Love Jar

I realize that Valentine's Day has come and gone, but I am a slowpoke and just finished my Valentine's Day gift for my boyfriend today!

Before I begin, let me just say that I am really interested in crafting. I am interested in ideas and buying all the things I will need. I am also interested in beginning projects. After that... not so much. My cousins, Kelley and Lisa, can attest to this. I have so much stuff sitting around that I NEEDED for whatever reason. Sigh.

But I actually finished something, so go me!

This is the love jar! I wrote out 30ish nice things about my boyfriend, printed them out, and folded little fortune cookies to house them. I got this idea from Chrissy and then when I looked up "love jars" on Google, I saw the fortune cookies and I just HAD to do it. I have had all the stuff for a week and just now I did it. Story of my life.

I sort of followed the directions I found at Better Way Moms but I am way more lazy than that person so I adapted the directions to fit my needs and maybe yours! I made my own step by step pictures if you are interested!

1. I traced my circles. I used 12x12 scrapbook paper. I used a CD to make 2 big circles on each paper and then I used a cup to trace 4-5 small circles which were about 3.25 inches in diameter. 

2. Then I ripped off a strip of double-sided tape. No specific size... I sort of used the premarked lines on the tape to guide me but I was not religious about this. I cut it in half lengthwise. In the picture you can see that I put the two pieces of tape on the top part of the wrong side of the circle. I folded one of my little messages in half and laid it in there.

3. I had the sticky side and unsticky side meet. I did not crease at all.

4. Then, like so, I held two fingers on either side and just shoved the middle in. Other places told me to make a crease so I could tell where the middle was. I just winged it (wung it?). I think the imperfections will make it special.... haha.

5. Then you will have a little fortune cookie! This one actually looks pretty good but believe me, most of them were off centered and one side was bigger than the other. Whatevs.

 6. However, it will not stay fortune cookie-like unless you stick it together. I tore off a tinier piece of double-sided tape and stuck it close to the fold on the bottom part. I don't think you can see it in this picture. But it is there!

 7. Then I held it together. I didn't crunch it or crush it together... I just held it together and looked at Pinterest for a minute. Haha!

And that's it!! It was actually pretty easy and semi-fun once I got started. You could use this for many purposes! Birthday gifts, anniversary, you know.

So far they are sticking together... nothing is popping apart or anything! Good old double-sided tape. If you choose to do this, you might want to cut some practice ones. My brother and I played around with them and I got super frustrated for a while when they didn't look perfect. Then I let go and now I am happy!

V-Day Partay!

Happy Valentine's Day!!!

We had a lovely day today in first and second grades. Let me give you an idea of how it went down and the bloggers who helped us get there!

We made Valentine's mini-books which I got from Michelle at Fabulous in First. I used these for our morning work and then they worked on them when they were finished with things throughout the day. They loved these!

I loved this boy's answers, especially that he loves "apple gose" because he can "suck on the gose."

Then in Writing, we finished up our paragraph Valentines. I loved the ASL Valentines I saw on Pinterest, so they chose a scrapbook paper piece and I traced their hand onto it! Super cute and easy.

Unrelated to Valentine's Day... I busted out the "library books" that come with my reading program for the second graders. We started with a Mercy Watson book - have any of you read those? My kids LOVED IT. Two of them finished it in one day but a few are still working on it, so I read with them today. Three of my second graders are SUPER readers, way way above grade level. These two friends are right on level so I read with them today and they did great!

This is what I gave the kids for Valentine's Day. Thanks, The Teacher Wife! The kids also were obsessed with these and they were so cheap and easy! Best idea ever.

For Math, we did Cara Carroll's candy heart probability. I'm not really sure that they grasped the concept but it was fun regardless. :)

Then we had our party! My room mom planned this activity, which she found here. Super cute! It went along well with our love monsters!!

We played HEART Bingo, which I made here!

And the kids graphed candy hearts, obvi. I got the sheets for that activity at Teacher Bits and Bobs!

At the end, we got our pouches and ate candy! We totally ran out of time to eat our all-red fruit snack!! So we saved it for tomorrow. We'll be eating watermelon, raspberries, and strawberries for a few days I think. :) Fine with me!!!

I also wanted to share what my BTF next door did! She found this cute bookmark idea on Pinterest. All it took was some paint samples and a little heart punch that I found on clearance at Michael's for $2!

 She also made little lovebugs! It was in a little craft kit, also from Michael's!

It was a great day. No behavior problems, although one boy went into the girl's bathroom. Siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh.

Looooove Monsters and a Freebie!!

Hola friends!

How was your Monday? Mine was great, considering it was a Monday. My class is really excited about Valentine's Day but they weren't being too overly crazy today so hooray for that!

Today we prepped our Valentine holders for tomorrow. I got this idea (and the templates) from Amber at Adventures of a Third Grade Teacher. I just found her through Chrissy's linky party and I was instantly loving the love monsters. My class died of happiness when I showed them my sample.

She spent a lot of time on hers! It had hair and also nail polish, which you can't see in this picture.

Last week, we made hearts for our wire thing! I got the template from Mrs. Bainbridge. They loved these even though no one understood how to weave them and basically one of the second graders and I did everyone's hearts for them. Whatev.

Tomorrow I have a pretty fun day planned, I think. For writing, we have been working on 5-sentence paragraphs, so today we started working on a Valentine which will incorporate paragraph writing! They had to write it to someone in their family about why they were the best sister ever, or brother, or mom, whatever. They needed a topic sentence, three body sentences, and a closing sentence. We wrote our sloppy copies today and I was so very proud of them! A few friends think that "bald and cool" is a sentence, so we're not quiiiiiiiiiiiiiiite there yet, but I'd say 80% of them can easily write a 5-sentence paragraph with no prompting from me!

I'll show you the finished product tomorrow, but for now, I want to share a little freebie for ya. For this writing project tomorrow, I needed heart writing paper and I couldn't find anything that I liked. So I made my own. It is nothing special but the lines are big enough that my kids can write on them and can fit their whole paragraph on there!

Just click on the little preview to go there! I'd be super happy if you left me a comment if you're able to use it!

I am excited for Valentine's Day tomorrow! Are you? We get a non-uniform day so that makes the day 100% more awesome.

Making It Fair

Do you incorporate any skits or role-playing into your lessons?

I don't, typically, but today in Social Studies our lesson was about fairness. We talked about how to know whether or not something is fair. We decided, as a class, that if everyone is equal and doesn't get left out, then it's fair!

Then I made groups of 3 and they acted out a little skit of an unfair situation and how they could make it fair. 

The situations were mostly about having to share something... an orange, a book, a pizza, and a swing. Sharing is not one of our strong points, so I figured it would be worth a chance to talk about it again.

Later on, when 3 kids wanted to be on the computer during Math Stations, we figured out that it would be fair if each kid got to be on the computer for 5 minutes! Yay for Social Studies extending into our everyday classroom life. :)

I also wanted to share this cute display that the Preschool and Kindergarten classes collaborated on.

I overheard the teachers talking about it and I think that the preschool teacher bought a foam kit from Walmart to make the owl, and then she just traced the pieces and made a template out of them! If you're an owl lover, maybe look into that? It is really cute.

And I got an early Valentine's Day gift from one of my kiddos.

I'm not a cake lover so I passed this onto my BTF (best teaching friend). But how thoughtful!!

Guess what, people? It's my last set of questions!!! Thanks to Taylor at Baking... Crafting... & Teaching... Oh My! for tagging me. :)

1. What is your favorite thing about your job? I like spending my days with cute little kids. I'd much rather deal with their drama than the drama of adults!!! Also I just like teaching new things to people!
2. How long have you been teaching? Since August! I am a newbie. It is going to be so weird in the fall saying that I'm a second-year teacher!!!
3. What is your favorite grade to teach? I love my first and second grade friends. But I also really like third grade! I don't have a ton of experience over third grade... but as a rule I am pretty laid-back, so I think I would try out any grade!
4. What is your favorite children's book? I'm really getting into Splat the Cat books! So, so, so cute. I got Love, Splat and Splish, Splash, Splat from our book fair! Yay parents!!
5. If you could go anywhere in the world, where would it be? Well, one of my students is leaving tomorrow for Disney World. I wouldn't mind going there - no snow!
6. What is your favorite movie? Yay! I love watching the same movies over and over. I love Love Actually, Big Fish, My Cousin Vinny, and Wall E!
7. What is your favorite stress relieving activity? I don't really get stressed a lot... but I do like to knit. Mostly I love to read!!!! I love to fall into another world.
8. What are your school's colors? Navy blue and white. The kids have to wear red, white, or blue tops every day and navy or khaki pants! It is very boring on the eyes.
9. What college did you graduate from? I went to Northern Illinois University, NIU! I was on campus the day of the school shooting in 2008 on Valentine's Day, the 4 year anniversary is coming up soon. Very scary.
10. What is your favorite "quick night" dinner meal? Haha, I don't cook because I live with my parents. However... I love grilled cheese if I need something really quick! Or oatmeal is a favorite no matter what time of day. :)
11. What about teaching do you find the most stressful/difficult? I think it's just not having a lot of experience to always know how to handle any given situation. Like the other day, one of my students said that his dad told him if someone hits him, he should hit the person back. WHAT! No!!!!!!!! Please no. We have enough hitting and pinching and slapping going on in my class, please don't tell your kid to engage in combat in first grade!!
12. What is something you plan on doing this coming summer? I think I am signed up to take Reading in a New Language...... other than that, I'll be working at el banco and hopefully spending time at the beach on Lake Michigan by my boyfriend's apartment!!! Yeah!!! I love the beach and I love Chicago so much!!

And speaking of Chicago..... I am so going tomorrow!!!!! We are going to Chinatown so I can get in some clinical hours for my Cross-Culture class and so we can have some delicious food, and then we are going to the Museum of Science and Industry!!! I am so super excited, especially since I get to take the El!!!!!!!! My fave.