It's That Time of Year

It's time. 

Today starts my official first day back,and by official I mean paid and have to show up. 

We all know I've been in there almost every day for the last two weeks!
This year is bringing about a ton of changes for me, but I'm really excited.
First I became the K inclusion classroom teacher,
Then I moved rooms,
Next I became team leader.
If that wasn't enough my entire team from the past two years was broken up,
So it's me, 3 new to K teachers, and a para.
Plus those 8 ESE students and 10 "typically developing" students.
Whew, that's a lot.
Of course, leave it to me to decide to change up lots of stuff this year!
It's going to be a major learning and growing experience, but I'm excited for the challenge. 

To start the year off right I made some cute beginning of year gifts.

Everyone on my team is getting one of these today as first day pick me up.

Everyone got a cute patterned composition book, post-its, sharpie, and highlighter.
Not shown, Dove dark chocolate.
What teacher gift is complete without chocolate?


I love how the gift tag came out. I saw the wording somewhere on pinterest.

I just started working on my student's gifts for Open House.

I printed it on bright paper to match my theme.
I'll punch holes on top and bottom and slip a pencil in.
Click the picture to download this freebie!

 

Classroom DIY Crate Seats and Chart Stand

So excited to finally be linking up and showing the things I've been busy making for my room!

I finally made crate seats for my classroom!

I've been wanting to make them for awhile and just haven't gotten around to it.

I made 4 of them for my classroom library and love how they turned out. 

I bought the crates at Walmart for under $4.

Take the crate with you to Home Depot! 

The man I worked with was great and kept trimming it till it fit with enough room for my fabric. 

 I stapled on three sides pulling the fabric pretty tight. 

I flipped it over, stuffed it with poly fill, and stapled the last side down. 

I then attached another piece of fabric in a loop for a pull. 

TADA! I can't wait to use them!

I saw the coolest way to make your own chart stand using PVC pipes somewhere online.
I can't for the life of me find it now!

I've been wanting a way to hang my chart paper near my carpet area, but didn't want to spend a ton.
I was able to make this one for under $10.
It fits my largest chart paper.
I purchased two pieces of PVC pipe, two elbow connectors, and 4 T-connectors.
I used two 30" and two 40" pieces for the frame, plus the elbow and two T.

The Frame

I added two 2" pieces from the bottom of the T connectors and four 6" pieces for the stand.
I need to get ends for the legs because it slightly rocks without it.
I used old shower curtain rings to hold the paper.
I'm so excited to use this in my room!

I've been bury working on so many products for teachers pay teachers.

Focus Board Header!
I can't wait to put this up in my room this week!

ABC Apple Matching, Chalk Board Class Jobs, Number Clip Cards

Apple Number Clip Cards

Don't forget to check out TPT for their back 2 school sale!
You can find all these products and more in my TPT store for up to 28% off!

High Five for Friday Halloween Edition

I have to tell you, I absolutely love Halloween. 

I mean, as a kid, what's not to love? 

You get to dress up and get free candy, plus all those "Harvest Festivals" at church!

The older I got, the better it seemed to get. 

My super creative mom decided to start decorating a Halloween tree. 

It is one of my favorite traditions to this day and I love that she still does it even though all us kids are out of the house. 

In college, Halloween meant the Florida/Georgia Game. 

Not to mention that little engagement that happened Halloween weekend not too far back. 

 

1. Kyle and I were Superhero ready for Trunk of Treat this weekend!
It was a lot of fun, especially because we never get any trick-or-treaters at our place!

 

   

2. I learned how to arm knit this week and made this scarf. 

This will probably end up as a gift for lots of people this Christmas, sorry I'm not sorry.   

3. One of my wonderful parents designed this for our Halloween Party today!
It was probably the best cupcake cake I've seen!

As I passing out the cupcakes, one of my students asked, "Who made the cupcakes?"
Me: "Our room mom brought them."
Her response: "I know she brought them, but who actually made them?"

Oh five year olds!

 

   
4. Halloween Costumes!
The top group is the K team. Of course we would be the group that all dressed up!

 
5. Mission Planning
At the end of the day, one of the other teachers sent me this picture.
She had captioned it, "Superwoman and Batwoman planning their next mission."

Kyle's Christmas Countdown

The longer we've been together it seems the harder it gets for me to shop for Kyle.

Oddly enough, the opposite seems true on his end.

This year I really had no idea what to get Kyle, plus he's bought himself some bigger things he wanted recently.

I had already decided to do a few little things (although I don't know what exactly), but I wanted to do something else as well. 

I was reading Rachel's post about her and her husband's Christmas countdown and thought it was such a cute idea. 

I was just having trouble thinking of what all to add to it. 

Later that same day I came across this pin from the Dating Diva's.

Both ideas focused on doing a countdown with things you could do with/for your spouse.

I didn't have a good spot, so it's squished onto my picture hanger. You can see the numbers ready to go!

 I decided to combine both ideas to make mine. 

I came up with ideas based on the five love languages.

1. Acts of Service- things I can do for Kyle. I included physical touch in this category such as a foot massage. 

2. Quality Time- things to go do together. Not all of these are Christmas related, but it's a great way to make sure we get in some of those activities.

3. Words of Affirmation- Some days are just notes about what I love or am thankful for or about him.

4. Gifts- most things in this category are small treats or desserts we don't normally have. 

Each category is typed in its own font and they are spread out so we don't have two things in the same category back to back. 

I printed it out on cardstock and then printed a simple green border with the date on the other side.

Now we just have to wait for December!
 

Kyle doesn't seem too thrilled yet, but he has no idea what the cards contain. All I've told him was that starting December 1st he gets to flip the card every morning to see what that day has. Hopefully it'll end up being something exciting for him!

Linking up with Melissa, Sarah, and Amber

Class Job Chart

I told myself I would not have jobs in my classroom.

They're hard to keep up with.

I can never remember who should be doing what.

And more often than not they tend to be more effort than they're worth.

Then I got my class.

All of my students had come from one of four other classrooms.

All of those classrooms had class jobs.

My students wanted to know what their jobs were.

They pushed and shoved and got in trouble because they all wanted to be line leader/door holder.

So I caved.

I made a job list on my white board that I changed daily.

But I had no good way to rotate the students or remember who had done what.

Plus it was taking up half a white board.

Of course I immediately started searching pinterest. 

I saw this one and decided to make one using the jobs I had already come up with.

Mine is no where near as pretty. I'll probably do more work on it later, but mainly I just wanted it up this week. Plus, I'm sick so I spent maybe 10 minutes on it....

It's hard to see in the picture. 

On the bottom right it says extras and holds all the names that don't have jobs yet. Their sticks will travel around clockwise, changing each Monday.

Jobs in order:

Substitute- Takes over if someone is absent

Table Washers- Cleans lunch tables

Morning Meeting- Does Calendar and Money Mob

Line Leader

Door Holder

Electrician- Turns out lights.

Teacher Helper- Opens door when someone knocks, runs notes, passes papers out, and anything else I need.

I also have their pictures cut out in circles that will be glued to the sticks so it's easy to see from farther away.

Linking up with Melissa, Amber, and Sarah

DIY Paint Chip Calendar

If you spend any time on Pinterest, I'm sure you've seen some version of the Paint Chip Calendar.

I have been wanting to make one of these for awhile now, but never got around to it. 

There is a small wall in our office that I thought it would be perfect for. 

The best part about this project is that it's super cheap, mainly because you steal get most of it for free!

The first thing you need to do is go to your local paint place, I went to Walmart, decide what colors you'll be using. I chose to use a mix of colors, mainly because I couldn't decide between blues and greens. You need 35 squares for the dates so make sure you get enough samples. I was able to get two squares out of each sample, so I only needed two of each 12 colors. Now put them in your purse and slowly walk away.

I purchased one of the black plastic frames from Walmart that are $4. Mine was 12x16 because I chose to use 2x2 squares. Feel free to make your squares whatever size works best for you. I like lots of room to write.



Lay out your paint chips in the pattern that you want them to be in. I played around with mine till I had what I wanted. Now start cutting if needed. I cut my squares to 2x2, I didn't have a paper cutter so mine is definitely not perfect.

 
Once you have them all cut out start gluing. I used Elmer's stick glue and it worked just fine.
You can either cut a piece of paper to fit your frame, or do what I did and flip the insert over.
I started at the bottom and measured it out so I have even spacing between all the squares. I worked my way up from there.

Once I had all the squares glued down, I measured how much space I had left on top for my days and month. I was left with ~1.5 inches.

 

I cut out seven 2x.5 rectangles for the days of the week and then cut out little triangles on each side to make it more decorative. I wrote the days on with sharpie and glued them above the squares.

 

Finally, I cut out another rectangle for the Month. I used the length of the paint chip and made it 1 inch high. I then cut out triangles from both ends. 

 

I put it in the frame and then started adding information! I wrote the dates and month in sharpie so I wouldn't keep wiping it off as I wrote.

 *Tip: You can get sharpie off of things that use dry erase markers by fully covering the sharpie with a dry erase marker and wiping off like normal.  

 

Linking up with Melissa, Amber, and Sarah

High Five for Friday {8}

Not much has happened this week, so I've taken the opportunity to work on some crafts. 

Labor day weekend was nice, Kyle and I didn't do much, but we were able to spend some time doing things together. I babysat two of our little cousins and must say that I made an exceptional "Baby holding fairy princess soccer player" and yes, that was all at the same time! E. had a list of things for us to play and baby wanted to be held. What's a girl to do. We were also able to go to a family BBQ and Kyle got to hold the baby for the first time. I can not wait till we have our own children one day, Kyle is going to be such an amazing father. 

What I've done this week:

1. I repainted the bathroom finally!!! It went from teal to a nice tan. I like it so much better now! I do still need to do some touch ups because whoever painted before us got paint all over the tile.

2. Kyle and I went to Joann's and got some great deals on fabric! 

My parents re-did their kitchen and gave us two of their old kitchen chairs for our porch. I bought this outdoor canvas to re-upholster the chairs in.

3. I also bought fabric to make a Maxi Skirt! My tutorial can be found here!

4. I've been wanting a calendar to hang, so I made this paint chip calendar. Tutorial here!

Recipe

5. I've been trying really hard to come up with some new recipes that fit Kyle's diet.
Last night, I made this no carb pizza. This is just the crust. Apparently we were too excited to eat it because I never got a picture of the finished dish!

I hope you've had a fabulous week!
Anyone have any Keto friendly recipes to share?

Linking up with Lauren at From My Grey Desk