Counting Money Pumpkin Patch Craftivity

I'm so excited to introduce you to a new product I created to showcase your students counting money skills with a fun craftivity. Students create a pumpkin to "sell" using dollar bills and coins. Each individual student's pumpkin is displayed together to create a class pumpkin patch of pumpkins for sale.

I began the lesson by starting a class discussion about how much students thought pumpkins cost in real life. The students were pretty insightful with their observations and we established a price range of $2.00-$6.00 for a medium sized pumpkin. Next, I showed students some local prices of pumpkins from stores in our area. I let the students decide on how much they wanted to price their pumpkin for with the guidelines that their pumpkin needed to cost more than $1.00 but less than $6.00 and they must use dollar bills and coins. That was all the direction they needed and then they were off to work!

Wow! Don't these pumpkins look great? I'm really happy with how they turned out. The whole craftivity takes about 25-35 minutes to complete and makes a wonderful bulletin board for fall. See you next time friends!

A *Super* Hero Classroom Reveal

Hello Friends! I have a *super* hero themed classroom reveal for you. 

I love adding Super Hero artwork and themed items to my boring beige walls. 

I know what you're thinking...can she actually wear that cape and mask? Yes, I can and I plan to do so later this year. You gotta love dress up days at work, right? Only a teacher could get away with this. I ordered all the art work from Etsy. I found tons of cool stuff there and had to rein myself in a bit before I purchased all of it.  

I decided to take down my Word Wall and replace it with a display space for student work. Student work is attached to the line with thought bubble clothespins. I hot glued a thumb tack on the back of the clothespin to allow me to hang heavier work without me worrying about it falling down 5 minutes later. I'm loving this design and it takes me about 3 minutes to take down and rehang new student work. The best part is that it doesn't require any stapling. #itsthelittlethings I created the "citiscape" out of black foam with yellow foam "windows" tacky glued right on top. It was remarkably easy to do. 

And who doesn't love banners? They are a quick and easy way to spice up a space. 

The Super Hero theme continues with the signage in my classroom. Everything from pocket charts, to the lunch menu, to my student job chart is done in the Super Hero theme in the blue, yellow, and red color scheme.  

I hope that you've enjoyed a sneak peak into my classroom. Many thanks to Ashley Schroeder @schroedershenan  and Angie Olson @MrsAOlson for hosting. #2getherwearebetter 

Until next time friends,

Bulletin boards that are really *Super*

Hello Friends! I'm linking up today with some of my favorite Second Grade Teachers, Angie Olson from Lucky Little Learners @MrsAOlson and Ashley Schroeder from Schroeder Shenanigans in 2nd @schroedershenan. As we approach Back-to-School time for many of us, we're talking about bulletin boards on the blog today. 

Ok....confession time. (Deep breath in.....and exhale.) I'm must admit that putting up bulletin boards is not my favorite thing in the world as a teacher. Phew! I just said that sentence really fast. Before you start blowing up my comments section with your disbelief and disagreements, I just want to say that I KNOW that as a Second Grade teacher I should love this opportunity to be crafty but I really don't. Here's what I don't love about it.....for each unique and creative idea that I come up with, I draw a blank with the upcoming new season, theme, unit, etc. It's too much pressure and it stresses me out! 

Well friends....I've decided to do a Super Hero theme this year where the majority of the backgrounds, borders, and decorative trim will stay up all year long. I'm going to be all about working smarter, not harder. However, the student work will vary. It's an idea that's so simple but SO good! Why in the world haven't I thought of this before year 9 of teaching? 

Check it out below and let me know what you think. (Don't you just LOVE this little guy?)

The top picture shows off my classroom bulletin board in the hallway. I have 26 incoming 2nd Graders so I tried to keep as much space available for student work as possible. I'm going to need every inch of space. The blue paper works well for two reasons, it becomes a nice "neutral" color that looks good with a variety of student work posted on it and it looks like the "sky" when I post my Krista Wallden Superhero Kids Clip Art around the board. It's all ready for the first day of school and Deanna Jump's awesome Super Hero Craftivity and Writing Assignment that I found on TpT. The bottom picture shows off the inside wall of my classroom where I'll hang student work on "thought bubble" clothespin clips with their names. To add some durability to the design, I hot glued push pins to the backs of the clothespins.

Here's a close up of the Super Hero Work Wall complete with a night time Cityscape made out of foam to give it some depth. I Googled images of cities and used my overhead projector to trace the images onto large pieces of foam board. I'm really pleased on how well the design turned out since the wall space takes up one entire wall of my classroom.

I think I'm addicted to making banners for my classroom. Here's one that says "Grow" but I also have ones that say "Read" and "Learn" all made from felt.

I've even tried to spruce up my desk area with the Super Hero theme by hanging *my* cape, mask, and magic wand next to artwork that gives my students a glimpse into my personality and favorite things - flip flops and the beach, caffeine (I love all kinds), and Disney. They always think it's cool when I tell them that I worked at Walt Disney World in college so it give us something to talk about right away.

So...what do you think? I must admit that I'm really pleased about how the bulletin boards turned out. Who knows? I might just change my mind about bulletin boards after all. 

Have a great beginning of the school year friends!

Teacher Dollar Deals at Target

Score! As you can see below I found tons of cute teacher stuff on my last trip to target. Is there any teacher who doesn't LOVE the teacher materials in the Target Dollar Spot? 

Kudos to @Target for the wide selection of products this year. I truly don't know which item I'm most excited about...the cute school supply clothespins, the foam dice, or the cute classroom decor. I had a blast looking at all the cool stuff with a few of my teaching buddies. (Shout out to my friends Melissa from Little Smiles Big Sunshine and Heather.) 

I went back the next day to pick up a few more items only to find out that the bins were wiped out! Bummer. (Can we get a restock, please?)

 Now, I'm just itching to get back into my room to decorate.