Five for Friday!

It's that time again and it's even on a Saturday afternoon this week!  Stealing from Teeny Tiny Teacher...It's Five for Fraturday!

Please take note...

This amazingness happened in the classroom next door to mine this year!  I'll share the other side of the hall next Friday which includes St. Lucia, Dwali and a few others!  I love being in the hall with this fabulous teacher...and she's a great friend as well!  She is an amazing 5th year teacher and she inspires me daily!  A little secret...this is the first year I have had only Christmas celebrate-ors in my classroom in a very long time and I usually do a Holidays Around the World theme as well.  This year I decided not to and just have focused on Christmas.  While it's been great fun, I miss teaching and learning about what people around the world do at this time of year and Im bringing it back next year!

Free (almost) Christmas decor!  I love it!

These 3 frames hang in my kitchen and I got them for $1.99 at Ikea.  Every few months I google FREE subway art and print out new art for my kitchen.  So, here is my Christmas version!

The top one came from Eye Candy Creative Studio

The second one (my favorite) came from A Pair of Pears

And the final one came from a secret place that has been hidden from me on the internet!  If you happen to know it's origin please let me know so I can give props where due!

I have a Pinterest Board of Christmas Printables as well so check it out!

This mini unit has been spectacular!

I know, it's a terrible picture but my kindergartners had so much fun filling these books with information!  We spent last week learning all about reindeer!  I used the Reading AtoZ shared reading of Reindeer which was perfect in my Montessori classroom of 3-6 year olds!  The littles could follow along with the shared reading and the bigs had a copy of the book.  Later the Kindergartners worked on completing this reindeer book that I got from this pack of AWESOMENESS!  Tara West from Little Minds at Work created it and she has one for EVERY month!  

Last but not least...this fun happened this past week!

Our art teacher invites whoever wants to come and for $20 teaches us how to paint a picture.  We eat a little, drink a little and get to know each other a little...and paint of course!

This is my Gamecock Christmas Tree Masterpiece.

Quite fabulous...if I do say so myself!

I hope that ya'll are enjoying a great holiday season.  Not stressing too much about anything because in the long run, it just isn't worth it!  Have a great final school week of 2015!

Be sure to hop back over to Kacey at Doodle Bugs Teaching and see what greatness other teacher friends are up to!

Tech Tuesday...Pinterest Style! Let's get it Under Control People!

If you've known me for 5 minutes you know that I L.O.V.E. Pinterest!  I am a little obsessed with the whole notion of it.  As in I have pinned 7, 673 things.

That cute boy is not me!  (But if you want to laugh your head out, check out my BAHAHAHAH! board the picture above is from because I was in tears I was laughing so hard!  PSA, some pins might be a little inappropriate...read past it!)

I am one of those crazy people that actually does a LOT of the things that I pin!  

No, I have not accomplished all 7,673 (yes, I really had that many when I wrote this post) but I've given it a lot of good effort.  All of my best recipes, Montessori ideas, cool quotes and room makeover ideas came from Pinterest.  So with all this Pinterest love going on, my boards were a mess!  I have 175 boards.  I know, I know, who does that?!?!  But that's me!  

So last summer I had to get organized because I couldn't find anything and I was wasting more time pinning than using the great info.  I got the crazy under control with a few simple (but time consuming) fixes.  

I started by Alphabetizing my boards.  Now you are probably thinking, "what teacher in her right mind wouldn't have done that from the get go?!?"  This one my friends.  This. One. Right. Here.

This was not fun and took a hefty amount of time but when I did the alphabetizing it actually made me take a look at boards, add new ones, consolidate some and trash some altogether.  Let's start with alphabetizing though.

It's easy peasy!  You can only do it on a desk top and it's as simple as drag and drop.  Open those boards up, click on the board you need to move and drag it to where it needs to be.  While you're in there take a look at those boards that you haven't looked at in for ever and clean it up people!

Super easy too!  Click on edit and you will get this screen.  Get in there and change it up.  If you added a recipe to your language and literacy board click on name and get it to the right spot!  Get those math lessons out of laundry room makeover!

Expand boards that need it!  I started with one Christmas broad that had a zillion pins so I broke them all up into individual boards so I could actually find stuff.  

I am also in a constant mode of deleting things I don't care about, don't want, ain't never gonna try.  I do that each time I pin.  It's sorta like that rule about add something new to your closet, take something out.

So now is the time.  For Pete's sakes, you're a teacher and have the summer off!  What else do you have to do with your time but clean up your Pinterest boards?!?  Have fun!

 

Pin-a-holic!

Yep, I'm all in. I can't seem to get enough of Pinterest. I've been a closet addict for about two years but now that school is out and I have all these hours of free time on my hands what else is there to do but comb Pinterest for great ideas for my classroom?!? Wait, I could be using that time to actually do ONE STINKIN thing that I have pinned!!! There is always tomorrow! So, I wanted to share the boards that I have already started and some ideas about Pinterest and using it as a vehicle to store all that internet goodness.
http://pinterest.com/stacielinn/teaching-gems/
http://pinterest.com/stacielinn/swell-teacher-gifts/
http://pinterest.com/stacielinn/beginning-of-the-year/
http://pinterest.com/stacielinn/classroom-organization/
http://pinterest.com/stacielinn/montessori/
These are the boards I have so far but they could easily be broken down even further. When I started with Pinterest I had the teaching gems board and that was it but the longer I am on it the more I find the need to organize things more. There is soo much out there and it is easy to loose track of what you find. Some ideas for organizing:
classroom organization
math
language
science
field trips
mother's day, father's day, etc
The possibilities are endless! I have been thinking lately about maybe starting another Pinterest account that is just for teaching but that might be a little too much to manage! Stay tuned!

Pin-a-holic!

Yep, I'm all in. I can't seem to get enough of Pinterest. I've been a closet addict for about two years but now that school is out and I have all these hours of free time on my hands what else is there to do but comb Pinterest for great ideas for my classroom?!? Wait, I could be using that time to actually do ONE STINKIN thing that I have pinned!!! There is always tomorrow! So, I wanted to share the boards that I have already started and some ideas about Pinterest and using it as a vehicle to store all that internet goodness.
http://pinterest.com/stacielinn/teaching-gems/
http://pinterest.com/stacielinn/swell-teacher-gifts/
http://pinterest.com/stacielinn/beginning-of-the-year/
http://pinterest.com/stacielinn/classroom-organization/
http://pinterest.com/stacielinn/montessori/
These are the boards I have so far but they could easily be broken down even further. When I started with Pinterest I had the teaching gems board and that was it but the longer I am on it the more I find the need to organize things more. There is soo much out there and it is easy to loose track of what you find. Some ideas for organizing:
classroom organization
math
language
science
field trips
mother's day, father's day, etc
The possibilities are endless! I have been thinking lately about maybe starting another Pinterest account that is just for teaching but that might be a little too much to manage! Stay tuned!