That's a WRAP!

Now that our school year is half way over, I wanted to take a minute to catch up on some things we have done. I have had a lot of things going on personally this year, so I've had to put blogging on the back burner.

I have been trying to take pictures throughout the year of some of the projects we have done.

In August, we did some really fun apple paintings. I wanted something that would match my room and something I could leave up all year.

I let the kids free-hand their apples. I mounted them on polka dot wrapping paper. I am not sure why I have never thought of mounting things on wrapping paper! It makes such a cute festive border!

One of my favorite things I have made this year is this organization system on my door.

I bought the cork squares from Walmart. I think they were around $6.00 for a set of 4. I painted them black and added vinyl letters and dots. I hot glued a magnetic clip on them. It has worked great! The lunch menu changes every month and I use the others so much! I always have things I need to take to the office. If they land on my work table first- they usually get misplaced!!!

My other favorite thing is my afterschool transportation frames.

We have a color coded bus system. I always cut out buses out of construction paper and they barely last the whole year! I thought this would be super cute and durable! I used Photoshop to create a photo file of a bus with a polka dot background. I printed them in 5x7 at Walmart. I bought the black frames at Dollar Tree. I wrote the kids' names on their correct color bus. Since the glass makes them dry erase, I can use them year after year!

I think my other favorite artwork was the gumballs we made for the letter G. I drew this gumball machine and copied it. The students used the paint dappers to make the gumballs. I just took them down at Christmas. They were so cute and colorful!!!

Around Thanksgiving, we made turkeys and were going to write what we were thankful for. As a class, we talked about different things they might want to write- family, friends, etc...

One of my students handed me this....

I thought it was TOO funny! He is part of a large family and they are all HUGE Alabama fans. I love Kindergarten minds! :) The last pieces of artwork I wanted to share are Christmas items. I needed something cute for the hallway and one of my students had on a monogrammed elf feet shirt. I decided that would be SUPER cute for our decor and I LOVED the way they turned out!!! We got so many compliments!!! I used Christmas wrapping paper for the frame on these as well.

I did these cute "pinterest inspired" thumbprint Christmas lights last year, but this year I bought Dollar Tree frames to put them in. They were so festive!

You know that polka dot wrapping paper I used for the apples? Well... I needed a winter door idea and I still had part of a roll left. I came up with this...

I guess I need to come up with more ways to use wrapping paper! It has definitely made my life easier this year! Well, I guess that "wraps" things up!!! Hopefully I will be back soon!!!!

D.O.G.'s & Deals

I am really excited to be trying some things this year!!! I have heard SOOO many teachers comment on using binders instead of regular 'take-home' folders. I decided that I am obviously missing out on something! I have heard them called M.O.O.S.E folders, B.E.E. folders, etc... Well, our school mascot is a bulldog. So we are going to have D.O.G. folders. D.O.G. standing for Daily Organizational Guide. I will post all of my labels and print outs for the inside later this week (hopefully!)

I knew I would have to pay for these out of pocket. I bought the binders at Sam's Club (I think it was around $7.50 for 6 1-inch binders). I bought clear pencil pouches at Walmart ($0.76 each). My tabs came from the Dollar Tree- $1 for 10 tabs. I needed 4 per child- so... I bought 8 packs. I will be honest. I really should have spent the extra $5 on the tabs and bought them from Walmart. They will serve their purpose. Let's just hope they last a month. Ha! I think I did pretty good budgeting for the binders. I usually pay at least $0.50 each for the take-home folders and I think this will be a better system once the year gets going.

Here is my HUGE mess!





After a lot of clicking, sore finger tips, and a few puppy prints (I had to put my doggie out in the yard! He was trying to be a little TOO much help!), I had a finished product that I was more than proud of:





I hope my classroom parents are too!

I did a little bit of rearranging this summer. I am not really sure what the inspiration was behind it. This will be my fifth year teaching and I am in my 3rd classroom. I have taught Kindergarten all 5 years. Year 1- I started as the Tabs (our equivalent of in-school suspension) aid and was moved to Kindergarten six weeks after school started (when we added a 9th unit). That is definitely a story for another day- but that was my first (Tabs) classroom and then my (2nd) Kindergarten classroom. Our school is pretty new, but Kindergarten has 8 classroom in its 'pods' and my classroom was with first grade. I moved to another room when we dropped to 8 units and a room was available last summer. I think I just didn't know what to do because I wasn't moving rooms this summer! I had to move furniture instead. When I moved my shelves, I ended up with a huge wall without anything on it. I have been wanting one of the divided shelves to store some additional center manipulatives. I haven't been able to find one under about $80 though. (Yikes!)

At Walmart the other night, as I was making my last $100 trip... which is what I said last week... I found THIS shelf:



Price tag?????
$24.96!!!!!

I think I did one of those heel-clicking leprechaun jumps right there on the aisle!



It only came in black and most of my other shelves are white. But I have a lot of red and black in my room and I bought some red baskets to go on it. If I can talk my sweet husband into putting it together tonight- because for $25 you know it's in 647 pieces- then I might have pictures tomorrow!