Monday Made-It and My New Blog Design!

Well today was my first official day back to work after break, although it was just an in-service. Let me tell you- it was great to slowly ease into things and have time to work in our classrooms. I feel so much better about starting back tomorrow. I feel like it's the first day of school again- I have little butterflies in my stomach thinking about seeing my kiddos again! I'm going to miss my little man, but also glad to get back into the swing of things.

I'm excited to share several "Monday Made-Its" with you. A few weeks ago, I shared a post about the stools that I made my colleagues for their classroom. I decided to make one for myself and I just adore it. Here are a couple pics of my finished stool...

Seriously, these were so easy to make! I used leftover fabric from my classroom curtains and chair pockets so that everything is coordinating. I love it!

Okay- next up for "Monday Made It" is a project for home that I did over break. My son, Grady, who is 18 months old LOVES to color and draw. My sister-in-law built this adorable table for him on his 1st birthday and I've been dying to paint it and make it all "cutesy." I was inspired by the picture below on Pinterest:

Here are some pics of my little man's finished art area: (sorry for the picture quality!)

He is having so much fun coloring at this table! The chair pockets would be great for a classroom also. I love the bows at the top (can you tell I like bows?!) The curtain rod holds little pails with crayons, markers, etc. So fun! =)

Alright, last up is the Common Core Opinion Writing unit that I created over break. I am so pumped about teaching opinion writing to my students. When I first started searching for ideas, I found a lot of prompts such as "Pretend you are and ant. Write a letter trying to persuade someone not to step on you." I was struggling to find what I was looking for so I decided to make it myself! I started by thinking about times in life when we write opinion pieces. I came up with 8 different types of writing- speeches, editorials, letters, book recommendation letters, book reviews, movie reviews, advertisements, and campaign posters. I'm proud to say that the 8 writing activities included are all authentic writing opportunities for kids. If you'd like to learn more about the unit, just click {here}. You can also check out the unit by clicking on the pic below:

Hope you all have a great week!

Christmas Gift Idea for Colleagues

This past weekend, I met my new best friend... Mod Podge! My second grade teammates decided to do a Pinterest-inspired gift exchange this year. It was so much fun looking all over Pinterest for the perfect gift for them. I came across this awesome custom teacher stool and fell in love with the idea.

 

Each of my teammates have a theme in their classroom so I decided to design a stool around their theme. Mrs. Mathews has an owl theme, Mrs. Verhoff has a jungle theme, and Mrs. Lee has a star theme. Here are some pics of the finished products!

 

 

 

 

 

These were so easy to make! I started with a 24" wood bar stool from Wal-Mart. My husband spray painted them for me and then once they were dry, I began designing the top of the stool. All I used were scrapbooking supplies- paper, stickers, etc. I put a little bit of Mod Podge on the top of the stool and then placed the paper on top. The trick here is to make sure that the paper is totally flat with no bubbles underneath. Make sure to push all of the bubbles out before the Mod Podge dries. Then, cover the top of the paper with Mod Podge- use lots!! It goes on white but will dry completely clear so don't worry. I then worked on the rungs by cutting scrapbook paper and Mod-Podging (is that a word?!) them around the rung. Next, I applied a liberal amount of the Mod Podge on top of the paper. For the last step, I painted stars and flowers on two of the stools, and used pawprint stickers on the last stool. Voila! It was super easy and I love the way they turned out! I am now dying to make one for my classroom, but I bought all of the stools in stock at Wal-Mart so I have to wait for another shipment to come in. I can't wait to make a polka-dot themed stool for my classroom =)

 

Have a great night everyone!