Teacher Appreciation Week is COMING!

Being a teacher myself, I am very enthusiastic about Teacher Appreciation Week! :) Here are some of my previous posts with goodies to share with those wonderful educators in your life!!

Teacher's Deserve Treats!

School Memories

Teacher box

Personalized hand sanitizer

Personalized Post Its

You deserve chocolate!

You are o"fish"ally the best!

:) Tracy

Creative Crafting- November meeting

Shrinky Dinks. Yes. I love them. SOOOOOOOOO first let me start by saying.... YES, I know... not nearly enough pics of how super stink'n cute the girls charms turned out. (I forgot my camera! ) YES, I know...the pics I do have aren't that great. (I had to use my cell phone, and I got so caught up in helping the girls get jump rings on their charms...totally forgot about pics.) Sorry. I will do better.

Ok, on to the good. This month the girls each received a piece of Shrinky Dink paper (or you can actually use any #6 plastic) They were given free reign over what to create for their charm. I gave them permanent markers, told them to go for it. The girls did a fabulously cute and crafty job. SERIOUSLY CUTE.
Here is one of my cutie patootie 5th grade girls. Those are her charms hanging around her neck. I think she made one for each of her pets. :)

Isn't that ladybug a cute idea?!?!

Here is another one of my 5th graders making a BE HAPPY face. Love it.

The girls had a good time, and I was totally inspired by them to make my own! If I wasn't spending all my free time making stuff for Chatty Crafty....I would make a ton of shrinky dink charms!

PS- I see that I have hit 150 followers! YAY! You all know what that means....GIVEAWAY! Stay tuned...I will be posting it ASAP.

Much love on a Monday-

Tracy

Classroom Projects

Here is another set of projects that I meant to post lllllllllllooooooooooonnnnng ago!

This year I moved to a new school, and a new classroom. It is always a process to get my room set up at the beginning, but it was doubly hard when I wanted to change EVERYTHING!

I picked a couple of coordinating fabrics/colors, and went to work.

This pic above is from a wall right by my desk. I use the small cork boards (bought at Wal-Mart) to keep all my little reminders on.

I saw some covered clipboards online that were like this, in a set of four, and I loved it. I never use four clipboards at one time, but they are fun....and CUTE! I cut the material out the same size as the clipboard, and used several coats of modpodge to adhere the material. Pretty easy, except aroun the clip. That part can get tricky, and you definitely need a craft knife.


I took a larger (old ) cork board, and made this memory board for my pics. Now I can look at all my loved ones when I am right at my desk!

OH! My last name starts with a C, so I guess I wanted to remind the kids. :)

These big cans were already in my room, left by the previous teacher, and they looked useful. Useful and UGLY! More fabric and modpodge....a little hot glue/ribbon....and so much cuter!

All my plants got a little snazzy piece of material, too. :)

Then.....my bulletin boards had to coordinate.....

These glass jars (use to hold salad dressing) are painted from the inside, and topped with a strip of material. In theory...they are suppose to hold fresh flowers, but...I have yet to bring any in. Opps. I should probably get some fake gerber daisies to put in them. One day.

Oh, and the little wooden crate was some nappy looking thing I found at the Goodwill. I painted and then sanded it a bit to make it look "vintage." It was finished off with a watery glaze.

Lampshade...yes...I attacked that, too. I am telling you, there was no stopping me and my material.

THIS IS MY FAVORITE.

A teacher I use to work with made me a name sign years ago, and I loved it. However, time past, and it started to look raggedy. I made this one to replace it. I love the chevron stripes, and the old typewriter font.

It's hard to tell in the pic, but the bunting flag says w-e-l-c-o-m-e. :)

Well, that's it folks. Is it overload? Too much? Luckily, my room is big with a wall of all windows. My curtains are white shears that are pulled together with...you guessed it...coordinating ribbon. Anyhoo- I get loads of light, and have a big space. It helps spread things out, so it doesn't all come off as "too much."

I love it, and it was a good change to start off at a new school!

Hope you are all having a great November 1st!

(28 days until my b-day!!)

Tracy

OH! I see that as of - right this second- I have 139 followers! Awesome! As soon as I hit 150, I am going to have a fantastic Paper Wings Studio

GIVEAWAY!!!!

(That's right, you want it.)

Happy Gift!

My dear friend, Corbett, (we go by last names at work) had a birthday...she turned...um...23, I think (cough cough35coughcough) :) She is a fantastic teammate, we taught 5th grade together this past year, and a super awesome friend. Anyhoo, I made her this cute little door accessory...can I call this a wreath? I love the summery colors, and almost kept it for our house since I am a Crosby....C would be fitting!

Valentine Tree and Week

Wow. What a week. For those who don't know, I teach 5th grade. We have a big writing assessment test coming up February 1st, so we have had jam pack days of writing, writing, writing! I love teaching and teaching writing, but there is a lot of pressure on the students AND the teachers. We have been working toward this all year, however, this is the last big push. The thought of, "How can I help them be their best?" hasn't left my mind in weeks. It's exhausting! I am glad the weekend is here, and I can enjoy my loves for the next two days before beginning again.

Oh! And here is my pretty little Valentine Tree. It is simple, fun, and makes me happy. :)

Teacher Appreciation Week

I have been teaching for 11 years. Wow, right? Yeah, 11 years. Where has the time gone? :)

A lot of people think that teaching is what you do when you can't do anything else. I have trouble with this idea, and truly know that these people who think this must have never taught ANYTHING in their entire lives. Teaching is extremely challenging, and yet so very rewarding. It is a craft that has to be honed daily. This craft constantly has to be molded to fit the personalities and levels of development of our students. It is something one has to feel a call for, and I am proud to say that I do feel that call.

Happy Teacher Appreciation Week to all teachers everywhere, and especially to all my Clifton Hills girls and gals that share a special place in my heart.

"It's all good in the hood."

To celebrate this week, I thought my 5th grade team deserved some sweet treats. I whipped these up, thanks to Eighteen25 and they were a hit. :)

Thanks for the Help!

Saturday, the school I teach at, Clifton Hills Elementary, had a great gift given. Ethos, a local church, held a community work day for us. We felt very blessed to have this group come in and help with some things we, ourselves, haven't had a chance to get to. The number one project was to paint "The Barn." The Barn is in a small courtyard area between classrooms, and is meant to be an outdoor classroom. It was built, but no one ever took The Barn to the next level. As far as I was concerned, it was a hideous eyesore. When approached by my friend, Addie, who is in charge of this church's service days, I knew exactly what we needed to do. PAINT! Visions of a red barn surrounded with flowers and shrubbery began to grow in my mind. We needed to take the first step.

We had a lot of other things to get done, too, and we did end up getting quite a bit checked off the list. I think Addie was a bit disappointed because not as many people showed up to help as promised, but it's winter...people have kids that get sick...etc. etc. Life happens. However, we thought it was awesome regardless, and were excited when we were told they would come back to help again soon! YAYAY!!

Next time...we plant.


Thanks so much ETHOS!!

Crazy vs Normal

One of my fifth grade students was taken away to juvy in the back of a police car. It was a crazy day.

Taty joined my class just before Christmas. She's kind of an odd girl, always wide-eyed and sort of spacey. But she seemed nice enough, and although kind of annoying, harmless. Up until today, all I knew was that she lived in a foster home, and had just relocated to this home when she came to my school.

As the days have gone by, Taty's behavior had gotten progressively worse. She became very paranoid and argumentative with other students. There was always someone wronging her in some way, yet, she was always the one doing the talking. She began speaking to me disrespectfully and talking back when I would call her out on a behavior. Last Thursday, I had had enough and asked her to go next door to complete a behavior form. To make a long story short...she refused and the vice principal had to escort her out of my classroom. I was forced to write a referral on her. After having a bad day yesterday and a bad morning today, I figured it was time that I call her foster mom. I had assumed that the principal had already called her last week, otherwise I would have called her before this point.

I asked Taty to come back to the room with me to call her foster mom before she went into the cafeteria for lunch. We headed back to the room, sat down, and made the call. After talking to her foster mom for about two or three minutes, I realized that mom had no idea that Taty had been written up the previous week. I was really irritated that my VP hadn't called, as this makes us all look irresponsible. Nice. I begin to go into detail about what happened, and Taty starts to cry. She screams out, "I hate you!" Her anger is directed to me. She gets up, and storms out of the room. Her mom asks if she should come down to get Taty. I agree that this might be the best idea. Let Taty cool down the rest of the day and come back tomorrow ready to shape up. I get off the phone with the foster mom, and head out to find Taty.

After searching the school for thirty minutes, YES! thirty minutes, I finally find Taty. She is at the front door of the school, and she is talking to her mom who has just arrived. I can hear the mom asking her questions about her behavior. Taty looks up, and spots me. Then she gets up off of the floor she has been sitting on, and darts out the schools front doors. Fantastic.

The mom tells me that she is not going to go after her, that the police can pick her up. POLICE? She says that this is the normal protocol for this sort of thing. We go outside, and sure enough, she is no where to be found. Five minutes later, a cop car pulls up with Taty in the back seat. The police officer just happen to be driving by about a block away and saw her walking down the street. The officer called out to her, and she attempted to run from him! Imagine. He got her in the car, but not before she kicked him.

The foster mom didn't want to let her out of the car for fear of Taty trying to run again. She tells me that Taty has been in four foster homes since August. The system keeps having to place her in different homes because Taty keeps running away. The foster mom decides to call the social worker that is involved with Taty to try to help out. At this point, I had to go back inside to my own classroom. I was told later that the social worker never showed, and through one call and then another...the police were directed to take Taty to juvy.

All of this because I called a parent. I am not real sure how to feel about it all. On one hand, I really feel sorry for this little girl. She has obviously had family issues, and is acting out because of this. Then on the other hand, these are her actions and she must understand that there are consequences. Am I am horrible person for thinking that? Have I worked so long in inner city that my heart is becoming hard?

This is my fifth grade classroom. There are children who have problems with reading, and there are kids who hate math. There are masturbating selective mutes, and students who tell about their 14 year old sisters having babies. There are boys who have never met their fathers, and girls who have already had sex. There is a narcoleptic, and a southern belle. These kids make me look normal. Crazy day? Every day.