Monday Made It: Whisper Phones

Happy Monday! I had a great weekend, and I hope you did too!

This week, I finished a project that I started last year - DIY whisper phones!

I was inspired by Mrs. Saoud's tutorial, but I made a few tweaks along the way!

• When you pick out your 1/2" PVC pipe at the store, you'll want to ask a worker to cut it into 4.5" pieces unless you have someone at home who can do this. When I asked the Home Depot guy, he literally laughed in my face and said he'd only cut it into 2 pieces. However, I did not give up! I persisted, he got his manager, and his manager happily cut the PVC pipe! Lesson to you - perservere! :)
• I bought 1/2" elbows and I was just able to shove them onto the pipe. Just make sure you buy 1/2" PVC elbows - they will be white, not beige. No gluing necessary!  That PVC glue smells really bad, so you're welcome. 
• I spray-painted them with special spray paint for plastic stuff. It's Rust-Oleum Plastic spray paint. I don't know if this was really necessary... but it worked for me.

You can use these whisper phones during Read to Self for Daily Five, or for independent reading regardless of your classroom. You will have to teach them how to use them appropriately, otherwise they will scream into them or make them into a long telephone game..... not that this happened to me or anything. :)

My class last year loved these things. It really helped them focus on their reading and block out the outside distractions. It can be hard in my class to focus when I'm teaching half of the class and half are engaged in independent activities. So this was a big help! And the kids would ask to use them, which was great!

Also - if you want to save some money, you don't need to spray paint. I didn't paint mine last year and no one seemed to mind. :)

If you've been thinking of buying commercially-made whisper phones, this DIY alternative will save you a TON of money! And they are super durable!

Monday Made It: Pocket Chart Stand

I'm so happy for Monday Made It because it makes Monday so much more wonderful!

This week, I made a mini pocket chart stand for my $1 pocket charts I got last summer at Target. I was inspired by Carly at First Grade Fabulosity's post about her pocket charts!

It was crazy easy! Here is how you do it!

First, you'll need to gather your supplies:

Side note: my pipe is already cut in this picture, obvi. You will need to buy a 10' piece of 1/2" PVC pipe at your preferred hardware store. :) It will cost you about $1.50 for the 10' pipe.

Then, start putting it together!

First, put your two elbows on either side of your 18" piece. This will be the top of your stand.

Then, put your 24" pieces in the other ends of the elbows. Just shove 'em in there!

After that, put your tees on ends of your 24" pieces.

Next, put one 5" piece in each tee opening.

Last, put your little caps on the open ends!

Then it should look like this bad boy. Feel free to relax at this point, as that is what I am clearly doing in this picture, haha!

Now if you would like to, you can spray paint your stand. I had some spray paint already so we painted it navy blue! Also, I have metal rings that I am going to use to hang the pocket charts but they are at school, so for the purpose of this post, I just tied the pocket charts up with yarn!

If you already have the pocket charts, this project will cost you less than $5 to make one stand. That is a pretty good deal to me!!!

There are two pocket charts back to back on the stand so two students can use the chart simultaneously!

I'm planning to use this as a station during reading time. Our first grade program features 3-4 word families per unit, so I'm going to make up little cards so they can make words independently using the word families.

Do you have any other ideas or ways we can use this awesome stand during independent work time?