Fifteen minutes of crafting {polka dot clothespins}

Before I left school for the year I quickly decorated clothespins to use this fall. My first year I covered them in decorative duct tape. That was a pain. This year I just wrote had Niki write my kids' names on them in colored sharpie. That wasn't near enough fun. So for next year I decided I was going to paint them polka dotted! 

It was super simple! I used regular paint from school and an unused pencil.

 

I made sure to make some of my dots whole and some going off the edges so they looked like "real" polka dots. I let them dry for an hour or two then flipped them over to do the other side.

*Side note* I had them numbered with colored sharpies before I did the polka dots.  My plan is to reuse them, but we'll see how they hold up.

 

 

What DIY projects are you working for home or school?

 

Setting up my classroom {the final result}

 Meet the teacher night had finally come and my room was a ready as it was going to be....
Bring on the TK'ers!

My shelves were filled with all the goodies I had scavenged for all summer. I was under the mistaken impression that my shelves were going to stay looking like this.

And here's the back corner of the room.  Empty shelves, really? I know. Those were left empty on purpose to store the kids' rest mats.

Here is what my calendar area looked like at the beginning of the year. It looks so empty in this picture, but don't worry it looks nothing like this today.

My sister and my nephew were working hard to get my BEE folders ready to go for meet the teacher night so that the kids would have something on their desks when they came. I decided to use sort of a "BEE binder light" for my kids. I didn't think they needed a full BEE binder since they weren't reading and I used a simple behavior tracking method, so I went with the BEE folder.

 

This banner was a free download I found on pinterest and hung it with yarn, it is still hanging today.

And here's what it looked like from the door way in it's final stages. I scrounged a ridiculous white board easel from the basement and stole it to use in my room since i had no other whiteboard. I had a scavenger hunt on the tables for the kids to look around the room. My desk was so clean and empty- if only it still looked like that.

Next: see what it looks like a school year and a half later.

Setting up my classroom {taking shape}

 It was a family affair to put together my classroom. We all spent an entire weekend putting it together the weekend before school started because I wasn't able to get into my room any sooner. Yes, you read that right. We put my room together, as best we could, in one weekend.  It almost had me breaking out in hives!

Some of my decor I bought on sale that summer and some things came from the good old Dollar Tree. I also didn't get my laminating that I had sent out back until that Friday and I had to go pick it up. So as we were putting things up and getting everything set, someone was always cutting laminating. 

 My dad even had to take a little nap break in the middle of our long working weekend.

My birthday bulletin board was turned into a bulletin board out of nothing, I just framed out a space on the wall.
You also may have noticed that there is no whiteboard, no SMARTboard, nothing. That's because there wasn't one. I had one tiny bulletin board...which with my initial layout was located behind my desk so I used it to display our objectives and standards.

 I went with a "no theme" theme, which really is no theme at all. It wasn't in the budget to go out and by all matchy matchy things for the entire room, so it went with bright colors for everything, with a few polka dots and chevron things thrown in there.

 I had tons of garage sale and donated games, toys, and manipulatives...or so I thought until I got them into my room and my shelves still looked bare.
My frog numbers were also a sale purchase and didn't really match my theme of no theme, but the price was right.

 We start the year with nursery rhymes, so that's what went up on my otherwise empty cabinet doors. I got those on sale that summer also. Our daily schedule and clip chart are on the side of our classroom door that we don't use. Those were both from Teachers Pay Teachers, one free and the other a purchase. They match the classroom rules that you can see on the upper cabinets.
The color cars on the wall are Carson Dellosa and were another sale purchase. The rectangle shape posters are from Dollar Tree.

By the end of the weekend my room was looking almost ready for kids. As ready as it was going to be.

Check back for what it looked like for meet the teacher night and what my room looks like today.

Summer Goals

I only have a week if school left. My brain is already in summer vacation mode. It's time for the calendar to catch up.

However, summer vacation means its time to complete all those organizing projects that I put on the back burner because we were too busy. And because I am an over sharer I thought you all should know what my plans were. Maybe you can keep me accountable. 

• organize and purge coat closet

• organize and purge toy closet

• organize and purge my closet 

• paint CT's room 

• paint JT's room

• organize and purge kitchen cupboards 

There are only 6 things. So I need to tackle about 2-4 a month to get them all done before going back to school in August. And you know I will be back to blog about what I do, my inspiration and what didn't work. 

Do you have big organizing plans for this summer? Share your to do list for a little accountability.

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