Summer Pinterest Fun

This summer I traveled to Ireland, St. Louis (to attend a Whole Brain Teaching conference that I'll explain later) and just relaxed at home spending time with family and friends.  But before I blinked my eyes it was August and I found myself anticipating school starting!  Truth be told I was studying to get into my masters degree program at the University of Texas and doing Pinterest activities was way more fun than studying for the GRE! So here I've got my very useful activities I created using the help of others.

 My first project was this handy teacher/craft organizer. I found it here.  I used the one that was from Garden Ridge and used some scrapbook paper I had and Modge Podge.  The hardest part for me was definitely thinking of just the right labels I wanted.  Lots of other teachers at my school have now adapted it for themselves, too.  It was a hit!

Then I used the idea found here for my objectives wall.  Lots of people use their white board but I treat my white board likes it's gold!  So I decided to put them on the wall in cute (Dollar Store) picture frames.  I put scrapbook paper on them and scrapbook letters for "Writing", "Reading" and "Social Studies" frames.  Later on my friend's mom added bows on the white hooks so that it's a bit cuter.  A week after school started the school secretary made me take them down to put up the fire exit poster (ughhh) but I just took off the "Objectives" sign and re-stuck the hooks up to put the three objectives frames up.  I've gotten a lot of compliments on them.  I really love them!  The dry-erase markers work perfectly and I have been highly motivated to let people know our objectives each day!

I also made my Book Hospital found here with a FREE printable.  This really helps me out because the kids know to put all ripped/torn books here instead of come up to me while in a reading group.  This being my 6th year teaching reading, my books are starting to show signs of old age so it's pretty packed just after 2 weeks of school.  But it's definitely something that takes 2 seconds to print, laminate and stick on a box/container.  I found this one for $1 at the Dollar Store.

And my last Pinterest project before school started were these little cute Quiet Critters.  I got the styrofome sheets and googly eyes at the Dollar Store.  They also had small puff balls for a dollar but I'm glad I got the larger puff balls at Michael's, though they were $5.  My students keep asking me if they can use them, because I have them on my shelf, lol.  But I'm saving them for a more special occasion-benchmarks will be here soon so I may use them during those weeks.

And once I figured out I wanted to have a Dr. Seuss inspired classroom I found this adorable ribbon topiary idea here.  It took me a few nights to make while I just watched tv.  It was super fun, though and SO easy!  I put it on my bookshelf that you can see above.

Yay to Pinterest!  I love the resources on there!