Paint Sample Calendar

So Friday night rolls around and I find myself once again sitting on Pintereste looking at cute and crafty projects I can't wait to try. Literally, I couldn't wait to try, so I jumped up and headed to Walmart and Lowe's at 9:00 at night! 

At Lowe's I discovered my new favorite teacher tool.... Paint Samples! While viewing and feeling the paint samples at Lowe's I realized... they are basically free card stock!

I saw on Pinterest an incredibly cute idea to use paint samples to create a dry erase calendar. I already had an old picture frame that I wasn't using so all I needed was the paint samples.

 I've decided my color theme this year will be shades of green so I grabbed all of the green paint samples I could get my hands on. It also came in handy because I plan on painting my bathroom green. (kill 2 birds with 1 stone!)

Materials needed:

Large glass picture frame

35 paint samples

tape (to hold the paint samples in place)

This is the final product!

 I decided that I will hang it up in my room to announce special occasions. I don't have a calendar displayed because I teach calendar skills in my everyday morning meeting using the smart board.

Again, this is not my idea. I found it on Pintereste.

Back To School Bulletin Board

Is it that time of year again?
This is a bulletin board welcoming students back to school. It is displayed right outside of our classroom.

Summer Vacation

This summer I spent a lot of time at the beach! We traveled to Dewey Beach in Delaware with my family, boyfriend, and neighbor for a week of fun! My favorite part about Dewey is that it is a dog friendly beach. Everyday at around 5:00 PM the dogs overran the beach. It was so entertaining to watch them frolic in the ocean. I just did not expect them to be so sandy! Little kids getting sandy at the beach have nothing on dogs getting sandy at the beach!

Behavior chart

Here is a picture of my classroom behavior chart. I love to use every opportunity as a learning opportunity which is why I chose to use money. The students start the day with 5 pennies. For every penny the loose they loose time at recess. If the students end the day with 5 pennies they earn a nickle. Once they earn  5 nickels they can trade it in for a quarter. Our treasure box costs 25 cents (wink wink). Once they have a quarter, they can cash it in at the treasure box. This worked out great this year. I plan on making it more in depth next year once the students have a better concept of money.

Schedule

My schedule board worked great this year. I have updated it and added a little bit of glam for next year though!

The Rainbow Fish Fruit Snack

To end our Rainbow Fish friendship unit the students made Rainbow fruit fish snacks. It was a yummy semi healthy treat they could make themselves.

 The Yummy ingredients (above)

 The students each got strawberries, grapes, and bananas that they cut into small bite size pieces.

 They had to fill their toothpicks up with fruit and then use the three toothpicks to create a triangle (the fish's tail)

 Then, they got a dessert shell and filled it with whip cream to act as the fish's body.

 Next, they decorated with the remaining fruit.

End result was a rainbow fruit fish..... if you squint you can kinda make out a fish :) The students enjoyed this activity and really enjoyed eating it!

The Rainbow Fish- Friendship activity

As a class we watched The Rainbow Fish using storyonline.net (fabulous website sponsored by the SAG). After watching the story and listing the story elements the students had to choose all of the qualities that a "good friend" would have. They wrote the qualities of a good friend on scales and we decorated a fish (see above). Later, the students had to choose the number one quality they look for in a friend and write it in the belly of their fish (see below).