January's Nail Art

I have been taking it rather easy (also known as being lazy) when it has come to nail art this month. I blame the New England winters. Whilst I adore the cold and snowy weather, it does leave one feeling rather tired!! I started out the year with a statement nail look that some of you may have seen in my New Year's Post:

Not exactly the best quality picture...they had taken a beating at school that day! (As have my hands from the weather. Please disregard the sad state of my skin in this post!!) I used Zoya's Ornate Collection's Storm, I love the sparkles in the black! I also used Nicole by OPI's Miss Independent.

The following week I decided to crackle it!

I used Sally Hansen's Fractured Foil. I love their crackle polishes, they work so well and so fast! For my base colors I used China Glaze's Towel Boy Toy and Sally Hansen's Twisted Pink.

Next we have polka dots! I love using the dotting tool - it is so fast and easy to use!

I used Essie's Emerald Green for a base coat and China Glaze Platinum Silver and Champagne Bubbles for the dots!

Last week we had a bit of an Arctic chill here in New England...so I opted to do something in keeping with the temperature!

This is my penguin...alack he is a bit sad looking about the beak area! My pointed brush wasn't really sharp enough for his nose! I used Sally Hansen's Black Out and White On and China Glaze's Champagne Bubbles for his feet and beak. The other fingers were an OPI duo I received for Christmas -  Pirouette My Whistle and Lucerne-Tainly Look Marvelous. I guess he did not look quite as bad as I thought because all my students were able to identify it as a penguin at least!!

Finally we have this week's manicure:

Hot pink with leopard spots! I wanted to liven things up a bit this week...I have been on a rather dark polish kick lately - must be a winter thing! I used China Glaze's Pool Party for the base, Essie's No Place Like Chrome for the spots and Sally Hansen's Black Out for the edging. Next time I will use a skinnier brush, or maybe just edge with the smallest dotting tool. I think that will make for a cleaner edge. I really like the overall look of this one - I think it is my favorite this month?

What is on your nails right now?

Built in Whiteboards!!

My sister told me about this amazing idea she found on  Kinder Keri's Awesome Owls, using vinyl as a built in dry erase board on your tables!

Analogy Puzzles

Analogies come up often in Reading Plus for my 3rd, 4th and 5th graders and every time they are caught off guard! I wanted to create a quick activity that I could have on hand to help reinforce this concept for them.

There are a total of 30 analogy pairs in this set. I use just a few puzzles with my students in the beginning, until they get the hang of this concept.

There are black and white versions of these cards, as well as cards that come in four different colored plaid prints: blue, teal, tan and red. I like to use the colored sets - it is a lot easier to separate the puzzles quickly!

I included an Answer Key for all the puzzles to allow my students to check their work when they are done. Once they feel they have successfully paired up all the puzzles they can check their work and see who is the winner! I like to have them discuss their matches for a little while, before I give them the Answer Key - it is interesting to hear their reasoning behind the choices they have made.

I also used the analogy version with the "is to" omitted on the Answer Key to expose them to the alternate ways of writing analogies. (crayon:draw::pencil:write.) I am excited because I feel this is improving their understanding of this concept!

You can find this set in my TpT shop!

Things I Love January Edition

My new iphone case! It is silver and sparkly!! Which in my eyes makes it perfect!

I had to upgrade my ipod this month, as I wore my old one down due to incessant use! It did last for four years, so it had a long happy life! I simply adore this zebra case!!

I am obsessed with my ipad case!! My lovely sissy Kristen got me this for Christmas and I simply adore it!! As you can see this is just a wee bit sparkly, which definitely adds to my love for it!

I found this ipad case on the clearance rack at Target and I just had to have it!! It is safely tucked away in my room for now, since I am not ready to part with my adorable sparkly one quite yet!!

Target also sells these awesome cloths for cleaning your ipad and they are wicked amazing! The soft gray side gets all those smudges off and the shiny side polishes up the screen. It seriously rocks!!

I had bought Kristen a stylus for her birthday and I had to find one for myself too, because they work great...and because they are so stylish! I love the silver leopard print!

I made this lanyard for one of my coworkers, and I cannot wait to give it to her tomorrow! I think she will really like it!

My new Uggs! I was always an Emu girl...but they never lasted and were not always that comfy. All my family and friends swear by Uggs, so I decided it was time to upgrade. I found these adorable Bailey Button Triplet boots, and after scouring the Internet managed to find a great deal - I saved $55.00!!

Lastly we have my new riding boots! We have lots of stairs in my school and I spend a good portion of my day running up and down collecting my different Intervention groups. Now don't get me wrong, I adore my heels, but these will definitely save my calves some pain! And they are adorable to boot! (Yes, that was a lame joke, I am quite aware. Please forgive me, it is my Sunday night loopiness!)


Thanks for reading and I hope you all had a wonderful relaxing weekend!

ID Badge Lanyard!

I'm linking up with Tara's Monday Made It, a first for me and one that I have always wanted to do!

We have always had photo ID's at my school but we have never really been required to wear them. For safety reasons we are attempting to make it a habit this year. I have a lanyard from school but I really wanted to make my own. You see I have a bit of a jewelry problem...much like nails and clothes and shoes I am obsessed!! The traditional lanyard was cramping my style!

I have oodles of beads in my room - seriously, tons! I have all mine, plus the ones I inherited from my dear sis Kristen when she stopped beading a few years back. So yesterday I dragged out all my bead boxes and drawers and scrounged until I found the perfect colors!

Here is a close-up of the bottom part:

And here is the whole lanyard:

I decided to keep the fancy part down at the bottom, so it won't be distracting with whatever necklace I am wearing that day. I adore butterflies, so those were a must! I added a few gray beads, a few clear ones, and of course some pearl beads. (One must always have their pearls!) I added a lobster claw hook to hang my ID from and I was done!

I tried it out today and it worked great! Well, let me rephrase that, first I got it stuck to the desk and my ID went flying off. Then my first graders grabbed at it and it fell off again. After all that I desperately jammed my badge back through the opening and squeezed the top and bottom of the claw tightly together. (It had gotten separated from all that snagging and tugging.) After that all was well. It managed to survive Reader's Workshop, Writer's Workshop and 4 Intervention blocks. I think it will be successful after all!

Do you have ID badges at your school? How do you display yours?

Back to Work Reality & New Year's Nails

Today was back to reality for me, and I loved every minute of it!! My vacation was relaxing and restful so I was totally ready to head back. And I missed my kids a wicked lot! I have oodles of children in computer lab (40 in all across 4 grades) so I gave them a fun/affordable Christmas present: two tickets.

The first was a One Day Only - Choose Your Own Seat!

The second was One Day Only - Get out of Computer Lab Free! This one required a lot of explaining - "No you won't actually leave the lab, you will just get to play a different game/site of your choice from our class website!" (Insert thousands of questions here...)

Knowing that I would probably never see these tickets ever again I wisely made a checklist with all my students names and the dates they used their ticket. I showed them this list ahead of time, lest they get the idea of trying to trick me!

Today, as expected, I had about half of my kids use their "tickets" (I shall put it in quotes they mostly lost them over vacation! So it was more of a verbal ticket.) They had a blast and it worked out well as it kind of eased them back into the swing of school. Overall I would say it was a huge success, and definitely something I will do again in the future.

Side note, it was hard to keep a straight face when at the end of Intervention I had several children come up to me and say "The ticket works again right?" Me (showing ticket): "No, sorry it's One Day Only." Student: "Aww man...why didn't I save it!" I figured this would happen, but I thought the One Day Only at the top might fix that...and the fact that I mentioned that 1,000,000 times! 

Lastly we have my New Year's nails...I wanted to do a fancy 2013 on them...but I was not feeling that ambitious last night. I used Zoya's Ornate Collection's Storm, I love the sparkles in the black! I also used Nicole by OPI's Miss Independent. Please disregard the sad state of my skin around my nails - we are in a bit of an arctic chill here in New England and my hands are suffering!

For those of you who went back today - how was your day? As for you lucky still-on-vacationers, I hope you had a relaxing day!