The Sun will come out...Maybe next week...

If the sun doesn't come out soon I am going to go completely insane! It has rained every day for the past week and I am sick and tired of being cooped up at home. My six year old is too. We have tried it all to keep ourselves sane and I thought I would share a little of what we've been doing. 

Summer is a great time to work on all of those fun little crafty things that you've been meaning to get around to. I've done a few new things to my home office, made a couple of things for my school desk, and painted my ears off with my daughter. She loves to paint, despite my avid dislike for the medium. Here are just a few of our little projects.

This is a little gumball machine-ish paper clip holder that I made for my desk at school. It doesn't match my home office, but it will match my red and black at school. It was really easy to make and pretty cheap...Only $3.00! I grabbed my coupons and headed to Joann's (in the rain) and picked up the smallest clay pot and lid that they had ($1.49) and the smallest glass fishbowl they had ($1.49). The rest of the stuff I had on hand--Acrylic paint, large wooden bead, and E6000 heavy duty glue. I brought it all home, and despite my husband's strange looks at my creation, it turned out kind of cute! I've got to get a black paint pen and add a few decorative accents to it to really tie it in to my classroom theme.. GO DAWGS!

 My home office is still under redecoration. If this weather would cooperate, I could finish it up by painting my existing bookshelves. But alas, Mother Nature has plotted against me and that won't be happening any time soon. So I resorted to doing the little things. I wanted some bulletin board space on the walls for photos and such, but I didn't want to spend the money on cork tiles, scrapbook paper, and such. But I went to the Dollar Tree on a whim and found a roll of contact paper and some thick foam sheets and put them to work in my office. All I had to do was cover the foam in the contact paper and hang! I used Sticky Tack to hang them because they are so lightweight.

I actually found a bulletin board in my office, while I was cleaning out my office. I had no idea it was even there, and it was brand new--never even unwrapped the thing. So I used the same contact paper to cover the cork and added some ribbon and fabric. I'm not really happy with the blue ribbon but it's all I had at the time. I may change it out after my next trip to the store. I may also paint the frame black one of these days.

The cabin fever has gotten so bad that I actually emailed my administrator asking when I could get into the building to work. Yeah..it was bad. But, my daughter and I decided to brave the rain today and headed out with a teacher-friend and her son to visit an awesome museum in our area. If you live in North Georgia and have never visited the Tellus Science Museum, you must go! And if you are a third grade teacher in Georgia, this place will teach EVERY science standard you have. It was fantastic! My daughter is six and was completely enthralled the entire time. Dinosaur bones, fossils, magnets, light and sound displays, it had it all. We had a blast and it couldn't have come at a better time. And to top it off, the sun decided to shine for about five minutes as we were leaving. Then the bottom fell out and it POURED rain the whole way home. 

I've also been burning the midnight oil working on some new products for my classroom and  TPT store. There's something really relaxing about sitting in a quiet house, listening to the hum of the refrigerator, and thinking about nothing but what I can do for my kids next year. My most recent products have all been sets of task cards! I love using them...Scoot Games, Workstations, Independent math practice, they're so versatile. I've also sent them home with parents asking for additional practice. Here are my newest sets in case you'd like to take a peek. 

      

As always, thanks for visiting and following my wee little blog. I hope you continue to stop in from time to time and see what's happening in my neck of the North Georgia woods. And keep your eyes peeled, something big is coming!

Have a great week!

Randi