Our Week in Pictures

Days of the Week

EZC Reader Guiding Paws from Really Good Stuff

The paws are a soft velvety material.

Talk Point from Learning Resources---record 10 seconds of audio. Can't wait to use these for about a million ideas!

Ouch hot glue burn!!!! Nearly cried!

When we finish a task we are working on as a group, we put our heads down so everyone knows when we are ready to move on. :)

Studying rainbows in Science.

Roy G. Biv

Center Piece for Above My Smartboard

3 D letters made from black poster board- harder than I thought it would be. Glued jewels from the set I bought for the kids to use in attribute sorting. I think they connection between something they actually get to touch & something on display that they can't touch in the room will be exciting for them. Unfortunately, I used A LOT of jewels....soooo I forsee a Hobby Lobby trip! Oh dear...however will I survive it? LOL Happy decorating fellow teachers!

My "Create" Board

I found this idea on Clutter-Free Classroom's blog here http://clutterfreeclassroom.blogspot.com/2012/07/my-create-board-to-showcase-student.html.

Mine is a little different. I only used red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, & violet. I used six boxes of crayons. 50 cents at Target & Walmart! :) The canvas was about $10 at Michaels. Walmart has two packs for $11...so if you want to make two or had a need for another canvas that would be your better buy.

First line up your crayons to get them where you want them. MAKE SURE YOU ARE LOOKING AT THEM FROM THE TOP OR THEY WON'T BE STRAIGHT! I LEARNED THIS THE HARD WAY. Fortunately they peeled off fairly easy so I could reposition them. Then using hot glue- glue them on one at a time. Then use a hair dryer on low heat. High heat blows toohard & makes the melting crayon splatter. It melts VERY QUICKLY so pay attention lol. :)

This top picture was right after melting- looks neat!

I used wooden letters painted white & then zebra striped (of course) to spell Create. I want this to inspire my kiddos. I am debating leaving it as is or trimming with ribbon...What do you think? This was a fun project that didn't take much time. I love the colors!

More Zebra Love

I found this cute little stool at a 2nd hand store for $8!!!! Can you believe that??? Hobby Lobby has most of their fabric 30% off right now so $10, some hot glue, and a staple gun later....my awesome hubby helped made this for me!!!!!!!!! I love him!!! I helped a little like held stuff in place so he could do the tough part of wielding the high powered staple gun. How cute is this? It will go perfectly in my classroom. I am really enjoying all these projects & can't wait to see my room completed.

New Chairs For My Guided Reading Table!!!

Okay I have been DYING to make these! Here is the original Pinterest pin where I first saw the idea.  I have been putting it off for other projects though. I finally came up with the plan for how I wanted to do it- I did it a little differently w/ less materials than the pin used.
First, I got four buckets, removed the handles, cleaned & scraped them, & spray painted them black. I would NOT recommend cheap Walmart spray paint for painting buckets. It has already started to chip. I plan to paint over it with acrylic paint.

Then I used this poly foam I found at Hobby Lobby, I think it was less than $4. I used two packages of this for four buckets. One would be enough to simply cover it but I wanted to make sure that the kids can't feel the edges of the bucket through the foam---so I doubled up. I hot glued the two circles to each other so they wouldn't slide once I started putting the fabric on.

I just used a permanent marker to trace around the bottom of the bucket directly onto the foam. Easy enough right? Then just cut out your circle. I cut mine larger than the circle I traced because I wanted the edge to have a little more cushion.

Then I just kind of toyed with how I wanted the fabric to lay.

I found these little rectangles of fabric at Walmart. They are the little bundles you can get for about $7. I love animal prints! I have lots of it in my room. :) No worries, I'm an animal lover too!!! This is what it looked like after I just folded the fabric under to get a quick glance on how it might look.

\Okay & yes I took the easy route & hot glued my fabric instead of sewing or anything else. It worked fine & plus if I decide to change my fabric next year I can just pull it off & reuse the foam. :)

AND TAAAA DAAAAA! NEW CHAIRS THAT WERE EASY & INEXPENSIVE TO MAKE! I CAN'T WAIT TO SEE THEM SITTING PRETTY UNDER MY GUIDED READING TABLE.

No worries, I will do touch up painting now. :)

(((((Plus!!! No more putting their feet on the backs of their chairs!!!!!!!!! Wooo HOOOOO!!!)))))))