Monday Made It: Bench seat and more!

Oh I love Mondays in the summer! I love Tara's Monday Monday It linky party because it really does keep me accountable!  It makes me get my projects done instead of just letting them sit for weeks in the garage!

So for my first MMI, my end of the year project with my students.

I painted the background, had a friend draw the tree for me so I could paint over it, and then had both my classes leave their fingerprints on my tree!  I love the way it turned out and I did one for my partner teacher, too! 

I decided my door needed a little sprucing up, so here is I what I came up with!

I love the bright colors of the flowers with the subtly of the mint green chevron washi tape on the W.  Doesn't it just scream, "SUMMER!!!!"

Now, for the big one!  I wrote about this project last week, and knowing I needed write this blog post really made me finish it this week.  Now granted I was putting final touches on today, but hey at least it's finished. 

So a reminder of what it was before.

 Then I made the cushion

And.... drumroll please.... Here is the finished product!

Lily approves of the bench

I got the baskets at Hobby Lobby for 50% off and they fit perfectly! 

I also decided that the chalk paint was totally worth the money!  It covered great and the shade wasn't "too" white.  

Now I have to figure out what to do for curtains.  My MIL suggested doing away with the curtains and making a cornice board valance instead.  What do you think?

Well, I'm off to see what everyone else has been making!

Five for Friday third times the charm

I've decide I don't like blogging from my iPad. If anyone has suggestions for me I'm totally open. 

I'm link king up Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five forFriday

This is going to be short with few words because I'm tired of typing this!!!

 Yesterday was the last day of school!

Watched this movie for the first time yesterday

Shrimp and grits made with vegetables straight from our garden!

Yesterday we celebrated our 5 year wedding anniversary. Still so in love! 

That's all folks. I'm just tired!

Monday Made It: End of Year Gifts

My blogging track record definitely isn't what it used to be, but I'm ok with that.  I'm making time to be with family and working hard with the hubby to get the house organized! We've working slowly but surely on getting rid of old stuff that we don't use anymore and better utilizing the space we do have. Here are a couple more photos of small spaces I've been working on.

I do however love me some Monday Made It summer time linky party fun with Tara over at 4th Grade Frolics!

So I have to fess up and say that I am guilty of starting tons of "projects" that will be "easy and take very little time" Then I get started and then I realize how in over my head I am.  Refer to last week's post to see what I mean!  This week is no different, but I continue with my "projects" as they are known in my house.

 I've been pretty rotten with student gifts this year and I decided that I wanted to make up for that here at the end of the year.  I saw all of these cute pictures floating around of wordles for each student.

Bright Concepts 4 Teachers

So about 2 weeks ago, I made my little form with each student's name on it and a line next to the name.  We had a discussion as a class about kind adjectives and I let them loose!  Some students were more creative than others. I thought I was doing pretty well starting this project 2 weeks before school got out.

Now here comes the part that no one tells you about... you ready... then you have to compile all of those adjectives for each student!!!  I had to flip through my 25 papers 25 times get all of the adjectives for each student! For those of you doing the math, which of course I did, that 625 page flips! I typed them all into a word document so then I could just copy and paste the set into Tagxedo.com. (love this site, btw) Seriously took way longer than I would have liked!  Then I had to format the word clouds with the right colors, layout, and orientation.  The first one took forever, but it did get a little easier after that!  I saved all the images and then put them in a power point presentation so I could easily move things around.  The only thing is that Tagxedo puts this frame around its clouds that looked silly for my kids, so I had to crop each picture!!!  Talk about biting off more than I can chew! I finally finished them all last night.

Pre-picture added

I really love how the words repeat themselves and they fill the shape. I put their picture in one corner and then 4th grade and the year on the opposite corner.  I'm taking them to be laminated today as I have several students who won't be here through the end of the week.

 My next MMI is very similar in time frame nature.  I bought this awesome coffee table at a local second hand store for $30!  

My plans for this little baby include painting it white, making a seating cushion for it, and adding baskets for storage underneath.  It will no longer be a coffee table, but instead a way cool bench for underneath my family room window.

The painting has been more difficult than I first thought.  I bought the 2 in 1 paint and primer spray paint and it's not going on how I had hoped.  I'm going to go an invest in some chalk paint tomorrow and give that a go!  I'll keep you posted on how it turns out.

So yesterday I decided that I might as well make my cushion!  Here is how it turned out!

I bought the fabric at Hancock's and it was on sale for 40% off!  I love the way it looks and can't wait til the whole thing is finished and put together!

I have several more projects in the works that hopefully will get finished once I get through this last week with kids!

Don't forget to head over to see what other made it's are at Tara's blog!

End of Year Reflections

So I still have 8 days left with kids, 2 of those days are field trips, one day is our awards assembly, and one is our electronics day/ end of year party.  I think I can... I think I can... I think I can...

As we wrap up the school year, I had my kids take some time to reflect on their experiences in 4th grade math.  As a teacher, reflecting is very important to me.  I guess my college teacher prep program ingrained that in me, having me write reflections everyday during my internship. I created a little survey for my students to complete on Google Forms (which I love).  These were the questions I asked.

1.Why do you think you need to learn math?

2.What is one thing you do on a regular basis that requires math?

3.What is one thing you really like about math?

4.What is one thing you really dislike about math?

5.What is the best way you learn math?

6. Think of one positive experience that you have had in math class this year.

7.Think of one negative experience that you have had in math class this year.

8.What did you learn to do better in math this year?

9.What was your favorite project we did this year?

10.What was your least favorite project we did this year?

11.Please share any other comments or suggestions for me for next year. 

I told them to be completely honest and that they wouldn't hurt my feelings.   I got some very interesting feedback to say the least!

My favorite thing about these reflections were that half of my students said to do less projects, and the other half said to do more!  In one of my classes most of the "negative experience" answers were about getting white slips (our discipline procedure) for the first time.  I really enjoyed reading what they had to say about our class, both positive and negative things!

What kind of reflections do your students do at the end of the year?

Monday Made It: Nightstand Redo

So I missed the first weekly Monday Made It last week, but I'm so excited to be joining this week!  One of my favorite things about the summer is the weekly MMI link up with 4th Grade Frolics!  

 I only have one project to share this week because if you remember, I am still in school and should really be grading and finishing report cards instead of blogging, but I've got priorities! I found this adorable little nightstand/end table at Goodwill a few weeks back and just had to have it... especially because it was only $25.

While it was very cute, but it didn't match our black, white, and read bedroom at all, which is where it was going to go.

It also had several layers of paint on it that needed to be stripped first. I thought I would be able to quickly repaint this nightstand, but man was I wrong!!!  What was supposed to be a quick Memorial Day Weekend project, turned into a two week project that I have just finished!

After being stripped

Here is the finished product in my bedroom!

I really love it.  It's cute and simple and looks great in our bedroom!

 I have several more projects in the works that I will post about soon!  Make sure you go and check out all of the other MMI's on Tara's blog!

Five For Friday! I'M BACK!!!!

Wow!  It's been nearly two months since I've written a post on my sweet little blog!  Life has been so crazy and hectic lately!  My husband was named principal of his school last month and that has meant crazier hours for him and more responsibility at home for me!  I also had quite the discussion with myself about what I would be doing next year.  After much prayer and deliberation, I have decided to stay at my current school in my current position.  I think it's the right decision for me right now and I'm getting excited about preparing for next year!

Since it is Friday, I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday!

Ok, so this is the time of year that I HATE being on a non-traditional calendar!  Everyone else  in my district got our yesterday and so many of my blogger friends are already out as well!  I still have 11 more days with kids and then 4 in-service days after that!!!!!  Not to mention the fact, that my first teacher day back for the 2014-2015 school year is July 28!  That is not what I call a summer!  I'll be counting down until October Intercession starting August first!

This year, my school decided to do showcase nights as an entire school to complete our parent nights (required by the state).  Our Spring showcase was last night.  The theme was Art Infusion: Arkansas History.  Our 4th graders designed murals with hidden Arkansas Symbols.  We have a mural in our downtown area that this idea was inspired from.  We even had the actual artist of the mural come and speak with our students about how he design and paints murals.  He's actually painted several murals in our school hallways.  We worked on the murals all week, and this is how they turned out!  I'm so proud of my kids!!!

I've been on an organizing kick as of late!  Mostly it's been weekend projects, but I do my planning and buying my baskets, shelves, etc during the week.  This is my master closet that is beautiful and organized.  Yes, I have a lot of shoes!

Here is my pantry!

Reoganized glassware!

Up next is my linen closet and my entertainment area.  Here are the before pictures!

I have an entire Pinterest board dedicated to organization!  I'm am bound and determined to get my house organized! 

My kids took their 5th and final unit test yesterday.  This unit covered fractions with 10 and 100 in the denominator (adding, subtracting, comparing), decimals, and line plots with fractions.  We've done quite a few projects this unit!  I'm trying really hard to make my classroom full of projects to help my students see how they use math in the real world! 

This post wouldn't be complete without a little update on my sweet baby girl!  She is growing like a weed as evidenced by the fact that she can open all the doors in our house!  She is repeating everything we say (watch your language, daddy!). She loves to read books and play her blocks!  Isn't she so cute?!

I'm going to make a concerted effort to be more present on my blog!  I need some accountability!  If you see it's been a while, email me and make me write!  Have a great weekend!!!!