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

Snap It Up Saturday! Fun Font Freebie!

Hello everyone!
Week Two of summer vacation is here and I am LOVING it! I have gotten so much done here at home that I think I might actually get caught up! I've been cleaning out and decluttering the house, working on some TPT projects, and feeding my newest addiction! FONT-MAKING! You can tell from this week's freebie that I have gone a little overboard.

I love fonts! I just hate having to credit for every single thing, but I still do.. I downloaded an awesome app for my iPad called iFontmaker. It is super easy to use and well worth the couple of bucks that I spent on it. Starting right after breakfast the other day, I went to work! And you'll notice my font titles are all breakfast related. It was the only thing on my mind at the time.  This week's Snap it Up Saturday post is a set of 19 (YES 19) fonts that I created. They are commercial use and only require a linkback to my TPT store.

Click image above for download.

I really hope you like them. There might be one or two in there that you'll be able to use. Enjoy and have a great weekend!

Randi

Closing Out The School Year..With some fun!

I thought the day would never come. Here in North Georgia, we finally made it through the last day of school. We attend for half a day on the last day of school and I absolutely LOVE it. Something about knowing that there are only four hours to go when I get to work in the morning makes the day seem a bit sweeter. There were tears and sadness that quickly turned into cheers and happiness as the kids boarded those buses on the way home today. Teachers were crying, kids were crying and then it happened...silence. The race was on...who could hit the door first? It was me!!.

We have spent our last week together as third graders having as much fun as possible. I wanted the kids to remember their third grade years with some fond memories so I planned out a week full of fun activities. I thought here would be a great place to share some of those ideas. Maybe you can bring some fun into your last weeks as well.

Day One- Creative Classroom Crafts

Since this was a Monday, I decided to start with something low key and easy to prep. A while back ago, I was trolling TPT for some fun ideas when I ran across the neatest end-of-year memory project I have ever seen! Mr. Hughes, a fantastic seller on TPT has created a series of projects called 3-D Dodecahedrons. He has them for all sorts of applications and they run about five bucks a set. I couldn't pass up the project so I snapped it up as fast as I could key in my password. I did splurge and print the sets on cardstock, which I would recommend because it helps with assembly. We took all day on Monday to create these awesome projects and display them in our classroom. You can find the link to the product here.

The kids LOVED them and they were so fun to make! Here are a few shots of how they turned out.

Pardon the clutter...I was packing up stuff for the floor crew to come in. :-)

Day Two-Outdoor Sports Day

Bring on the sunblock because we set our sights on being outdoors ALL day long. We made it most of the day but the temps got a little too high and my little girls started sweating and it was just terrible. They were like wilted flowers. My kids all brought in their sports equipment/outdoor games/etc and we headed for the ball field out back. Bubbles, soccer, football, kickball, and several other sports were represented. We even held a kickball tourney against one of the other classes. By the end of the day, we were all worn out and my classroom smelled like a men's locker room but it was fun!

After the wilting girls decided we just had to go inside, we set out to make a fun little craftivity to decorate our desks during our class party..and we ended up with Perry the Platypus! And friends! I drew out the template and the kids went to town with paper bags. We also used all the junk paper from our desks to stuff them. Score! Two tasks in one!

 Day Three-Game Day

This day was the easiest and by far the quietest. On this day, the kids got to bring in their games (electronic or board games) and play ALL day. Well, maybe not all day. We had our school talent show in the afternoon. I was actually really surprised at the number of kids that had multiple portable gaming systems at their disposal. I never had one as a child...and my own daughter doesn't have one. Personally, I'm not a fan of video games myself, I find more value in a good book. But overall, this day was a HUGE hit with the kids.

Day Four- Classroom Competition Day

We spent an entire day competing against each other in all sorts of competitions. Many of them were academic games with a Jeopardy theme, going through some of our curriculum highlights from the year. You can find some of what we used here. We also headed outside for relay games and other races. The highlight of the day was when we had a Minute to Win It competition. If you are not familiar with the game, you must check out NBC's website and see all of the awesomeness that you can bring in with nominal materials.

There are even videos on the site for directions. We just played them in class!

These are a few that we did together..the kids worked in teams to compete for small prizes from the prize bin.

Chocolate Unicorn- (requires 21 cookies/snack cakes for 3 teams) Hilarious!

Face the Cookie- Kids have to move a cookie from their forehead to their mouth using only facial muscles. Again...HILARIOUS!

Hanky Race- Requires 3 boxes of tissues and masking tape if you are running 3 teams. Tissue boxes are taped around students waists.

Junk in Your Trunk- Reuses empty tissue boxes from Hanky race and ping pong balls.Students have to try to bounce the ping pong balls out of the tissue boxes using their backsides. The kids rolled with laughter.

Nose Dive- Requires cotton balls, vaseline and three containers. Kids have vaselined noses and have to transport cotton balls into their container the fastest. Here we are playing!

Dizzy Mummy- Requires three rolls of toilet paper. They loved this one!

Day Five- Movie Day

It was a long week...it was a half day. We also scheduled our classroom party for today as well. To rest up for our imminent summer vacation, we settled in with blankets and pillows and watched a good movie. But not before we celebrated with our Red Carpet Celebration. Each month, two students from each class get chosen for good deeds, attitudes, etc. and they get to walk the red carpet in front of the whole school whilst being cheered for. 

Overall, the week was a success. My kids and I had a blast together and they will most definitely remember being wrapped in toilet paper and trying to eat a cookie off of their forehead in the third grade. As a teacher, it is times like these that I remember. Not benchmarking, not behavior problems, not even state testing. Making memories is what really matters and I feel like we might have made a few this week. For those of you still in the swing of things, take the time to have some fun with your kids. Before too long, you'll be getting graduation invitations from them.

Have a great summer!

Randi

Mother's Day Fun in Third Grade

Hi Friends! One of my most favorite holidays is finally here! Mother's Day! I don't love Mother's Day just because I'm a mother, I love it because it gives everyone a chance to shower their mothers with love and special gifts..(even though I tend to do that year-round with my mom). My class even put in a full day of work just to get ready for the special day. And since I teach in a school with 87% of our population being Hispanic--we got to do it two days early! Mexico celebrates Mother's Day on the Friday before the U.S. does. A few things we got to do today were take pictures, make frames, write cards, and make special books just for the moms, grandmas, aunts, etc. in our lives. My kids absolutely loved it and so did I. This was the first time we have touched paint this year (it is not my friend) and the kids went wild! Here are a few snappies of the day's activities.

Our Mother's Day Picture Frames.. I found these in the craft section at Wal-Mart for 97 cents apiece. We just used regular acrylic paint to decorate them. I had the snapshots printed at Walgreens and got those for only $2.77. I had to run out during my lunch to go pick them up!

We also played a game of Mother's Day Scoot using a product that I whipped up and put into my TPT store. To start with, we put all of our prompt cards around the room and went around filling in different information about our moms on our graphic organizers. 

Click the image to visit my store for the Scoot Game.

Once our round of scoot was finished, we sat down to create our Special Someone booklets. The kids really enjoyed making those and decorating them for their mothers. My favorite part was the note on the back. Some kids really put their hearts into the notes, and others went with a little bit of humor. :-)

Overall, we had a good day. The kids finally got to have a bit of fun after all of that Spring testing and they all got to use their creativity to create something special for the women they love. What are some special things that you like to do to celebrate Mother's Day in your classrooms? I would love to hear some of those!