November's Nail Art

I have taken a minor break from nail art lately (this time of the year is too crazy for anything other than a paint and go!) I decided to break out my glitters and shimmers to take me through the holiday season. This is my most current set of nails: China Glaze's Whirled Away over Sally Hansen's Twisted Pink. I love the hexagon black and white shapes mixed up with the black bar pieces. I can't really call these pieces glitter they are a bit more matte. I love the geometric look they create...I'm thinking of trying them on teal and silver next time!

I recently purchased the Zoya Ornate Holiday 2012 Collection and I adore all the polishes in this set!! So far I have tried these two colors. The top one is Aurora, a gorgeous iridescent sparkly purple color. I could have gotten away with just one coat - but I went with two just to deepen the purple.

This is Zoya's Electra with Nicole by OPI Iceberg Lotus for a base. I had never tried a bar glitter before this polish, but I am loving how sparkly it is! I think Electra would look great on any nail color - I'm even thinking of trying it out on a nude nail!

I am looking forward to trying all the other colors from the collection - but I may hold off just a bit longer so I can save some of them for Christmas week! The red, green & gold will make a perfect holiday manicure!

Happy painting!

Number and Color Words Pack

I have a few first graders this year that are really struggling with number and color words, so I wanted to create a pack of games and skill sheets to help familiarize them with these words.

First we have three game boards, a Number Words, a Color Words and a board mixed with both number and color words for reviewing.

Directions are included as are grayscale versions of these games. I like to print these copies so my students can work on the skills at home with their siblings and friends.

Next we have some skill sheets featuring word scrambles, counting, coloring, labeling and word searches. I included answer keys for all of these sheets as well.

Then we have the matching cards. I included four sets of cards, two for each skill (numbers & colors.)

The first sets, the pink and purple, are for matching the word with the word.  For example: red to red, eight to eight.

The second sets, the green and blue, are for matching the word to its representation. For example: the word orange with the orange colored square, the number seven to the card with seven stars. Students can use these cards for Memory or Go Fish. Rules are included for these games as well.

Lastly we have 12 bingo boards; 6 boards with Number Words and 6 boards with Color Words. These are a great resource for centers, stations, Reading Groups, tutoring or Intervention. I like to have my students play these in a small group while I am testing or working one on one with another student.
This set is available in my TpT  shop!

Have a great day! 

DIY Hair Elastics inspired by Pinterest & the Blogs!

I bought a set of ribbon hair ties over a year ago from one of my favorite online shops. I adore them and they lasted me a little over a year, however they were $8.00 for eight elastics!!! I stumbled upon about a zillion versions of these on Pinterest and I was intrigued! Then I saw them on several of my favorite blogs and websites (Oh So Pretty The Diaries, Love U Madly, and Simple Medicine.) These lovely ladies made it look so fun & I easy that I decided to give it a try!

I got my elastic from the Sunshine Shoppe - I purchased a yard of four different colors (turquoise, hot pink, eggplant and black) for a little over $8.50 including shipping and I was able to make 16 elastics!!

Step 1: Fold the yard of elastics into four parts, cut in half once then cut the remaining two parts in half again.

 Here we have all my colors chopped into fourths and ready to go!

 Step 2: Fold one of the pieces in half.

Step 3: Twist and tie in a knot - then hold the looped end and gently tug the knot towards the open end to tighten it up.

 Step 4: Cut the excess elastic at an angle.

Step 5: Lightly burn the edges to prevent fraying - I only had to pass the flame over them for about a second before they sealed up. (Notice I have no picture of this as I am a bit too klutzy to attempt to take a picture whilst burning something!!)

Presto! Finished elastics!

They were so easy! I was done in a matter of minutes!! I ended up with twice the amount of elastics for just about the same price. You cannot beat that!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
I hope you and your families have a wonderful and relaxing holiday!

Word of the Day Posters with Definitions and Context

This resource has been updated with a clean new look - click here to read about the changes!

This pack includes 200 Words designed to help boost your students vocabulary. Each word has a definition and a context sentence included to increase your students understanding of the word.

Sight Word Wall

My first grade Intervention group is working on increasing their sight word recognition, so I wanted to create a word wall that would catch their eyes!

I included the Pre-Primer and the Primer sight words in this set. 

 

For the word wall headers, I used pink for the background on all the consonants and green for the background on the vowels to help my students with isolating the vowels visually on the wall.

My students were very excited about the wall when they came in today, a few of them even used it already! 

This set is available in my Tpt shop. Click the pictures above for more information!

Thanks for stopping by!

Updating a Necklace Flop

This necklace is one that I made about 3 years ago. It was Gossip Girl inspired and I was so excited to make it! I knew exactly what I wanted it to look like - so I went to Michaels (and spent about $30ish dollars on it) and voilà my necklace!

Or not..you see this thing is heavy and by heavy I mean ridiculously heavy! The clamps would dig into my neck leaving pink dents after a long day of school. In fact it even broke twice! Once last year whilst I was standing in the hall waiting for Intervention to start. (It is not at all embarrassing to have your necklace fling itself from your body for no apparent reason when you are talking to your coworkers!)  And then again this year when I wearily sat down to eat my lunch. That was the moment when I decided that it need a facelift!

Step 1: Disassemble the offense necklace.

Step 2: Realign the necklace into two smaller - and less heavy necklaces!!

Step 3: Gather beads and clasps (from my fabulous bead drawers courtesy of Kristen!)

                 

She even got me this awesome bottles! It is so much easier to find all my bead pieces now! She is the best sissy ever!

                               

Step 4: Mangle and force wires to cooperate, stick new clamps on and presto! Two new necklaces!

A close up of necklace 1:

A close up of necklace 2:

                              

Step 5: Cleanup the mess! (The least fun part of beading) But at least I have two fabulous new necklaces to wear this week!

                  

Beading is definitely my most relaxing hobby, even more so when my results are successful!  Does anyone else make their own jewelry? I would love to hear all about it in the comments below!

Computer Lab Word Walls

In the past I had a word wall in Computer Lab, but this year I decided to revamp it. I wanted it to tie in more with my color scheme and to stand out more on the plain walls. I was thrilled with how it turned out and my students seem to enjoy it too! One of my fifth graders was absent for a few days when I made these changes. When she came back she told me that she loves how all the signs and colors go together. I adore comments like that - it totally made my day! The other teachers that use the Lab like the Keyboard Shortcut wall a lot, a few have said they will be coming by to study it! 

The Keyboard Shortcuts are available for both Mac & PC (command + or ctrl +). I went with the bulletin board this year, instead of my usual word wall.  This is the first thing everyone sees when they come to Computer Lab, and I do see my students reading it and using it a lot!

This set includes the Keyboard Shortcut Sign and 10 shortcuts, 30 computer terms which can be used for a Word Wall or as a bulletin board.

I also included reminder signs for shutting down the computers, putting away headphones (something that is forgotten a lot in my room at least!) and an End of the Day checklist for the person who leaves the room last. 

The Computer Lab is also used by the after school program and these signs have been a great way to remind whoever is in charge for the day about what needs to be completed before leaving.

I put all these items into a pack which is in both my TpT shop!

This set is also available with a white background in both my TpT shop!

I hope everyone had a great Monday and thanks for visiting my blog!

Looking for more classroom decor? Check out this blog post!

Onset & Rime Game Short Vowel Game

This game has 6 rime boards: 1 for each short vowel & 1 mixed vowel board for reviewing. It also has two sets of onset cards.

The flowered  cards are for single consonants and the blue cards are for blends & digraphs.

To play this game the students will roll the dice & read the rime they land on. Next, they will choose two onset cards and blend each sound together with the rime. If they land on "ack" they will read the rime and then turn over two onset cards (ex: s and bl) they will then say "sack"&  "black."

I also included grayscale versions for all of the game boards and cards.

The bright and beautiful backgrounds are digital papers by Maree Truelove.

This game is available at my TpT store.


Have a great night!