Random Act Of Kindness

As a first grade teacher when a holiday rolls around, I like to dress the part. I bought a super cute sweater to wear on Valentine's Day but just in case it was too warm, I wanted to get a lighter shirt I could wear as well.  I  was looking for a cute valentines shirt that wasn't too valentines that I couldn't wear it other times of the year.

So I found this cute shirt from Crazy Consuela on Etsy. (https://www.etsy.com/shop/CrazyConsuela http://etsy.me/1Myx9IK)

It was perfect and the message is great. So I started a conversation with the shop owner, asked a question, explained I was a first grade teacher and why I was buying the shirt. I thanked her for her time and told her I ordered a shirt. 

Today, I get an email saying my money had been refunded. I couldn't figure out what had happened. Was the shop owner out of shirts? Could she not make more? I noticed I had a new message  from the shop owner. Here is what it said. 

How incredibly sweet is that. She chose me to share a little random act of kindness and is not charging me for the shirt! I was so surprised! Thank you to her. Ya'll should go check out her shop!
She has some cute stuff.


Update: Here I am at school wearing the shirt:

Review: Classroom Friendly Supplys- Best Pencil Sharpener

I had the opportunity to try out the Classroom Friendly Supplies-Best Pencil Sharpener. 

I used it for a month and I then let my students use it for a month. Here are our collective thoughts. The structure is not up to par. The mini metal bar used to clamp it to a table top does not work.

The clamp goes in the hole at the bottom of the sharpener

 I constantly fell off and did not hold the sharpener in place at all. The students struggled with this.  I also think instructions should be included in the packaging so we don't have to go to the website to make sure we've attached everything correctly.

The design of the pencils sharpener is nice and small which is good for a classroom setting as it does not take up much space. We didn't mind having to pinch the black knobs at the top and pull out the metal piece attached and then slide the pencil in, however once you put the pencil in, the pencil had a difficult time staying in place. When it did stay in place, the students loved watching the metal piece and the pencil slide back towards the base of the sharpener allowing the kids to know when the pencil was fully sharpened. That was a great concept and we all liked the idea. 

The pencils were pretty sharp when it did sharpen correctly and I think that if they work out a few kinks this will be a great classroom product.

*courtesy of Classroom Friendly Supplies
*was sent this product for review

Team Building

Throughout the year I think it's important to focus on Team Building in the classroom, growing that bond as a team and a classroom family. I wanted to share with you what I did when I taught 3rd grade.

   It was March and we needed a little Team pick me up, so we created this painting. It was amazing and is beautiful. It hangs now somewhere at the school I left when I moved back to California, as we gave it to my principal there.

We painted 2 canvases. Each student and myself (I had just lost 3 kids moving out of state at the time... which is why we needed a Team pick me up) traced our hands and I allowed them to decorate them anyway they wanted. We Mod Podged them to the canvas and put a coat of Mod Podge over the entire thing. It turned out so nicely and it hung proudly in our classroom until the end of our very last day.

Dollar Tree Mini Haul

A few days ago I went to dollar tree. Looking for something specific and couldn't find it. Luckily a mom of one of my very best friends found them for me hooray hooray. They were Disney addition subtraction books. Bummed that I couldn't find them at dollar tree I decided to still look around and I picked up a few things for the classroom.

Target Dollar Spot Haul

Well school starts back up again after three weeks off on Monday. I've had a great vacation but I am eager, and excited to see my little first-graders again. I already know that we are going to have to really reinforce the rules and go over our classroom policies just a reminder them. I think they'll remember quickly and we can continue to have an amazing rest of the school year. I've got a lot of fun things planned for my classroom and I can't wait to get started.

So today I went to target to pick up just a few things that we needed for the house, Ha ha ha, we all know you go to target with the list when you come out with 10 times what was on your list. Today was no different. I went in just to look at The dollar spot just to see what they had. Of course I knew I'd find something but I didn't imagine that I would find this much. I found some great little lazy Susan caddies a lot of really cute pencils that I'm going to save for the beginning of next school year glow sticks for a project I have planned for the hundredth day of school cell numbers for addition subtraction, and a lot more. Here's a picture below make sure to check out your local target to see what kind of fun things you can find the Dollarspot for your classroom.

And..... it's January

Welp, it looks like time has gotten away from me and I have not updated this blog like I wanted to. With that being said, here are some highlights from the year thus far in first grade.

The kids made custom wrapping paper for their gifts to their parents. They LOVED this. Hooray for butcher paper. 

Making one of our two parent gifts. Handprint snowmen ornaments.

Can't go wrong with a little glow in the dark reading with glowstick bracelets. 

Gingerbread decorating party. One of my students is allergic to peppermint, so her group got hot chocolate flavored candy canes. 

Practicng out adding during fall. Pull out a stick record the problem and answer. Put the stick in the correct pumpkin that has the matching sum.

We're too totally rad to do drugs (Say no to drugs week at school. 80's day)

Frankenstein Healthy party treat.

"I'm thankful for" turkeys. We made these turkeys and then each day the students would write on a slip of paper one thing they were thankful for. The day before Thanksgiving break we put our papers in our turkeys and laid them in a paper bag nest to go home. 

Using our math tool kits to form numbers.

We read a great book about a tree who wanted to be a Christmas tree and then we painted on canvas the tree from the story and they wrote on the back why their tree is special even though it's not a Christmas tree. This was a guided paint and they all turned out great.



There are some highlights from the last few months of school. Hoping to be better about keeping up with the blog. Hope these ideas have inspired you to get creative with your students in the classroom.