Monday Made It

Trying to start my blog once more... third time's a charm right?!  I have been scouring my favorite teacher blogs this summer and they always inspire me with fun and unique ideas for my classroom.  I actually am excited to go back at the end of summer to put my classroom together.  Don't get me wrong - I LOVE summer, but I am just so excited to try all these new ideas I have been inspired to try from all the amazing teacher blogs I read every day.

Since my last post, a lot has happened.  I survived my first year of teaching first grade.  I had such a wonderful class who I was happy to see everyday.  I also had a great first grade team to work with.  I was able to learn the ropes and they were also open to some of my new ideas. Oh, and I cannot forget - my last name has changed (well not legally yet lol).  I got married in May and it was one of the best days of my life!  My students said that I am now a "grown up."

One of my favorite pics a friend of ours took at our wedding.

 I learned so much my first year of teaching but I am still always critiquing myself.  I know one area I worked hard on this past year was incorporating our new Common Core curriculum for math.  I had a tougher class that needed a lot of support in the beginning of the year and throughout.  I have a good understanding of the math curriculum and how I plan to make it better this year in my classroom.   But this year I plan to really focus on incorporating the Common Core into language arts and work on my guided reading block.  (Our county has slowly rolled out the Common Core curriculum over the past year.  This past school year we focused on math and writing.  This coming school year we are incorporating the language arts curriculum.)  One way I plan to do this is with the Daily 5.  I love it!  A few of my teammates and I went to a workshop last year after hearing all about it and we were sold.  We did not start D5 until the late fall, so I am excited to actually start it from the beginning of  school year.

I've rambled on quite a bit here!  I guess I will get to my "Made it Monday" post.  This little project was inspired by all the cute personalized bins and drawers I've seen on pinterest.  Last year I made the project where you take the plastic tool drawers and write the different desk supplies for each drawer.  I loved it and it kept my desktop nice and organized this year (see top right pic below).

Pinterest inspired projects from last year.

This mini-project I did tonight was super easy.  I was at Homegoods today (LOVE that store) and found a clear acrylic desk organizer.  I am in need of one of these because the mug on my desk this year was NOT cuttin' it.  I had too many "things" in my mug and they were all jammed in there so when you would grab a pen or reach for the scissors, everything would come out with it.

Anyways... You can find these types of organizers at places like the Container Store or TJ Maxx if you don't have Homegoods.  First I measured the height and width of the back of the organizer.  Since this would show, I thought it would be a cute idea to make a name plate out of it for my desk.  I'm a little more exccited than usual to make this project because it's the first time I get to use my *new* last name ;-)  I have an animal print/jungle themed classroom so I picked an animal print.  I decided on giraffe since I already have so many zebra print things.  After I printed it and cut it out to size, I atached it with double sided tape.  Just a little in each corner is all you need :)

It's simple and I can always change it if I see something cuter.  I guess that is it for tonight as it will be Tuesday in about 2 more minutes lol.  Until next time ~Cara Lee