Back to School

The beginning of the school year is so much fun but also so draining...I have spent so much time working on classroom stuff that I don't even feel like I am enjoying my last days of summer...But I love it! I will share some more pictures of my classroom shortly but I wanted to share this great idea I had at the end of last year! I was at a wedding where they had all of their guest put a finger print and their name on a tree that they would hand in their house to remember all the people who had been a part of one of the most special days of their lives....SO..

I took the idea and applied it to my classroom! 

I will have each class I teach add their fingerprints in a new color each year! How awesome will this be when I have been teaching for a long time... : ) On the back I will put my fingerprint in each color and write the school year next to it so I have a reference guide!

This is a quick way to remember all the lives I have been apart of and have had the chance to teach! The kids loved it and I bet my kids this year will be so excited to have the chance to be apart of this! And my old students can always come back and see that a part of them will always be in my classroom! They can always come back to see me! 

I can't wait! : )

By request, here are the materials and directions!

Materials:

-1 Canvas 

-Acrylic Paint (green, turquoise and brown)

-Cute Ribbon

-Hot Glue

Directions:

1. Using the turquoise and white acrylic paint, create the sky on the canvas.

2. After drying, I traced the tree onto the canvas. You can paint by hand too if you choose. I found clip-art of a tree using Google, and then used our Promethean board at school to trace the tree onto the canvas. After tracing the tree, I used a brown paint pen to paint the tree. This can also be done with acrylic paint and a paint brush.

3.When the paint has dried, use green (I used a variety of different shades) to paint the grass at the bottom.

4. Afterwards, I used hot glue to glue a thick ribbon from Hobby Lobby to the back of the canvas to hang it from in my classroom.

5. Each year, I have the students add their thumbprints to the tree and then, when it is dry, I have them write their first name next to the print with a thin black sharpie marker. 

Very easy!

Teacher's Pay Teachers

So....I couldn't resist...I already started to upload some of the materials I have made. I downloaded some earlier this year but I am going to start hopefully charging for some of them within the next couple weeks!  Right now everything is free since I want to figure out how all of this works! There are some amazing stories of what people have been able to do based off of this website! Hopefully I can be successful! : )


Weekly Lesson Plan Template on TPT


Portable Word Wall Cards on TPT


Leprechaun Hunt Writing on TPT

Oh, Sweet Summer!

So far this summer I have managed to relax for the most part! At the beginning of the summer we moved into a new apartment which took A LOT of energy...Now we have just returned from a vacation in Savannah, GA and I am starting to think about the upcoming school year! Luckily, I have found out that I will not only have a job next year, since those are hard to come by now, but I will also be staying in first grade! I am so excited! Last year was such a learning curve, especially since it was a completely new place and a new set of standards. Now, if all continues as expected, I will finally have a year of school where I know what is going on which will give me more time to apply what I have learned over the last year of school and make the changes necessary! I cannot tell you how excited I am! I will, however, be changing classrooms. I am happy about this because our grade-level will be together and I like to have change (at least in a classroom)! :) This will give me the opportunity to get organized! I will post pictures once I get started! I will hopefully have more time this year to keep up with a blog as I hope to start creating and selling items on Teachers Pay Teachers. It looks like so much fun! And why not share the materials I create with other teachers! We will see how it goes!