Dollar Deals - Star Student Chair Cover

I found these at Target in their dollar section for $1 each. It's like a chair pocket only with no pocket. It is simply for decoration. I plan to use it by letting the Student of the Week have it on their chair for that week until the next student is chosen. This is a cute and easy way to recognize the student for their accomplishments. I bought two. I was trying to get a girl and boy color. Even though I wasn't shopping for school supplies this was just a deal to good to pass up.

Report Card Freebies

I recently ran across a budget blog. It was discussing how to cut money for your budget (something I"m always interested in). Well she mentioned report card freebies. I was aware of a few rewards here and there such as a personal pan pizza from Pizza Hut, but I did not realize there were so many others. For example a free Happy Meal at McDonalds for all A's or a free doughnut from Krispy Kreme for each A. View the full list by clicking here.

Tide Box Makeover Craft





From This                                                                                  To This!

 

Don't ask me how I came up with doing this. I don't know. I was crafting another box which I'll show you later. I had a can of spray paint and just decided to try something and see what happens. It turned out pretty well I think. I plan on using the box for knick knack objects or small sewing supplies maybe. I just used a small Tide box that was about to be thrown away. I spray painted the box a glossy black. After drying I used zebra duct tape to put around the

edges of the box and the box top.     Then I took a piece of zebra scrapbook paper left over from another project and glued it to the front. Last I glued some thin pink ribbon around the edges of the paper. I'm stuck on zebra print and hot pink right now. It is my absolute favorite right now.  It was a pretty simple project and turned out really well. This is my attempt at recycling and reusing . I love this little box. It makes me want to find some more boxes and make a set for my office slash craft room. If you try it, let me know what you come up with! I'd love to see your results.

File Folder Games

File Folder games are something that my students have always loved. I just happened upon the idea myself. However I have found them to be a bit expensive. I have ended up buying a book for for $20 only to find 3-4 out of the 15-20 of them useful for my class. That led me to design some of my own, specific for what I wanted and needed for my class. I wanted to focus on the skills we were covering and the ones they needed more practice on. I have always been a bit crafty so this wasn't to hard for me. The first ones turned out pretty good in my opinion. I have since improved them and fine tuned the style. After a while I decided to share and put many of them online. The response was so good I made games for other grade levels and also created a website for them. The website has them organized by grade level and by subject and they are all free to download and print. The website is www.filefolderfarm.com . Here is the latest file folder game that I created. Download the newest game Crayon Patterns.

 

 

Tropical Behavior Chart

I have been seeing so many creative behavior clip charts on pinterest and other blogs, I just had to create one of my own. I wanted it to go with my theme. Brainstorming what kind of shape I wanted, I finally setteled on a palm tree. The words on the chart say Super Student for purple, Ready to Learn for green, Make better Choices for yellow, Teacher's Choice for blue, and Parent Contact for Red. Students who get to purple, the best you can get, recieve a ticket. The tickets can be saved and later traded for treasure box prizes.

Pictures of my Classroom

Through all the chaos I was able to take a minute to take some pictures of my classroom. I kept the same theme from last year, my own little tropical island. I had to change rooms so it doesn't look the same as last year though. I hope I never have to change rooms again. That is way to much work! I did not enjoy spending part of my summer moving things and begging for help to move the heavy items. However, it is all done and I am happy with the results. Have a look for yourself and tell me what you think!