Dollar Store Clipboards & Pebble Go Freebie

I LOVE the dollar store - really The Dollar Tree!!  I know most teachers do too - so I just had to share my latest dollar store creations with you all!

We use our computers everyday in the classroom and I love students to be able to do research using the computers and listen to stories online during our Daily 5!  I often give them follow up worksheets or note taking sheets for them to use while on the computers.

It is hard for them to manage the keyboard and paper with our limited space and even more challenging for some of them with the larger clipboards.  So I headed to the dollar store in search of mini clipboards.  They didn't have any at the time but I found 6"x8" chalkboards and these cute colorful metal clips.

So I pulled out my trusty hot glue gun and glued the clips on the chalkboards to create my mini clipboards!!  The best best best thing about these clipboards is that they have a handy little handle for hanging them.  So while I had my glue gun fired up I hot glued some hooks to the edge of my computer tables and hung those suckers up!!  It makes me so happy to see them all hanging there all neat and tidy!

We are fortunate enough to have access to Pebble Go so I made some note taking sheets that work perfectly with my mini clipboards.  

Click below to grab the freebie for yourself and there is also a larger version for you in case you don't want them to have more room to write! 

Enjoy and happy dollar store shopping!!

Back to School Linky & Class Decorations

U My classroom is finally ready!  In my guided reading and small group math area, I created a fun beach theme using a palm tree that was created from an old carpet roll (Home Depot give away), brown lunch bags and an old umbrella covered with green fleece.  MeaningfulMama has a nice blog post with step by step pictures showing how to make your own tree here.  I also added a small kid sized beach umbrella and a paper lantern sun to my beach area! 

Tip -  In order to stand the umbrella and palm tree I used 5 gallon buckets from Home Depot that I filled with water bottles to weigh it down.  I bought PVC pipes from HD and they cut a hole in the top of the bucket lid so the PVC pipe would fit perfectly.  

Here is my new writing center!  I am really excited for this area and I am trying something new by having my writing center menu fully displayed this year.   I love having my writing center activities already set for each day of the week - it gives my student a schedule and they look forward to different days of the week and once they get into the routine they always know what to do at the writing center.  Check it out here for more details.

In my county, school starts on Monday and all across Maryland kids and teachers will all finally be back to school!  As a way to celebrate Techie Turtle Teacher, OC Beach Teacher and I have set up a Back to School linky party to gather some fantastic resources for everyone!  Please feel free to link up your back to school post, resource or freebie and make sure to visit each other's sites and leave some BTS love!! 

Classroom decorations Day 1...

Today was my first day back at school and even though I went in last week to sort out supplies for my team it was still a lot of work and dang I am tired tonight!

So here is what my class looked like last week:

It was all shiny and clean and in the corner where you can't see there are boxes and boxes of supplies for the whole first grade team!

So last Friday I went in and with the help of 5 awesome helpers, we got all the supplies sorted and delivered to each of my teammates classrooms!  

Over the weekend I chalk painted a table in my room that turned out so cute!  I used cream colored chalk paint from Jo Ann Fabric (Lace) and mixed  and in my own acrylic paints to create some bright colors!  Mixing the paint was pretty low key, I poured some chalk paint into a plastic ziplock storage container and then added just enough acrylic paint to get the color I wanted.  For my table, I mixed 3 different colors and still had some left over!  Gotta love chalk paint! If you have not tried it yet you need to!!!  I am going to chalk paint an old night stand that I have sitting in front of my classroom, it holds books for kids to read while they are waiting for school to start!  I will post a few pictures later this week...

I also managed to move all my books and set up the library.  This year I added a few new Seuss Turffula trees and moved my palm tree to my reading table (more on that later this week)!  They were super easy to make and Bombshell Bling has a great blog post with lots of pictures to help you make your own!  Since the trees are made of pool noodles they are super light and I was able to simply tie them to my class library using pretty ribbon!

More to come later this week...

Made It Monday Linky

I just love summer!  So much time for family, fun and crafting!!  After a week full of family fun at the beach, I came back home and got busy crafting!  I feel pretty lucky that I still have a few weeks left before I go back to school!

I am linking up again with Tara over at 4th Grade Frolics for her Made It Monday linky party!!

My first project was a frame for the first day of school.  I have been pinning and loving these since last year, so I am super happy to have finally gotten this off my long list of crafts to try!  My little frame is missing a "t" but not to worry, I found it and will reglue it tomorrow. 

Next, I was determined to give my table bins a quick face lift, so I got out my glue gun and some ribbon and went to work. 

Who knew black and white polka dotted ribbon would make such a difference? 

My next two projects were totally inspired by my zebra Duct Tape find at Staples!  I have a thing for Zebra and thought for sure I could find a good use to a few rolls of Zebra Duct Tape! 

I covered a few icing containers and added a cute red bow to make these pen holders.  I still have the lids so I could also use these to store all sorts of things in the classroom.

After I finished with the icing containers I covered this old cardboard wall cubie. 

They turned out so cute and only took me about 15 minutes.  I still have one whole roll of duct tape left over!  What should I cover next??

Make sure you head on over to 4th Grade Frolics to check out all the other fun projects! 

Favorite Pins Friday

Yipee, it's Friday and I'm linking up with First Grade Parade and her fun Favorite Pin Friday linky!

While I have time this summer, I have been working on some fun classroom decorations.  Here are a few of my favoite pins from this week.  

This cute classroom picture is from Crafty Kinders.   She has so many cute pictures with great ideas about how to add color to your classroom.  She uses zip ties and colorful crates to create cubbies for her students. 

I love this cute guided reading table!  I found this over on Schoolgirl Style's blog and she has tons of other cute pictures showing off this beach themed classroom.  I tried to use an umbrella but could not get it just rights, so now I am on to plan B.   I am working on a tree that will hang over my guided table.  Hopefully I will be posting pictures of that soon, but be sure to hop over and check out Melanie's blog for some fun beachy ideas!

This little owl was my inspiration for creating a tree in my guided reading area.  Check out Dollar Store Crafts for this and other cute ideas!  I love this site!

Thank you pinterest for keeping us all collaborating and sharing these amazing ideas!!

Don't forget to hop over to First Grade Parade to see some more Favorite Pins! 

Classroom decorations to brighten your room...

I thought I would share a few fun ideas that have helped me brighten up my classroom.

These cute little creations make my boring black computers come to life! They were super easy to create,  I used scrap pieces of bulletin board boarders and construction paper to make the eyes and mouths.  My students love them and have even come up with names for them each year!

Here is my chalkboard, where I write my objectives our learning.  I don't like chalk so when a friend showed me liquid chalk, I was sold!  It is colorful and BRIGHT and stays bright until you clean it off.  You can clean it off with a magic square, baby wipes or a wet papertowel.

After I got permission from my principal, I decided to paint a few walls in my classroom last summer!  Here is a picture of how it looked before I painted.  Boring!!! 

I found the paint on sale at Walmart! It took me one day and two coats of bright blue paint and it was totally worth it!!

Here is the finished product!  I added some clouds using white fleece fabric stapled to the wall.  My friend gave me a cool idea to put some stuffing under the fleece so the clouds are actully puffing out from the walls.  It looks really cool in person!   The palm tree was created using an old carpet tube (donated from Home Depot), brown paperbags, an umbrella frame and some green fleece. Pinterest and SkitGuys have some good instructions on how to make your own palm tree!

This is awesome window is in my friend's classroom.  She decided to paint a window on her wall to brighten her classroom! What a great idea!!

 Thanks for stopping by, I hope you enjoyed peeking into my classroom!