Sometimes You Just Have to Hide Clutter

It's true.

I am the BIGGEST supporter of labeling, sorting, classifying, and any other -ing describing organization. And luckily, my classroom has a plethora of shelving to contain all of my fun madness that involves labels, sorting, and classifying various items throughout my classroom.

Here are my easy-peasy labels: no fance to them, just cute font (Brady Bunch from www.dafont.com), cute pop of color, and BAM. Cuteness.

But- some of those shelves that hold your cute organized and labeled containers (or maybe even some things that aren't labeled: GASP) get a little cah-razy midway through the year, especially when five and six year olds get their hands on them.

Enter my sewing machine, some fabric from Walmart, and tension rods.

Before:

Not bad at all, actually laid out nicely, but still random and since it is the first thing you see when you come in... yeah...

 After:

 

  

 

A little long, but SO cute.

Ignore the messy carpet, randomness in the background. Room isn't set up yet :)

Do you bust out your inner-seamstress all in the name of your classroom? Do tell :)

Bedroom Updo: Mirror Addition

So, we have been semi-bad homeowners...

We have lived in our first home for almost a YEAR and out of all of the rooms to "updo" in our house, the room that has been the most neglected is our bedroom. Our BEDROOM, isn't that supposed to be your "safe" place in your house? I mean, yes, it has been painted and we have laid it out/purchased a couple of things. But we really want to make it our favorite place in the house.

(You can check back here to see my inspiration for our bedroom)

Where do I find all of this lovely inspiration? Pinterest, of COURSE. I found this fantastic picture of a room where someone found those cheap-o mirrors that are found in college dorm rooms and are hanging on the back of doors. They used three of these mirrors, hung them horizontally, and made a totally modern and glam arrangement.

Here's their version:

from here

Check out our version!

 

Sorry for the quality, but you get the idea :)

 

Totally modern and adds such OOMPH to the bedroom!

Plus all the light reflects off of the mirrors and makes it 18,000 times brighter in our bedroom!

What do ya think? :)

Lesson Plan Template (and 1st week rough draft)!

Here is how I complete lesson plans each week. I have a table for each day, organized by subject, the lesson being taught, and the materials needed. I feel that this is WAY less stressful than having the entire week's worth of lesson plans on one page. I make a packet of sorts, that way I can flip pages for each day. Make sense? No? Then take a look!

(But once again, let me stress that Scribd takes away my cute fonts and the way my pages are aligned. Hmph)

Feel free to use this template for your own use! Just leave some comment love! :)

LPs Aug 15-19

Recipe: Creamy Chicken Tostadas

It's always fun to cook in the kitchen with your hubs, following a recipe, when suddenly you have to change a portion of it and invent a new meal for your family to enjoy!

I found this gem on Pinterest and it looked/sounded so delicious, and the hubs is a big fan of Mexican food, so we tried it tonight! It is a recipe for Creamy Chicken Taquitos.

So we're in the kitchen, and we're cooking, cooking, cooking. We get to the step that tells you to roll up your filling in the corn tortillas... Well, our tortillas are stupid and started ripping/crumbling. We tried heating them up... No dice. SO we improvised and used a tostada shell.

We put the filling on the shell, sprinkled more cheese on the top, and popped it in the oven. It was muy delicioso (hey- I'm 50% Hispanic, I can totally rock my Spanish vocabulary)!

 (We had Taco Rice as a side... yep, from a package!)

Enjoy!

My Weekly Newsletter

Every week, I send a newsletter home that stays in the child's take home folder (or binder, I may switch this year: not sure yet). Last year, I had a separate calendar to report behavior (we have a color chart) and the parents initialed that. This year, I'm combining the behavior report with our weekly newsletter that has announcements and homework.

It would be an issue if I knew the parents took the newsletter out and put it on their refrigerator, but my parents didn't do that last year and they all were very informed about what was happening at school. Plus, I send out separate reminder notes for any event that we are having.

Here's a copy: once again, I used cute fonts but I don't know how to make them stay once I upload it to Scribd... so a generic font, it is! Let me know what you think! Also, what does your newsletter look like? Do you have newsletters or something else?


Weekly News and Behavior 2

My Schedule

Here is a copy of my schedule for the coming year. Maybe if you need some inspiration for outlining your day, this will help you!

I will be having 26 Kinder babies this year and my classroom is WAY too small to accommodate all of those moving and discovery and hands-on learning kiddos! Therefore, my principal has hired a full-time aide (as opposed to the part-time aide I had last year) and we have a rotation schedule. When I am teaching half of the kiddos reading and writing, the aide will teach religion and handwriting to the other half of the class. Then we'll switch. When I am teaching math/science/social studies to a group of 13, the aide will observe and monitor center rotations with the other group of 13. Then we'll switch. A little wacky. it's new for EVERYONE, but I'm up to the challenge!

I have named the two groups the "Amazons" and the "Congos" in honor of my jungle theme. Way better than group "1" and "2"! Here's the schedule!

Kindergarten Daily Schedule11-12.2

Freebie, Freebie!

Woo to the Hoo for having over 100 followers! You guys ROCK!

Today, I have a couple of freebies for you that I HOPE you can use! I make my own classroom job cards and classroom center cards and signs (thank you Microsoft Word for the clip art: yep, that's how I roll!). I download cutesy fonts from dafont.com and also Kevin and Amanda's for my stuff for my classroom. However, I'm not technologically savvy enough to know how to make Scribd keep my cute fonts, therefore I used generic fonts for these documents... So if you ARE savvy, let a girl know :)

Anyways-

I use the cards to make my own pocket chart (with those adhesive pockets you can buy from any education supplier store) and I hang the large sign in each center so the student knows where to go (it matches the card).

If you use a different method for jobs and centers, I hope you enjoy seeing this (even if you can't use it)!


Center Labels









Job Labels



If you can use them, if you like them, or if you just want to be friendly, leave me a comment! :)

You GUYS!!!

111 blog followers! Y'all ROCK! So excited to hit this "milestone" of the blogging world :) Continue to tell your friends! And a SPECIAL thanks to Kinderglynn for posting about my follower count! You ROCK too! :) So sweet how us blog friends help each other out!

Let's just say I MAY have something up my sleeve for a little ol' giveaway since we are past the 100 mark! Keep a watch out :) Have a lovely, LOVELY weekend!

And enjoy this picture of me, my hubs, and our pups Chloe (the Jack Russell terrier) and Oliver (the Shih Tzu) from Father's Day weekend!

FOUR AWAY FROM 100!

Tell your friends :)

Four peeps away from having one HUNDRED followers! How neat!

My To-Do List

Does anyone else feel like their summer is filled with TO-DOs? I do. Maybe I feel that way since I'm "off" work... there clearly is something I am supposed to be doing. So here's a rough draft of my to-do list. It's really more for me, but feel free to take a glance!

 In general...
-Lesson plan for the 1st nine weeks and arrange masters to be copied in accordion folder
-Go through Envisions lessons and pull out masters needed to be copy
-Create center rotation schedule for Amazons and Congos (my two groups of Kinders: goes with my jungle theme!)
-Create database for personal books
-Classroom layout
-Room two layout
-Bucket filler book and chart
-New job chart/center chart
-Paint rocking chair!!!
-Purchase magazine holders from Ikea (white) for student assessments/guided reading/math/etc
-Wall hangers outside for student work
-Classroom door
-SUPPLIES
-Relabel binders (TLC, etc) and teacher manuals
-Make Noise-o-Meter
-Make brochure for orientation night (for parents)
-Make 1st day gift: heart crayon (DIY from old crayons)

To-Do's for centers
-ABC: make play-do mats for each letter
-ABC: make sheet protector binders for wipeable surfaces for various ABC activities (letter identification, blends, word families: see Pinterest)
-Writing: have sentence starters for each week/unit/theme (student will complete sentence and illustrate)
-Writing: have picture starters for each week/unit/theme (student will write about picture)
-Writing: make picture vocabulary cards and laminate
-Reading: make mini-"highlighter" popsicle sticks to hunt for WWW: with small jar
-Reading: have response sheets for read-aloud of week (illustrate favorite part)
-Big book: make pointers out of dowel rods
-Big book: make WWW hunt page: write WWW each time it is found in book
-Math: pattern cards, sorting pages, number identification

Father's Day Family Fun

Photos of our weekend with Nate's family :) Enjoy!

 

 The entire side of Nate's family (on his mom's side)

 Nate's aunt, uncle, and cousins

 Our family :) Nate's parents, brother, sister-in-law, nephew, and us

 Nate's grandparents: Mimi and PawPaw

 The girls!

 The boys!

And our family :) Plus our sweet, sweet pups!

Father's Day Mini-Craft

I know, a little late: but I couldn't post before and let our dads see what they were getting!

Nate and I each gave our dad's a "real" gift: my dad got a Mavs Finals shirt (p.s. we are the CHAMPIONS if you were unaware) and a Hawaiian shirt (we are going on a family cruise in September). Nate's dad got a giftcard to Academy b/c the Johnson boys are currently obsessed with fishing :)

To go along with their gifts (and to be the gift for our grandpa's), I found this cutie patootie via eighteen25's blog! They found a tie template on Martha's website to fasten around a clear box. BUT I was at my in-laws, so no access to a printer... so I made with what I had and free-handed my own!

Here's my version!

 

I purchased four cute jars from Target, as well as some scrapbook paper. I cut out ties from the cute paper (one for each dad) and attached it to the jar with double-sided tape.

 Next, I used regular white printer paper to mimic the collar of a shirt and fastened that with double-sided tape as well.

Next, I filled it with an assortment of nuts (courtesy of the snack aisle at Target)!

SO cute. Happy Father's Day to them! :)

Pinterest Party!

There was a huge response to my last post about Pinterest! I received a load of new followers, thanks everyone! April over at ChalkTalk mentioned my post too and shared some of her favorite inspirations from Pinterest as well: thanks April! :)

So here's what we are going to do: in the comment section, please leave a link to YOUR pinboards and that way, we all can get new followers and find new pinboards to follow! It's so much fun making new friends through sharing inspiration ideas!

Here's the link to my pinboards: http://pinterest.com/chrissyjohnson/

Leave yours in the comment section and make sure to visit one another's boards! And don't forget to follow one another! :)

Have you heard about Pinterest?

This gem keeps me up late at nights :)

Pinterest is an online "pinboard" where you can "pin" inspiration photos from anywhere online. It's simple: drag the "Pin It!" icon to your toolbar, browse the web, and if you come up on an incredible idea, PIN IT! It saves that photo PLUS the exact link it came from, to a board of your choosing with a specific label.


Here is the link to my Pinterest page!

I have all sorts of things for my house, crafts, clothes, etc., but I also have a SCHOOL DAYS pinboard that has so many awesome ideas that I or other people via Pinterest have found online. Things like:

from here

from here

from here

It is a GREAT way to save and store all those incredible ideas you find online in one nifty location! It is addicting on all levels: home, classroom, fashion, food, parties, you name it!

Check out my school days board and let me know what you think! :)

What's for Dinner?

A common question asked in the Johnson household. After I have been teaching little ones all day, and after Nate has been in an office all day... We just want to know what's for dinner when we get home!

Enter Pinterest.

Yes, I'm still stealing using ideas from there. I'm sorry, it's just so. awesome! I would like to think that I'm creative, but I really like other people's ideas better than my own. At least for now :)

Anyhoo, back to dinner time. When I saw this gem on Pinterest, I knew I wanted one in my kitchen STAT.

 

This idea, via Whipperberry, was created on the side of an armoire. Welp, I don't have one of those in my kitchen/dining room, so improvising I did (hey- that's kind of being my own creative source, right? maybe?)

The hubs and I took an anniversary trip to Hobby Lobby (it's an hour away, so it's a big deal) :) and in their 66% off section was a plethora of frames. PLETHORA. I found THE frame: 4'x1.5', BIG, with a gorgeous white frame. It was $40, I got it for $14. Hooray HobLob! 

Next stop was to Home Depot where I invested in some lovely chalkboard spray paint.

I used the resources that came with the frame and I spray painted the glass (don't worry, I checked the spray paint instructions and they said glass was a-okay to paint). I did two coats, just to be on the safe side. Next, I popped it back into the frame. Gorgeous!

I used my Silhouette cutting machine (amazing, by the by) to cut the letters for the word "menu" and for my circle/letters to label Sunday-Saturday. I used Mod Podge for the "menu" letters, and then double sided adhesive "stickers" for the day of the week labels. 

Hooray hooray HOORAY! It is gorgeous. Now we will know what is for dinner. Hubs has to go to the hardware store to get some heavy duty screws/anchors to hang it up. so keep an eye out for an update with a final picture of its hanging place!

Linking up to Tatertots and Jello's Weekend Wrap Up Party!

Check It Out!

Head over to Angela's blog at Angela's Sewing for Sanity to see a feature of a project that I made that she created herself! Her version is beautiful! She also features two other projects that inspired her. Isn't sharing each other's craft inspirations via blog land so fun?!

Angela made her own version of this project below:

June 13, 2009

Happy Anniversary to us :)

Today (Monday, June 13, 2011), Nate and I are celebrating our two-year wedding anniversary :) Yes, we're still very much newlyweds, but it's so fun to think back on our wedding day! We both have said that it doesn't feel like two years have passed since we have gotten married- time flies when you're having fun!

Nate has been an absolute blessing to me. We have enjoyed the good times along with the bad, and he has stuck by my side through everything. He takes care of me, puts my needs above his own, and can always make me laugh. He is my absolute best friend and I cannot thank God enough for putting him in my life. I look forward to spending the rest of my life with him!

Happy anniversary hubs :) I love you so incredibly, incredibly, INCREDIBLYYYY much!

Please follow this link to watch a wedding day slide show, done by our amazing photographer Agung Fauzi: Our Wedding Day, it is absolutely beautiful!!!

**Forewarning: we all look disgusting during the ceremony because the power had been out since that Wednesday (so 4 days... in Texas... in JUNE... with no air conditioning). We were all sweating. The boys were wearing heavy tuxes. The girls' curls all fell out (mine especially). So we had to use flood lights during the ceremony (don't worry, it was still beautiful! Very dim and intimate, like I wanted). But as SOON as the wedding party walked out of the church after the ceremony, the power came back on. That's why in some of the pictures of me and Nate in the church, the lights are on. Gotta love wedding day stories :)

4th of July Subway Art: Printable!

Happy summer :)

Full of lazy days, sleeping in, spending time with family and friends...

Oh yeah, and crafting/home decorating!

What a perfect time to create a fun printable to put in a snazzy frame to celebrate the upcoming birthday of our good ol' nation!

This is my first time to embed a Scribd document, so let me know if there are any malfunctions! P.S. this is also a document coming from a Mac, so hopefully the fonts/alignments aren't wonky. It will print out on a regular 8.5''x11'' piece of paper/card stock/whatever tickles your fancy. When you click to download, it will be a pdf :)

I'm totally down for your printing this for your personal use only :) Please leave the "c/o the johnsons" at the bottom of the page and do not delete it. Just for my piece of mind. You're the best!

Enjoy, and happy 4th of July decorating!


4thofjulysubwayart





Linking up!

Door Designs!

Hello! Teaching Happily Ever After is hosting another linky party: this time, DOOR DESIGNS! Head over to her blog to check out all sorts of eye-candy that you could use for your classroom door this coming year!

I have two doors that I would like to share: and yes, I've shared them before... but, it's okay!


First, my drug free door :) "We Would Rather Eat Bugs Than Do Drugs!" covered with spiderwebs, spiders that my students made, and a picture of them eating a gummy worm. We won 1st place too!

This was my classroom door this year :) "We Are WILD About Kindergarten!" And all of the students' names are on the monkeys. So fun!

Head over to Teaching Happily Ever After to check out all sorts of fun doors!

Art Journaling

As I continue my search for summer crafts and projects that do NOT involve things related to Kindergarten, I once again have turned to my internet BFF: Pinterest.

This weekend, we were in Tyler visiting Nate's family. We headed over to good ol' Barnes & Noble, where I immediately ventured to the clearance section :) They had books, sure, but what I was interested in was their collection of journals. I had a project in mine and I was eager to begin.

This concept is known as "art journaling", basically creating a journal of your day, but using fun colors and fonts, and no rhyme or reason to the lining up of words or phrases.

I started with my $5 art journal I purchased from B&N and then I pulled my skinny tipped markers (in a cute lil' ol' mason jar for fun)...

This is my title page, basically that has things about me. Again, no rhyme or reason to the colors/lines/fonts, all self expression and FUN (most importantly)!

This was my entry for yesterday. I think I'm going to write the dates on the side of the pages. On the original inspiration photo from Pinterest, the person used a planner (at least it looked like one) so the pages were already dated. Either/or, it's still fun!

Go here to check out the original post that I pinned via Pinterest :)


Linking up!

New Art: Pintrest Inspiration

It's officially summer for this Kindergarten teacher, wahoo!

Now... what to do with my time... oh yeah, CRAFT!

My goal is to fill my summer with school projects and home projects, and the occasional trip or two (Sea World and Missouri, holla). Thanks to the loveliness that is Pinterest, I have lots of inspiration at my fingertips and a plethora of projects to begin.

First one up, canvas art. Here is my Pinterest inspiration:

 

So pretty and an awesome quote by C.S. Lewis.

Now here's my version:

I started with a white canvas and painted it a lime-green color (I didn't have the dark green option).

I painted the words with a brush, but next time I will be using a white paint pen. I painted the sun with yellow paint (of course)...

Then I added the hearts and black swirlies to the sun :)

It's hanging in our entryway, a cute sign to welcome our guests!

What exciting projects and/or inspiration are you getting from Pinterest?

Linking up to the Weekend Wrap-Up Party at Tatertots!