FIVE for Friday

 It's been a good while since I have linked up but I am getting back on the ball. I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching today to share what I have been up to. I know everyone has been busy setting up their classrooms and some even already starting back at school. WHAT?! I could not imagine starting school already. This summer is just flying by. Since we don't get out until the end of June we aren't starting back until September 2nd. I have still been spending some time in the classroom & setting it up now in case this little girl decides to make an early appearance. Even though the teacher who is taking my place from Sept.-Dec. could technically set it all up I am just a bit to bossy to not have a say in it. lol. But mainly because I want us to be on the same page & not have to go in the room in December over X-mas break & change it all.

 

I got another carpet for the classroom. It's just a plain grey carpet & not what I originally wanted but hey it was on sale for only $30 so I couldn't pass up on that. And the carpets I wanted were not in stock at the store. (Sad face) Ya know... those carpets with the diamond or quatrefoil design. But I will be keeping my eyes open for a carpet with a design & make sure I grab it next time.

  The classroom is still missing a few tables & chairs that are still in the gym from when the floors got waxed. I was only successful at bringing in 1 table because those suckers are heavy.
The school ordered book boxes for the classes that wanted them for Daily 5 so I have turquoise & lime green.

I just had to share these adorable & useful posters I recently purchased, printed & posted on the bulletin boards around the room. You can look at the photo above to see where our Math Word Wall will go. As we cover a math term we will add that word to the math word wall. I love the images that Blair uses for the math word wall cards. Who doesn't LOVE LOVE LOVE Melonheadz clipart?! This Writer's Workshop pack includes some pretty awesome posters that I think are perfect for our writing bulletin board. Lyndsey @ A Year of Many Firsts created this pack & while it is aimed more towards a k through 3 grade level I think it will still be a good fit for my 4th graders.
 

What do you do with an ugly green chalkboard? Most would probably just paint it with whiteboard paint but I already have 2 whiteboards in the classroom so I didn't really need another one. So... I painted those ugly green chalkboards black using black chalkboard paint. I purchased some awesome turquoise clothes pins from Michaels. I wish I would have taken a close-up photo of them so you could see the chevron, stripes & polka dot designs on them. Now that they are hot glued to the chalkboard I can just have the kiddos switch out their student work instead of stapling 22 writing displays. They can even get crafty& draw with chalk around their work.

I have been so jealous of all the posts I see on my Instagram of everyone's Erin Condren planner. I had one last year & absolutely l-o-v-e it! I really really wanted to purchase one again this year but since I will be on maternity leave until January & it costs $40.00 to ship to Canada I just could not see myself paying $100.00 for a planner that I would get to use for school for 6 months. Is that me just being cheap? Maybe. But since we are having a baby girl I'd just rather use that $100.00 for bows & pretty dresses. lol. So.... I created my own teacher planner which will only cost me $30 to have printed & binded together @ our local print shop. This planner doesn't have the fancy stuff of a pocket folder & labels but I'm okay with that.

 

I created some different options....

Here is the option of a Planner: navy-blue-lime-green

 

Planner: navy-blue-orange-brown

 

Planner: pink, blue, gold

 

 

I cannot wait for this sale to start. I have already began adding lots of goodies to my wish list.

YAY for TPT Sales!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Five for Fri. & 5th Day of Christmas

Well I'm missed a few on these or possibly 3 months worth of Five for Fridays... Just possibly (wink wink) but who can blame me Fridays can get a little crazy. Thanks to Irene for getting me back on track with our 9 Days of Christmas. She is so fabulous for putting all this together fyi.

 

 

So why not let #1 be our 5th day of Christmas brought to you by the lovely Amanda over at Mrs. Pauley's Kindergarten. Head to her Facebook page to grab your freebie.

 

 

 

 

This was our 1st sentence scramble so I kept it simple but they rocked it! :) These can be found in the Santa's Workshop (Literacy & Math centers). FYI- You can get this product of over 250 pages for 50% off as of today for the weekend.

 

 

 

 

 

The whole school sang Christmas carols in the gym today.

 

 

Who's that crazy teacher that let the kids outside without a coat while it's snowing and in like 5 degree weather? This gal... but they literally ran to right outside the door for like 5 seconds and ran back in. They thought it was fun!

               

 

Hey it made for a cute photo for our Pajama day. :) If only I didn't have to scratch out their faces so you could see how cute the photo really did turn out.

 

 

 

At the end of the day after making reindeer antlers, reindeer food & watching the Polar Express we enjoyed our Christmas Around the World celebration. Students brought in a dish that represented a country we "visited" through out these past 3 weeks. I wish I would've taken a photo of our 2 tables covered in food... but instead a did get a photo of our of my lil reindeers with a plate FULL of treats.

 

Some of the food included- pigs in a blanket, perogies, meatballs, waffles with honey, Christmas tree cookies, carrot cake, cupcakes, Russian gingerbread biscuits, cheese. crackers, fruit, star cookies, and chips & salsa. It was delicious and the kiddos just loved every bit of it.

 

As for me... well I have been in bed since 7:30pm and am going to bed after this post since I have been sick all week. Me & the hubs are leaving for Mississippi on Sunday at midnight for a week so I may be MIA for a little bit. I am excited to spend Christmas with my family this year, see all my friends that I miss so much, ESCAPE the snow and MOST OF ALL ESCAPE this weather that is like -15... Yikes! I hope all of y'all had a fabulous last week of school before Christmas break or better yet just survived.

FIVE for Friday... or more

I finally got into the classroom. YAY! I swear time just flies by when there is so much to do. While I got a lot done there is still SO much to do! AHHH!

It's the perfect time for me to link with Kacey @ Doodle Bugs Teaching for the Five for Friday. 

 

I made this fish door décor from the burlap that my mom sent me.

I didn't realize that the classroom door was blue or else I would have painted the fish a different colour. It still turned out pretty good though.

Okay since I am sharing a classroom & the other teacher wasn't there I didn't know which of the 2 bulletin board I should decorate for my class so I just chose the smaller one so that the other teacher would get the larger one since she was in the classroom first.

Once I know my final class list I will write each student's name on a fish.

I'm not sure if a "Where Are We?" sign is required for every classroom but I seem them in plain black & white with a photo of the teacher next to each classroom door. I made this "Where Are We?" sign but it didn't turn out as good as I would like since when I took it to get laminated the place ran out of laminate as it was going through the machine. UGH! I'll have to take it back for them to re-laminate it if possible. I do like my glitter blue clip though. :)

There are 3 large bulletin boards inside the classroom. This is a photo of the 3rd bulletin board which I decorated since again I didn't know which bulletin board I should claim for my class.

The kiddos LOVE their sticker books or at least they will. Can you tell I love bright colours? Thanks to Nikki @ Melonheadz  and Krista @ Creative Clips for making my ocean themed class décor complete. I will write each student's name in the white oval once I get the final class list.

My teacher contact cards are printed, laminated and ready to handout on that 1st day of school. I still may add a magnet strip to the back of it though. To add a magnet strip or to not add one that is the question? Hmmm...

I know it is a big no no for some teachers out there but YES on this card is lists: #1- my name, #2- the school's phone number, #3-my cell number, #4- my school email & #5- our class blog.

Many teachers have many reasons not to give out their personal cell number and one day when I come across that crazy parent I will probably stop but for now I like parents having my number. I am very straight up with my parents & let them know what is & what is not okay. Even though the parents have to call the school to let them know that their child won't be coming to school that day, I prefer a text letting me know & why.

Our Line Leader display... I'll write each kiddo's name on that white space right before we start school.

I also put up our "How We Go Home" sign! This Class Decor Pack has definitely been a buyer favourite this week!!!



Five for Friday & Friday Freebie

 

Five for Friday is back (Yippee!) over @ Doodle Bugs Teaching so my Fridays are now complete again. :)

Today I been one busy bee with printing, cutting, pasting & painting. Thanks to my Instagram pals I found these adorable frames @ IKEA & so glad I did. I don't recall who posted these frames on their Instagram but thank you! You can check out my Instagram here. I am using them for tables numbers as you can see. I made the center signs too which are displayed in the backside of the table number signs.

The Dollar Tree gets me again... I just love what you can get for a buck in that store. I've seen these little guys or gals on Pinterest so I made them today. You can check out my Pinterest boards here if you'd like. Hmmm... Now how to use them? Any ideas?

 

When I'm on a roll I really feel like I just run... I painted this lil' fish (not so lil) today on burlap which is in the process of becoming my Welcome Door Décor for my kindergarten classroom. I just think it's so cute but it will look a lot better when it's cut out, stuffed & has "welcome" painted on it.

 

Non-teacher related: I almost forgot to share this great find me & my mom found @ Pottery Barn last week. Aren't these plates pretty! The set actually has four but one of them is displayed in the empty space above my kitchen cabinets. I am going to look for some sort of plate holder because I want to hang these three plates on a tall skinny wall in the dining room area. These set of plates were originally $50 but they were on sale for $19.99. I just love a good deal.

 

 

I have a FRIDAY FREEBIE for y'all! :) As I stated before I made these center labels for my new IKEA photo frames so I wanted to share them with you in case you can make some use of them.

Grab the center labels here.

 

The BACK 2 SCHOOL GIVEAWAY is still going on so don't miss out!!!

Enter below-

Shout out to Melonheadz Illustrating (clipart) & Graphics from the Pond (frames).

 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

  

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

Five for Friday

I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for the Five for Friday. Technically it's still Friday here in Alberta, or at least for another 12 minutes it is. I'm writing this post in bed from my phone so tomorrow when I get time I'll officially "link up" with Doodle Bugs Teaching.

Well I don't know how these images will look since they're from a phone post but if they're too big I'll fix them tomorrow.

#1- I just love getting packages in the mail!!! Don't you? My friend Dara opened up a boutique this year & it's just adorable. I got a floral skirt & denim top from Pout Couture. When I wear the outfit I'll post a photo of it.

#2- I love the Dollar Tree & was super excited to find these extendable fly swatters!

#3- BBQ is one of my fav things to eat & I just love good BBQ sauce, especially on fall of the bone ribs. I can't cook much but I cooked this up this week.

#4- Did I tell you that I love the Dollar Tree yet? Lol... I needed more magnetic numbers but I was surprised to find magnetic shapes. Yes please! And of course I bought "fancy" pencils. These "fancy" pencils are kept in a "fancy" pencil container (regular pencil container with a bright feather boa hot glued around the top edge of the container). Talk about getting kinder excited about writing in their journals! I explain every year that these fancy pencils are special and only used during journal time so we can have the best handwriting and write sentences. We not only use journals to develop writing & spelling but I also use it for developing neat handwriting. These fancy pencils really help & get the kids pumped.

#5- Meet baby Norah who was born today. She is my newest niece. Sydney is 2 years old & is excited about her new baby sister. I hope to make a visit to see my sister in law & niece Sunday or maybe Monday, if they're not too tired. 

I hope everyone is having a fabulous summer!!!