

The other big thing that was discussed at the meeting was E and I, yeah, I didn't know what it was either. It stands for Extension and Intervention. The students that need intervention will go to reading or math intervention the other students will get to go to Extension. It will be sort of like a middle school student choosing an elective. So every teacher( including music, PE, speech, etc...) and even the counselor and principal will teach either E or I. The principal would like the class to be 15-17 students. All the teachers are supposed to pick something they like for their Extension class, things like gardening, baking, knitting, painting, Spanish, etc... The first session will be September through November, each teacher will have 2 months of Extension and 1 month of Intervention. It will be three days a week from 9:00 to 9:30. The other two days it will be DEAR time. After one month, the students in Extension will change their "elective". We will be using the Star reading and math test to see who needs to be in Intervention. They will stay in Intervention until there scores go up. To get us out of our comfort zone, the k-2 teachers will teach the 3-5 students during the second session (January through March) and the 3-5 teachers will teach the k-2 students (K-2 is my comfort zone so that will be a piece of cake!). I hope I explained it so it makes sense. All the teachers were very excited, I'm still trying to decide what my Extensions will be. I'll come up with one and ask Delaney if she thinks 5th grade boys would like it, so far she has axed all of my ideas...but I'm still thinking! ;)  

Show and Tell Tuesday

I'm joining Barb from Ruby Slippers for her linky Show and Tell Tuesday. Check out Barb's blog, she has a great show and tell about social media blueprints.

I am excited and nervous about my new teaching assignment. When I taught kindergarten, I always did my own thing. If I wanted to teach about Johnny Appleseed and apples, I taught about Johnny Appleseed and apples. Then the last two years in kindergarten the district adopted Treasures reading and with that came a pacing guide. It wasn't too bad in kindergarten. When I started teaching first grade that pacing guide was my arch enemy. I hated that thing, I had to keep barreling through the books to stay with the pacing guide whether the kids master the skill or not. My principal said I didn't have to use Treasures, but the pacing guide was still mandating what skills were taught and when. 

Now I've moved to a new district and grade. I know I keep saying this, but just in case someone missed it, I moved to 3rd grade and I will only be teaching social studies and science. I went up to talk to the principal and while I was there she gave me the curriculum for my subjects. 

In Oklahoma,third grade social studies is all Oklahoma History. She gave me this book to use.

She told me I can use it or not use or add to it as I would like.

For science, I received these two books.

All of the science lessons use children's books to introduce the lesson! How cool is that! I get to choose the lessons I want to teach...NO PACING GUIDE! What? I can't believe it!

Here's what is crazy, for the past six years I have hated that pacing guide telling me what to teach and when. Now that I have freedom to teach what I want, I am nervous, anxious, even a little scared. What? Yeah, I know it doesn't make sense, I got what I wanted and now I'm scared???  I need to start making some long term plans, but I kind of freeze up every time I think about it. I'm sure part of it is because I am moving to a new school with a new principal in a grade I have never taught before. 

My goal for the rest of the week is to get some kind of plan for science. I can use the Oklahoma book if I need to, but I am thinking about starting the year with the state symbols and then do the history.  I know in the long run, I'll love the freedom, I just have to get over my "First Year Jitters!" :D