Everyday is Red, White, and Blue in my classroom

Happy Independence Day!!!

Funny brain teaser I give my kids every year:

Do they have 4th of July in England?
(The kids almost all say no, because England lost the war.)
But the answer is yes.  The calendar in England has a July 4th.

I know, I know... cheesy right?

Now on to making every day Red,White, and Blue with a patriotic room theme!

I have posted about it before here.

I will give you the highlights.

Also known as my teacher bulletin board.

I love having a border around my white board space!

I created these posters last summer as part of Made It Monday.  Find them here.

Dressing up my file cabinets. 

The kids are called a "Congress" instead of a class.  So this is their classroom library.

Don't want to forget the patriotic bulletin boards.
You can see more of them here. 

The end of June/ beginning of July is my shopping season for classroom decor.
Now on to the new stuff!

My kids are going to be at rectangular tables next year!  These cups are going to be used for scissors.  They were a surprise gift from Antoinette!

A giant bucket to collect our pop tabs for Ronald McDonald House, our school charity drive. 

plastic table cloths

I LOVE using plastic party tablecloths for covering bulletin boards.  They are much cheaper than fabric and they don't fade.  Each of these was less than $4.00!

Here I come, Made It Monday: patriotic flower pens!

This giant paper clip is going to be my reminder to "keep it all together."
Found at Hobby Lobby on clearance!

This is one of the trays for turning in papers.  Found it at Hobby Lobby on sale!

More trays for my desk.  Found at Target, 2 for $4.00!

Sssshhh... don't tell the fire marshal I bought these to hang under my upper cabinets.  (He waged war on paper products near or on walls last year.)  When he comes through these will be sitting on my counter, because he won't care if they are there.

Even my teacher bag fits into my room theme.

One last thing that EVERY teacher who likes their custodian needs.

A GIANT MAGNET! $4.00 at Michaels!!!

Our custodian is always reminding us that staples are bad for vacuum cleaners!
I plan to use this to pick up all the dropped staples from my hallway and classroom bulletin boards.

Hope your 4th of July is full of friends, food, and fireworks!
EmilyK

What I'm Loving Wednesday Linky Party

I am linking up with Covered in Glitter and Glue for her What I'm Loving Wednesday linky party!
You should check out her website and link up!

When I found this linky party
I thought it was perfect for what I had been thinking about posting!
I loved reading all of the advice from people about blogging on Farley's July Currently.
Farley's comment about teachers having lives struck me.
I always feel like I have to blog about teaching related topics.
This is a teaching blog after all.
But Farley is absolutely right!
We are people too!
With lives...

So this post has nothing to do with teaching, sorry!
But it gives you all an idea of one of the things I'm loving.
I'm loving...
My family.
After all, I am who I am today because of them.

I come from a SUPER HUGE family.
I am one of 11 siblings
30 some out nephews and nieces
3 great nephews and niece.


I'm loving...
My mom!
She is an amazing woman who helps me, still at 36 (oops 37), all the time.
I'm loving...
My dad!
He unfortunately passed away almost 14 years ago and I miss him dearly.
I am extremely lucky to have had both of them as parents.

She's trying to do the Italian look! lol

My dad's grave, last Memorial Day!

      

I'm loving...

My siblings!

Trying to get all of them in the same picture is quite difficult...

Here is a variety of pictures over the years with everyone in them,

I think... lol

 I'm the one hidden in the back. lol

 This was my bday years ago.  I am to the right, in red.

 4th of July, many, many years ago

We loved the pic of the boys because it captures their personalities perfectly! lol

I'm loving...

My youngest brother!

He just graduated from high school and was prom king.

Love you, John!

I'm loving...

My nephews and nieces.

There's 30 someout of them. :)

I know this isn't all of them, but tried to capture quite a few.

I think I got all but one.

Tried to find my nephew James Patrick, but alas found none. :(

 

 
 
 


 

And last but not least, 

I'm loving...

My great nephews and niece.

I have 3 and one on the way.

Last,

I'm loving...

The BEST BIRTHDAY SURPRISE EVER!!!!

Three of my nieces

Planned a special evening for me.

Here is some pics of what the evening entailed:

 

Isn't this just soooo cute!

A menu...

Fish and mac and cheese (my favorite)

Diet Coke in fancy glasses! ;)

Strawberries for dessert.

They spoil me!

I am indeed a lucky lady!

So this post was a small glimpse (at least from my family's perspective lol) of my family

Who I am loving this Wednesday

and everyday!!!

Like a said earlier...

I am who I am today because of them.

Antoinette :)

Classroom website-weebly

I am linking up to Technology Tailgate.

Antoinette and I are lucky enough to work in a district that values technology.
The school we worked at together (I'm still there), was chosen to be an eMINTS school.
To learn more click the image below.

One of the expectations was to maintain a website.

We used Nvu and Kompozer.  These free programs were EXTREMELY FRUSTRATING at times.  Images would move, for no reason.  Word spacing would change, for no reason.

The benefit was any changes made happened in "real time" and they were free.

Last year, the district switched to a Mac platform.  (Yeah!!!)
The downside, our websites were stored on the old platform.  So they were 'frozen in time' until last month.

This is where weebly comes into the story.
Our district elementary tech trainers have given us the option of using our old site or changing to weebly.
Knowing that I had spent an untold number of hours of my life creating my classroom website, I was skeptical about changing.  How many hours of work would a new site take?  Would that time be frustrating too?

Glad to say I was WRONG!

Weebly is awesome!
Choosing a template may have been the most challenging part.  There are a lot of templates to choose from, many aren't quite the "elementary" look.

Other than that, you use the tool bar and the side bars t add elements to your website, which just guide you through.  Drag, drop, and type.  Easy!

The tool bar.

You can even drag in slideshows. 

You can add YouTube videos and documents.

I used to spend an hour creating a button. (Yelling at my computer the whole time!)  Now it takes minutes.

Here is the main page of my website:

See how professional it looks!

The best part, there is an option that's FREE!  Yep FREE!

There is plenty more to say about Weebly. (Since I am far from an expert!)

If you are using weebly, do you have any tips for new users?

Do you have a classroom website?  What program do you use to create your site?

EmilyK

Made it Monday-A girl with a plan

I have finally created some things for Made It Monday!

1: We had a picnic with friends so I made broccoli salad.  Even the kids liked it!

If you would like the recipe, see this pin.

2: We moved the furniture around in my family room.  (Does anyone else out there rearrange their furniture every 6 months or so?)  That created a blank wall, that was in desperate need of some pictures.
I bought this piece at Pier 1 on clearance.

$15!!!

Then I laid out the arrangement on the wall.

Here's what it looks with everything hung up.

I have to create something for the blank space.  (Next Made It Monday!)

3: Patriotic Nails
(Yes I am too cheap to pay someone to do a manicure for a week!)  Thanks to WalMart for selling cheap paint pens!

Next week: Common Core Binders and Patio table!

What have you been creating lately?
EmilyK