Retirement Booklets FTW

Helllloooooooo out there!  This year, guys.  This year.  It's somethin'.  Mostly I'm just keeping my head above water and being social.  It's really good.  I feel like maybe I hit that 10 year teaching mark and just needed a little breather where I focused more on me and less on school.  You know?  Do you?  Please tell me that's a thing.  Have I blogged this same feeling already this year?  Well, it's true.

National Boards has been a force to be reckoned with... I've been writing, rewriting, and video taping, and re-taping, and watching-ohhhh the watching- myself teach in the videos.  It's been an interesting process and everyone tells me once I'm done it will make me a better teacher.  My deadline is in 4 short weeks and I MIGHT be freaking out just a TAD.

I'm kind of looking forward to this summer to regroup my teaching, organize my school year, and feel like I have my act together.  It will happen.  I'm starting to once again have a few creative thoughts (it's a process, ya know?) and I think I will re-energize.

But in the meantime, school years are wrapping down all over the place.  That means retirement, and that's why I have Retirement Booklets FOR THE WIN.  Plus there is one for teachers (or students!) who are leaving the building.  Easy for last minute print and prep, and super cute when they are all done and put together.  I'll be honest, when I left my last school my teammate had students complete the "We Will Miss You" booklet for ME and it was adorable.

So if you're looking for something fast, easy and thoughtful, I've got you covered.  Plus I added a new donut themed booklet because I'm obsessed with donuts and I assume everyone else is, too.  If you want them all, grab the bundle!

            

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So...Student Birthdays?

Someone please tell me I'm not the only one who forgets student birthdays...

I'm terrible about them!  Even when I write them down in my lesson plans, I still manage to forget by the time the students walk through the door.  They will walk in and proclaim "It's my birthday!" and I'll be like..."Yes....YES!  IT IS!" and by the afternoon I've completely forgotten again.  I can hold a lot of information in my brain during the day, but for some reason this just seems to slip right through.

So, that being said, I don't do a ton of things to celebrate.  It just sets me up for failure and them for disappointment when I totally flake the follow through.  

I do post their birthdays.  I do it as more of a "wall of fame" than a birthday chart.  A million years ago, I found these fantastic vintage frames at a teacher store and scooped them right up.  I'm glad I did, too, because I've never seen then since then (although they obviously still sell them!).  I.love.them.  I put them up every year.  

They're awesome, right?  I put a name plate underneath with their name and "date of birth".  It's like a 4th grader museum.  I really enjoy having their pictures on the wall the whole year as well.  This actually ends up taking up more space on the wall than a regular birthday poster, but it looks more impressive and gives us classroom ownership.

So on their actual birthdays I keep it suuuuper simple.  I'm not a big treat person at school (and my school isn't either), so I stay away from the cute pixie sticks that a lot of teachers do....and the twisty straws are cute as well, but then I have to go hunt for twisty straws.  I'd rather make than hunt (in this case), so you have to pick your poison I guess!  

I prep it all before the school year starts so I just grab and go on their special days.  I just run off a few "Happy Birthday!" cards....and I make bookmarks.  I love those little corner bookmarks so I make one for each student and that's it!  Simple!  

Once I figured out my template, this project took no time at all.  Since I have a full stock of scrapbook paper for various projects in my closet, I just grab a few pages and get tracing and gluing.

One year I even made those adorable monster corner bookmarks.  The kids loved them, but they were a bit more work for me.

Easy and ready to rock and roll!  Now I'm all set for the year and there's no need to panic when a student reminds me it's his/her birthday.  Thank goodness.  

But I still haven't figured out how to get myself to just remember in the first place....Oy!

            

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BeFunky: Photo Editing

This is not a fancy post about photoshop or any other software I would have to pay a fortune for...because I don't know the first thing about those.  This is photo editing for amateurs who like free things.

I do love photography.  It helps that everyone in today's world can appear pretty decent because of digital photography and things like Instagram that allow us to filter and manipulate our photos however we would like, not to mention all the pins on Pinterest regarding photography hints and tips.  I can fake it with the best of them.

For photo editing, I can use the simple filtering and editing on my camera or through iPhoto, but when I want to put together a collage, add fonts, or do any other editing, I've been using BeFunky.

My favorite feature of BeFunky is that I don't need to sign in to use it.  This is thebomb.com because that means my pictures aren't linked to my email account.  Typically that's not a huge deal for me, but when it comes to pictures of students, I try really hard not to personally put them anywhere on the internet.  One year I used one of those slideshow sites to make a slideshow of my classroom (no students), and then when I looked up my email address on one of those creepy stalker websites, it had those pictures on it!  I don't want my students' pictures to be out there when people search for me or anyone else.  This site doesn't require sign in, so you don't have to be as concerned.

Plus it's free, easy, and mostly just fun.  There are collage options for social media sites, as well as individual picture editing, or just playing around with images.  Go play!

Here's what I worked on today...
As I put together my slideshow for the end of the year, I was trying to decide on a cover for our DVD.  I had the perfect picture:

I made it for our auction this year and I have been trying to figure out a way to use it in something for the class all year.  However, I'm a colored ink snob.  I like things in color.  I'll use it if I need to.  But it costs me an arm and a leg over the course of a year, so I avoid it when possible.  I was pretty sure printing 20 of these suckers was going to dry up the ink supply rather quickly.  

I went to BeFunky and I ended up with this, which I'm really digging, because my sleeves are different colors so they do their own color filtering.  It took me forever to settle on one good one since there were so many options available.  

I did add font at the bottom for the final picture.  Now they are printed and ready for me to slice up and put in sleeves.  Productive little Sunday!

What photo editing site, program, or app do you like to use?  Why?

            

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It's the Thought that Counts: Best Gifts Ever

Happy Earth Day!  I know I should do an earth friendly post... but I'm not.  It's my birthday, so I decided to switch up the usual Earth Day post and do something different.

I love nothing better than a homemade gift from my students.  Mostly because they are by far the funniest things ever created and even more amusing when I think that they made it thinking about how much I will love it.


In honor of my birthday I have compiled a few of my all time favorite handmade gifts from my students.  Here they are...

First, this crown.  Or really any handmade item that involves me wearing it all day and looking ridiculous.

Sculpture of my head.  Need I say more?

Hand painted unicorn.  Every teacher needs one.

How to Get a Guy: the complete guide to dating for single teachers.
This was the subject of an entire slumber party.
Hilarious... and awkward.

Notes on papers...or other mediums.  I consider any note written to me (one of these was on a test) to be a gift because they bring me so much laughter and joy.  These are amazing.  That is all.

Excuse me?

Yes.  All of them.

I won't even comment on the "get married" note.
Did you just define JK for me?  Seriously?  My generation invented JK.

Pictures of me:

That was my exact outfit that day.  Not creepy at all.

Do I have a snout?  Is my tongue out?  Am I Betty Rubble?

 I love them.  I'm sure I have many more, but those are the gifts I have documented.  I think teachers should put together a book of "notes to the teacher" to compile all the little hilarious notes we get from students.... who's with me??

Happy (b)Earth Day!

            

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Valentines for EveryBUGgy!

How can I help your class do good deeds?
Read below and go help somebuggy!

It's another snow day for me!  We had our weekend, then one day of staff development, then three snow days, and we will have school for one day tomorrow.  Oh my.... I thought this article was pretty accurate.  I may be starting to panic about our testing because we are WAY behind at this point...

{5 Reasons Schools Hate Snow Days}

But on to something a little more FUN.

Valentine's Day is a holiday I can certainly get on board with at school.  It's such a friendly holiday.  Unlike Halloween, the kids come in somewhat normal at the beginning of the day.  They aren't dressed as some creepy or devil-ish character or acting like crazy children...until they have sugar, but we save that for the end.  Everything is themed in showing love and sharing kindness.  I wish we had more events like this.

I'll admit, valentines have gotten completely out of hand.  Remember when the biggest decision was going to the store and picking your one box of valentines to write on and fold?  The super cool kids would put a piece of chocolate on theirs and we would all be jealous, but so happy they did it at the same time.  Now if someone doesn't bring candy, the rest of the kids act like they made some huge VDay faux pas.

Anywho...here's my plan for this year.  

This year, I'm trying really hard to focus on kindness in my classroom, so I decided to do something a little different.  The other day we watched this awesome video:

Isn't that great?  I want to do a follow up activity, so I came up with this idea for Valentine's Day...

These are so cute, right?  There are tons of bug valentine ideas on Pinterest as well- so if you follow {this link} it will take you to them so that you can create your own variation.  But what does that have to do with kindness, you ask?  Let me explain...

Well... what if all your Love Bugs ESCAPED and found their way to your students' desks?  Then they all got bit and had to pass on a good deed to "somebuggy" that day?  You can be as dramatic as you want... I'll probably go full speed ahead.

This is a super easy project!  Since I've been sitting around my house working hard for 3 snow days, I went ahead and put my Love Bugs together.  I used fruit cups.  I like to balance all the Valentine's Day sugar with fruit....in jell-o.

Next, gather the usual suspects... glue gun, googly eyes...you know.

Glue your googly eyes on (I used the hot glue gun) and then twist those pipe cleaners around and glue onto the top.  Grab that permanent marker and draw on a big friendly love bug smile.  I added dots because bugs have dots, right?

Then I cut out my labels and taped (I was done with the glue) them to the bottom of the cup.

I love how they turned out and I'm so excited to do this in class!

I made a poster to project onto the board when my students come in that morning and all the bugs are on their desk.  I'll talk about it to explain what their job will be for the day.  At the end of the day, we will complete a short writing activity to share what they did for "somebuggy".  

In order to spread the love, I'm putting this up on {TpT} for just $1.25.  It includes the "poster" to display in the morning, printable tags for your bugs, a graphic organizer for writing about their good deed, and writing paper (color and b&w) for the final draft.  Please leave some feedback and let me know how it works in your classroom!

Yay!  I'm excited!

**Just when I was thinking "Someone should really have a linky party for this!... I found one!  I'm linking up with {A Chocolate Dudley}, so hop over there and find all kinds of Valentine's Day ideas!!**

            

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