Room 31

Feeling Lucky

Room 31

Out of excitement and nervousness, I decided to go by my school today and see if I can take a look around. Well, it just so happens that they had a couple of empty classrooms and let me pick which one I wanted. I made a lucky guess. The room I picked was of a retired teacher. This means two things: a lot of free materials and a lot of stuff to toss. The former definitely out ways the latter. I am so ready to put my nose to the grindstone. 

Name Tags

Trying To Do It ALL Myself:

Name Tags

My plan is to do everything I can myself. Typically, it is cheaper, but also, I can make it the way I want it. I like a name tag with help on it, but I don't want answers on there. So, something like a multiplication table isn't something I would find appropriate on a name tag. This is a real simple name tag that I think fits my classroom. The plan is to print these babies on card stock, laminate them, and then tape them to the desk. What do you think?

Reading Badges

Getting them to Read:

Reading Badges

In my book, anything encouraging that gets a student to read is a good idea. I came across something very similar on that addicting website where people put crafty things and well, decided to give them a shot. I fell in love with this idea, but again, I wanted to create my own.

I am doing a pencil management system in my classroom, so all of the students will have identical pencil boxes that are flat. I was thinking this is a great place for them to place badges as they earn them. Hopefully, the badges will serve as a sense of pride and encouragement them to read more. The banners are not apart of the badge, but are there for the presentation.

Where Are We Sign

Not-so-much a designer:

Where Are We Sign

There are a ton of different styles of these types of signs on teacherspayteachers.com, but I am not too interested in paying for them if I can make it myself. I am sure you all have seen signs that incorporate the mustache symbol as a substitute for "must ask." If you didn't notice at the top of the blog, I like mustaches, so I will be incorporating the cliche wherever I can! I made the background of a PowerPoint sign the pattern I wished. Then I created a white shape with a thick black border. I then designed the text and made the box for the location of the labels. 

By copying and pasting the box I created on the sign, I was able to make these labels uniform. The next step is to laminate all three sheets and cut out the pieces. I will add Velcro to the back of the labels and the sign so we can change them out. What do you think?

Bench Crates

My first classroom D.I.Y.:

Bench Crates

This, by no means, is my original idea. It is so all over classroom blogs that I don't even know who to give credit. I saw this and loved it as an idea for the carpet area. The students can have all carpet materials ready in their bin, so the students don't have to move around the classroom. Also, these are easy to tote, so the students can go anywhere in the room and read. For now, I just made three, but the plan is to make a class set.

For this, I bought the crates at Target for 3.99. I later saw slightly wider crates at Walmart for 3.49, but I had already gotten these three. Then I took the crate with me to Home Depot and asked the guy to cut some boards the size of the opening. All I had to pay for was the wood (which was 4 dollars for these 3 squares, but if I wanted to buy more, I can get 12 squares that will fit for 7 bucks. I purchased a pack of fabric swatches, because they fit perfectly over the wood and allowed me to have some variety. I also purchased some padding and green ribbon.

So, I cut out strips from the padding that were the width of the board, and then folded the strip to cover my wood. I put in a staple on each side just to keep the padding in place. I then covered the wood and padding with the fabric and stapled it down on the backside. The last step is to add a ribbon under the wood so the wood is easy to pull out.

We are going to experiment further with these three boxes. We have talked about getting whiteboard paper and making the back side a white board. We even though of adding the hardware of a clip board.