A Few of my Favorite Things

I feel like this blog really helps me feel like I am being productive. I spent a full day in my classroom yesterday and I am still not sure I got anything done. But when I stop and slow down, I realize I have really accomplished a lot.

I love using my bell in the classroom. One of my beginning of the year procedures is to teach the kids to stop and put their hands on their heads when I ring the bell. It is a great attention getter and they all know what to do. I decided this year that I needed to jazz my bell up. I bought the pink rhinestones on sale at AC Moore and voila! It's now super cute and fits my personality!

Another project I have been working on is getting my room ready with my owl theme. Outside the door I put up polka dot border and felt owls I found at Micheal's. This is the first year I thought to put boarder around the window but I think it gives it a nice touch. I also hung up my welcome owls. I had them above the door but I thought it was too much! (although can you really have too many owls?)

And my final favorite thing for the day is my caddies. I ordered these from really good stuff. Each student gets their own section and it all snaps together and apart. I spent about $100 dollars to have enough for 20 students. It is kind of a lot but I have a classroom budget and the other caddies drove me CRAZY! The students had a community section to share for crayons. Well, half way through the year we could never find green or red. Or they would lose their pencils. I am hoping that with having their own section the responsible kids won't have to deal with the messy ones. We shall see. I hope it won't be too big on the tables.I am so excited to try them out this year! I haven't decided if I am going to keep them different colors or make a red table, blue table, etc.

Owl Decorations

I was away for the weekend in the mountains and now I am back and ready to get busy. On Tuesday, I met with the new Kindergarten teacher and it seems like she will be a great addition to our team! While I was at school I got busy with some things in the classroom. I forgot to take pictures though so I will post more later.

At home, I have been working on some owl decorations. I made these cute lanterns to hang from the ceiling. I saw it on pintrest (Dollarstorecrafts.com  )so I can't take credit for the idea. I bought the paper lantern from the dollar tree. I painted them to the colors I wanted. I used scrapbook paper for the wings, ears and feet. I then cut tissue paper to layer for the tummy. I think they turned out pretty cute! (Although part of me thinks they look a little bit like chicks, lol)

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I also wanted to dress up my Box Tops for education container. Again, thanks to pintrest (learninginwonderland.com) and the other bloggers out there I found a great idea. I printed and owl off from the internet and then taped her to the container. I used decorative packing tape to add the polka dot boarder. I then (feeling a little guilty) used some box tops to decorate the container. I think it will add a nice touch to my owl theme and hopefully encourage the kids to send in their box tops!