Day 9 - Sweet Treats

It's Day 9 of the December School Day Photo Challenge!

Day 9 - Sweet Treats

Sweet treats are a given this time of year.  Lots of class parties before the winter recess!  I know there are many restrictions in many schools these days regarding food due to allergies.  In my own school, most of what I'm posting below wouldn't be allowed.  All food brought into our school has to be packaged, labeled food so that it can be checked for allergens.  That means no home baked goods.  While I totally understand the reasons for this, it still makes me a little sad.  I enjoy baking and making treats for my students.

So, in keeping with the theme of Sweet Treats, I went on a Pinterest hunt to compile some treat ideas.  Below show some sweet treats that fall in four categories: healthy, sweet, fun packaging and some misc., and what I have done in previous years.  So, not one picture for the school day photo challenge, but a few!  While I browsed Pinterest for these ideas, I did my best to link to the original posts the pictures and info on each come from.  A quick click will take you to some great blogs and sites!

Healthy Snacks

1. Baby Bell Santa Belt Cheese

2. Christmas Tree Snack Tree

3. Strawberry and Banana "Candy" Canes

4.  Cheese Stick Snowmen - This wasn't linked to anything, but it seems easy to do.  You could just use colored Sharpies to draw the hat, face, and scarf to make it even easier.

5.  Green Bagels - The link is just a picture source, but when I saw the picture I thought it would be great for the holidays.  I always get green bagels for my friends on St. Patrick's Day. How awesome would these be as Grinch bagels?  With some strawberry cream cheese you have a holiday color match.  I'm sure a bagel shop would be make them if asked.

6. Red and Green Peppers with Hummus!

7. Snowman Banana Pops

8. Grinch Poppers - Another one that only linked to a picture, but it looks simple enough.  Green grape, banana slice, strawberry, and I think a mini-marshmallow stacked on a toothpick.

9. Veggie Tray - No link, but a great idea.  There are so many holiday shaped trays you could fill with fruit and veggies and automatically have a festive and healthy snack tray.

Sweet Treats

1. Snowman Candy Bar Wrappers - I liked this one a lot because no special printing is needed.  All you need is some plain white paper and markers.  You can even draw on the scarf and jot a special message to each friend.

2. Snowman Doughnuts - So simple!

3. Marshmallow Snowmen on a Stick

4. Green Rice Krispy Treats - No link, but just add some green food coloring to your treats, stack the squares, and sprinkle on some M&M "ornaments!"

5.  Brownie Bites with marshmallow? frosting? and a strawberry Santa hat.

6.  Jolly Rancher Candy Message - Okay, I've linked to the blog the pic is from but I seriously couldn't find the post.  And, I looked!  This is a super simple gift for your friends!

7.  Rice Krispy Christmas Coal! - This totally made me laugh.  I think we all know some who may have earned a little coal!

8.  Reindeer Candy Canes - Yarn, googly eyes, red pom poms, and a couple of candy canes. 

Easy peasy!

Fun Packaging And. . .

1.  "Melted Snowman" Water Bottle Labels - No link given, but fun and easy to do.

2.  Snowman Cups - Again, no link but these are so cute.  You could put drinks ready to go in them or treats to take home.  Looks like the black and pink are magic marker and the nose is a glued on orange, felt triangle.

3.  Reindeer Bags - Another fun way to package treats or a take home surprise.

4.  Classroom Crock Pot Hot Chocolate - This is the "and" in this category!

5. Reindeer Food Popcorn Bags - This link will tell you how to make Christmas colored popcorn and provides a free download for the Reindeer Food label.

Previous Years

If you click  this link, it will take you to a post where I 

detail some treats I made for my students and teachers in the past: 

snowman and snowlady cupcakes, Snowman Soup packets, 

and cinnamon white chocolate pretzels.  

   

Hopefully, you found a sweet treat you like!

Day 4 - Joy

It's Day 4 of the December School Day Photo Challenge!

Day 4 - Joy

Today's post will be short and sweet as I had evening conference tonight and am soooo tired!

Joy.  What has brought me some joy recently is completing a Pandora's Box project with two of my classes.  We've been studying Greek myths.  Having read about Pandora's box, my friends created their own version, a box that would release only good things into our world.  They created a Power Point presentation in which they had to justify their choices and explain how they would benefit the world.  We finished this particular project by painting their own actual boxes.

The joy comes in the art project.  I find that we are so common core driven there is little time allowed for craft projects anymore, particularly in upper elementary.  I see a lot of teacher blogs where awesome class projects are happening.  I even look back at my own blog and see some great projects I've done in the past that I would love to do again.  Unfortunately, is often becomes all about data and standards making it difficult to fit in projects that don't explicitly fit those parameters.

This Pandora's box project was a joy for my students.  They were so excited to get to the project and kept asking when we could start.  It was a joy to watch them complete the project.  I watched them work cooperatively, offer suggestions and tips to each other, praise and encourage a classmate who thought her project wasn't any good, share materials, and {GASP} have fun! 

Joy was had by all!

By the way, if you are wondering about the boxes, I used papier-mache boxes from Oriental Trading Company. They have a more expensive wooden box available, but I found the papier-mache boxes held up just fine under acrylic paint and Mod Podge.

Day 2 - Wrapping Paper

It's Day 2 of the December School Day Photo Challenge!

Day 2 - Wrapping Paper

Well, this one is kind of obvious.  Wrapping paper makes great bulletin board background paper!  The picture up top shows a bulletin board a fellow teacher made using shiny, blue wrapping paper as her background.  With so many dollar stores around, getting wrapping paper for any occasion doesn't have to cost a lot.  Plus, you can customize it for almost any holiday or season.

The bottom half of the picture shows wrapping paper used to cover textbooks.  One things for sure, kids won't mix-up whose book it is when the wrapping papers can be so distinct.

One idea I had for wrapping paper and school comes from the idea of wrapping 25 different Christmas books as a countdown to Christmas.  Your child gets to pick one a night, unwrap it, and have it read as their bedtime story that night.  This would so easily apply to school!  Think of those last couple of weeks of school.  You could wrap ten books that have summer themes in summery wrapping paper.  Put them all in a basket and have a student pick one book to unwrap each day for a read aloud.  You could do this for Halloween, too.  Wrap Halloween themed books and put them in one of those plastic cauldrons you can also usually pick up at the dollar store. The kids could open and read one a day to countdown to Halloween. Actually, it would work for any holiday or event where you want to do a countdown of some sort.  It is a total hook to get them into a book, and who doesn't like to unwrap a gift?!  If you have certain books you want to read on certain days, you could number them rather than having the kids randomly pick.

                                               

Picture source

The picture above is from the Clean Mama blog.  She has a great site (not an education blog, but more homemaking) where she offers a free download of the numbers shown in the picture above. She also explains how she does a Christmas Advent countdown with books.  As a person who loves things to be organized, I love that she also has lots of tips for organizing pretty much everything!

So, back to wrapping paper and school. . . here are a couple of other quick ideas for using wrapping paper in school.

• Line the back of your bookshelves with strips of wrapping paper using some double stick taper for a pop of color.
• Wrap a few books from your class library that you know are great reads but have uninviting covers.  As much as we say don't judge a book by its cover, you know they do!  Cover a few of the books like the textbooks above are covered. Put them in a basket with a sign that says, "Don't Judge a Book by its Cover!" and encourage your friends to try one.  If you wanted, you could even write the title and a brief description on an index card, and tape it to the cover. This would be a chance to sell the book in a quirky or funny way.

Okay, that's all I have for wrapping paper!  If you have any ideas, please feel free to share in the comments.

Do You Know Library Mouse?

Today, I'm sharing a picture book that is probably better suited to the younger set, but was one I used with my summer school friends who did not see themselves as writers at all.  Library Mouse by Daniel Kirk is the story of a mouse, Sam, that lives in a library. Sam also loves books and loves writing books.  In fact, he finds some scrap paper and writes several books that he displays in the library.  They become a huge hit with children and adults.  Everyone wants to know, "Who is the author?"  Eventually, Sam makes a "Meet the Author" box.  He put it out one night, and the next morning everyone took a look in the box to meet the author.  Here's the catch. In the box is a mirror. You are an author! Next to the box, Sam leaves a bunch of mini booklets like the ones he writes in for the children to author their own books.  This is a great book for teaching children that they are indeed authors.

If you don't know the book and are interested in it, here is  a video of a librarian reading it aloud. They do a good job of letting you see the text and illustrations as she reads.  You should know she has an English accent which actually makes it sound maybe kind of cool.  You should also know she has a puppet that helps her introduce the book.  I found the puppet to be a bit creepy! Why is its mouth always open?! Once you get past her intro, the book reading goes well.

Library Mouse is just the first in a series.  Daniel Kirk has written several books staring Sam, our friendly mouse.

picture source

There's Library Mouse A Friend's Tale  in which Sam does some collaborative writing with a child.  Library Mouse A World to Explore  introduces us to Sam's friend Sarah who isn't much on writing but is in to research and exploring.  In Library Mouse A Museum Adventure,  Sam and Sarah go on an adventure that combines research and journaling.  Finally, there is Library Mouse Home Sweet Home which is due out in September 2013. Amazon has a release date of September 3rd. This book continues the adventures of Sam and Sarah when the library is under renovation and they must find a temporary home.  I haven't read it, but it sounds like this one could be good for a social studies/community tie in as they make an igloo, a castle, a modern house, and more.

As I wrote, I think these books are better suited for the younger set, but my 3rd going into 4th graders enjoyed Library Mouse very much.  And, the message that they are authors certainly hit home.  In fact, to really make an experience of the book you could easily make the "Meet the Author" box that Sam makes.  Just put a small mirror in a tissue box, wrap the box leaving the top hole open, and make a "Meet the Author" sign.  It would be a fun way to introduce writer's workshop at the start of the year.

You can also make some mini books for your kids to write their own story or a mini "About Me" book as a back-to-school activity.  Here's a quick video on how to make an 8 page mini book using one piece of paper and no staples.  It looks just like the mini book Sam makes!

I linked to Daniel Kirk's author page earlier in the post.  If you explore his web site, you will see that he also has an activities page where you can print out book marks, posters, and coloring pages.  There's a cute poster of Sam saying, "Be Kind."  There are also suggested academic activities for his books.

Library Mouse isn't a brand  new book, but it is a good one! Plus, Daniel Kirk is a New Jersey author. How could I not brag about a fellow New Jerseyan?  If you live in the area, Daniel Kirk does paid author visits. His web page also notes that he does FREE twenty-minute Skype visits for classes doing an author study, schools with limited funds, and those too far from New Jersey.  Did I mention FREE? :-)

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One off topic question for you!  Does anyone out there use Remind 101?  I've downloaded the app, but I am hesitant to use it.  Just wondering if anyone else has used it and how it works.

A Project and Some Bookmarks

So, I mentioned in my last post that I was going to tell you about a project I completed inspired by a picture I saw on Instagram.  It was actually a craft project done by Hope King over at Second Grade Shenanigans. I love her blog.  She makes so many great printables.  In fact, Hope made the Good Reader posters I used for decorating outside my door this year. It was the project picture I saw on her Instagram page that led me to her blog and the reading posters.  But, back to the project.  Here is what my final project looks like!

Totally inspired by Hope's masterpiece. . . 

This picture is from Hope's post on how to do this project.

A pretty good match I think! When I saw Hope's pictures, I knew I had to do it. The READ display fit right in with my literacy themed room.  I'm not going to give any directions here, because you really need to hop on over to Hope's blog and see how it's done!  After all, she did master mind this project!  I will give one thought.  This took me WAY longer to do than it did Hope.  I mean WAY, WAY longer!  Obviously my crafting skills are not on par with hers! So for me, it was time consuming but worth it.

One of the reasons I like it is because the vibrant colors. . . 

. . . fit right in with the colors of my class library baskets! 

But, you could pick any colors that match your room.

I put the display up high to leave room for anchor charts, posters, and student work.

I will say that one of the things you have to do for this project is cut 24 squares for each circle.  Well, that left me with a lot of scrap pieces.  It turns out that each scrap piece made two perfect bookmarks for my friends.  24 x 2 x 4 = 192.  That's 192 bookmarks!  I used card stock for the project so they are sturdy.

 

I went to the dollar store and grabbed a couple of packages of stickers to fancy them up a bit. I put them on while watching TV one night.  How much school work gets done that way?!   I was going to laminate them, but then I came to my senses rather quickly when I realized that would mean cutting out 192 individual bookmarks.  So. Not. Happening!

Thinking on it more, I realized these are perfect for my guided reading groups as they are and have a ton of uses. The backs and most of the front are blank. These are prefect to have on hand to do things like. . .

• You can easily write the focus skill/strategy on the bookmark for your friend to have as a reminder when you send them off.  
• The kids can use them to write interesting words as they are reading.
• You can write a question for them to answer at the guided reading table after they read a section.
• A reading goal can be written on the bookmark as a reminder for the student. 

I'm sure you can think of many other things to do with these.  Even if you don't make the project, it would be nice to cut up some colored card stock as blank bookmarks for use in your guided reading groups.  Actually, you could even use small, colored index cards if you don't want to do the cutting.

 So, that's the project and a sneak peak at one area of my room.  

I'm still working on the rest, but getting close to being done!

Author's Chair ~ Share Chair

Many years ago, I spent a lot of time making an author's chair.  If you aren't sure what an author's chair is, it is "just" (Not really "just," but there's more on that at the end of the post) a fancy chair your author-students sit in when reading their work to the class.  Somehow, one year, my chair disappeared from my room.  I'm pretty sure it was probably broken misplaced one summer during the room cleanings.  Lately, I've been toying with the idea of creating a new author's chair.  While the summer has flown by, I've not abandoned the idea.

I have an old, wooden chair like the one above that would be perfect for the project.  In fact, I turned to Pinterest for some inspiration and was so amazed at how creative my fellow teachers are that I decided to share some of it here.  The pictures are from the teachers' blogs or their Pinterest boards, and I have tried to link directly to each.  However, some of the pictures had no blog or site linked to them. The just linked back to the image.  If you know who a chair belongs to, please leave a comment and I will happily add the link to the teacher's blog, Pinterest board, or web page.

Let's begin with some . . .

Author's Chairs!

Lauren is not a blogger, but a pinner!  She pinned her author's chair on her Pinterest board: My Creations. Instead of a standard chair, she used a director's chair.

Angie Austin is an artist that paints author's chairs for teachers.  Below is one featured on her blog.  If you visit her blog, you can see some others she has designed.

Stephanie Mellon painted this chair for her classroom.  She doesn't seem to have a blog, but posted her picture on her Pinterest board. Her chair is amazing!  Her picture collage below shows you the many steps involved in this project.

Here's  another great chair from Pinterest that only links back to the image.  I love the pencils painted across the back.

Here's another amazing chair that links back to an image.  This chair looks like it took a lot of time, effort, and love of teaching!

The chair below is painted by Priscilla Zachary for her school teacher daughter.  As far as I can tell, Priscilla also doesn't have a blog, but posted her picture on her Pinterest board that you can see here. Priscilla is very talented as evidenced by this amazing paint job!

This picture also links to the image on Pinterest, but I had to include it for its simplicity.  If you don't have time to paint a chair, simply grab some ribbons, a chair cushion, and some Sharpies.  No painting needed.  Also, this chair could fold up for easy storage when not in use.

Share Chairs!

Share chairs are nice because they aren't limited to author's use only.  

You can use a share chair for any kind of presentation.

Heather, from Fifth Grade Frenzy has created a super snazzy share chair. I like this chair because it fits in with my room's color theme this year.

Ms. K at Teacher Blog Spot shares a genius idea for a quick, cheap, and easy share chair a teacher in her building came up with.  All you need is a plastic lawn chair and some stickers.  Imagine how cute this would be with a lawn chair in a cute color and some themed stickers.

Stools!

Who needs an actual chair? Stools takes up less space and need less paint!

Amanda at First Time for Everything has added some fun pom-pom trim to her stool.

Beth, the Inspired Writing Teacher, has this very colorful stool as an author's chair. If you follow the link to her blog, you will see that she also has an actual author's chair, too.

Here's another colorful stool posted by Kelly on her Pinterest board that is used as an author's chair.

All Purpose Celebration Chairs!

An all purpose celebration chair is more of what I had in mind for my classroom.  I like a chair that you can do an author's celebration in as well as be a reward chair to sit in for good behavior or birthdays.  

Hope at 2nd Grade Shenanigans made a most amazing chair.  Love the feathers!  You can hardly tell, but the chair is a basic wooden school chair.  Hope shows you the before and after in her blog post. I love her blog! 

Debbie Clement is an author/illustrator who visits schools.  She took the picture of the chair below on one of her visits and posted it on her blog, Rainbows Within Reach. Imagine the possibilities with a chair labeled Imagine!

Here's a really fun chair for those not into painting. Mel D. at Seusstastic Classroom Inspirations made this awesome celebration chair using tissue paper, old Dr. Seuss books, and Mod Podge. Love it!

And, Finally. . . 

How about a reading BENCH?

I love how so many favorite books have been incorporated in the paining.  I also love all the books laying on the seat.  I'm not sure I'm talented enough to pull off something like this!  Again, this is a picture that only links back to an image, but I would love to know who created this gem.

Here's an amazing idea!  The Ethelbert B. Crawford Library in Monticello, New York had children paint reading chairs and auctioned them off.  If you follow THIS LINK, you can see several of the chairs the kids created.  The library was able to raise $1300!  If your school has some older chairs, wouldn't that be a great art/literacy project?  Instead of auctioning them off, they could be great additions to the school's media center or front office.

There's more to the author's chair than "just" a presentation seat.  When an author is in the chair, it is a time for the reader author to practice public speaking, fluency, and prosody. There is also the joy they get from seeing the power of their words.  I will always remember a time a friend was reading a story to the rest of our class that had a very funny moment in it.  When he read that part, the entire class laughed so much that he had to pause in his reading.  When he was done, I pointed out to him (and the class) that his written words had the power to make an entire group of children laugh for quite a while.  His words made people experience joy.  I told him, and the class, that THAT IS THE POWER OF AN AUTHOR!  The look on his face was priceless.  He really hadn't understood until that moment that words have power and as the author, he wields that power.

For listeners, it is a time to practice active listening skills and social skills for audience behavior.  Often, during author's celebrations, the class is asked to respond to the author with one specific compliment and a question.  You can't do that if you aren't actively listening!

If you are new to using an author's chair or just want some ideas on how to make it more meaningful,
here are a couple of resources that might help:

• Click here to see how Teacher Vision has outlined exactly what an author's chair is and how to use one.
• The Oakland Unified School District,  via their Writing Proficiency Project, has a nice printable of tips for making your authors' chair a successful experience for all.  Click here for the pdf.

   In addition to showing some great chairs, the links will take you to some great blogs to explore.

Hopefully, you have found some chair inspiration! 

Gifts and Shopping

So, no posts for a while.  I've been busy teaching with all the end of the year craziness thrown in!  Today, June 27th, was my last day of school.  I don't think they could have kept us in any longer if they tried! Having a heatwave the last week of school didn't make it much fun.

It was odd to visit all my different classes to say good-bye to my friends today.  Usually, I make an end of year gift for them, but this year I had over 75 students.  I did get ice pops for all my classes, because did I mention it was 90+ degrees this week as we toiled away in second floor classrooms with no air conditioning?!  A cool treat in the afternoon was very much appreciated by all.

One of my 4th grade classes did receive a little something.  It was the class in which I teach two subjects and spend a good part of  my day with.  I decided on a fun gift for summer - Super Bouncy Balls!

I was able to find super bouncy balls that were about the size of tennis balls at Five Below.  They came in a bunch of colors and patterns.  Each was put in a cellophane bag, tied with some curling ribbon.  Then, I printed out a poem I had tweaked, printed it on some card stock, and stapled one to each bag.  It was actually much easier and faster to do than it sounds.  I'm happy to say that the kids loved them.  I think this could easily be a back to school gift with a card saying, "We are going to have a ball learning together this year!"

As I sit here tonight, I have to say I am so glad to be on summer vacation even though I'm teaching summer school again.  This summer  I will be working with friends who are moving from third to fourth grade  in September.  I have exactly three free days until I go in on July 1st to decorate my air conditioned (Thanks Goodness!) room.  I went with a star theme this summer.

I had a lot of this in my closet, but I did run to a local teacher store to pick up a couple of things.  Of course, it's never a clean get-away when I go into a teacher store.  I've had my eye on a new product by Carson-Dellosa.  They have put out a common core standards kit for each grade level that has kid friendly "I can" statements for all the standards. 

picture source

I purchased the fourth and fifth grade versions and am planning to do a full review for you, most likely posting this Saturday or Sunday. I've been doing a lot of thinking on how this can best be used in the classroom.

For now, I'm off to enjoy what is left of my first night of summer vacation!  See you on the weekend!

Random Thoughts on a Random Day

Lots of random thoughts today on lots of random topics. . .


I went on an "I-am-bored-so-let's-go-to-Target-and-spend-money-on-random-things-I-don't-really-need" shopping trip.  You know those dollar bins they have in the front of the store?  Well, I found these gems on the right.  Orange, yellow, pink, and red striped magazine files.  Too cute!  They don't exactly match the cute striped ones below that I got at Ikea for my friends to use as book bins, but I love 'em anyway!  The best part is that all black dot items were 50% off, so I scored those babies for just fifty cents each!
  


I'm  making maracas!   On that unnecessary Target shopping trip, I also picked up two bags of plastic Easter eggs for 50% off.  These two big bags were just a dollar each. Last year, I wrote a post called Some EGGcellent Ideas that gives a bunch of ideas on what to do with all those leftover plastic eggs. In looking back at the post, I was surprised to see that I never included the maraca idea.  If you want more info on how to make them, visit the blog Dana Made It.  She has a perfect tutorial with step by step directions.

My plan is to make them for Cinco de Mayo.  Well, actually we will be making them on Tres de Mayo as the fifth falls on a Sunday. :-)

Above is my lame attempt to give it a trial run.  Lesson learned - Get better masking tape!  Mine wasn't so sticky so it didn't wrap around the egg too well.  I'm thinking of also getting some wider tape so that I can just have my friends wrap it once.



My latest library book sale haul!  If you read my blog, you may know that I love buying books on the cheap from my local library book sale.  Below are the books I was lucky enough to find on my last visit.  It was a good day!  Too many books to fit in one picture!

Buying books from library sales is a perfect way to stock your classroom library for what can literally be pocket change.  Since my teaching position changed this year, I found my library required a serious overhaul.  I needed a lot more books at lower levels.  Luckily, I've been able to find many good books over the course of the year.

SMARTIES for smarties!  Yes, I still give my friends Smarties on occasion.   The name alone makes them a school food!  Okay, I kid about it being a school food.  But, sometimes we all need a little sweetness in our day!


Which leads me to my next random thought. . .


My favorite "new" app is Color Splash.  I put new in quotes because this app has been around a long time.  I'm just late to the party.  But, what a party it is!  Essentially, this app lets you take any picture, convert it to black and white, and then color any part of the picture you want.  Above, you can see that I used the app on the Smarties picture.  I also used it on the pictures of the books and the trial run maraca, but since the backgrounds were originally on the gray side it doesn't show as well as it does in the Smarties picture.
I also used the app in my post about two picture books for writing lessons when I took this picture at Barnes and Noble.  Since I still can't find my camera and am using my iPhone for pictures at the moment, this app has made it all a little more fun.  It is well worth the $0.99!

And, finally my most random thought of all. . . 

I can't get enough of this stuff! :-)

So, what random thoughts are floating around with you today?