Classroom Tour

I have managed to make it through my first 7 days of school!  Woohoo!  My group this year is SO sweet and I love them already.  I have a lot of REALLY high kids, so I'm already learning a lot this year myself!  I'm really loving this challenge and excited to see what I can do with them.

So on with the classroom tour, because I know how much teachers love looking at other teachers' classrooms!  ;)  I'm linking up with Blog Lovin' for their Classroom Tour day.  Perfect timing!  :)

Ever since I started teaching 8 years ago, I've had the same classroom theme: brights and black.  It's one of my favorites and I just love, love, love it, but this year I needed something different to look at. I was inspired by a piece of fabric from Hobby Lobby, which became my door curtain.

It reminded me of something Caribbean-ish or Mediterranean-ish.  SO calming and soothing!  I found everything turquoise and light-lime/mint-green that I could.  Can I just say I love sitting in my room and just staring at it?  :)  I'm just going to list all these pictures right in a row and at the bottom I'll try and list where I got everything.  Oh, and we are allowed to paint our rooms, so I used Valspar Limonata on the wall with the window.  :)

Fabric for boards, window swag, and door curtain: Hobby Lobby

Little mini pails (striped and mint ones): Target Dollar Spot

Turquoise paper bins (on top of crayon drawers and on top of the file cabinet next to the door): Target Dollar Spot

Gray mini desk caddy: Target Dollar Spot

Mint green small plastic baskets: Target Dollar Spot

Turquoise chalkboard/bulletin board: Target Dollar Spot

Turquoise scissors, hole punch, and tape dispenser: Target

Turquoise mini 3-drawers (next to the Keurig): Target

Turquoise bins on white shelves on either side of the window: Meijer

Turquoise basket with striped lining: Micheal's

Chalkboard pennant banner (on word wall): Target Dollar Spot

White book bins: Target and Walmart

Turquoise and Lime pennant banners (above boards): Target in the party section

"Focus Wall" and "Data" board titles: Silver plates from Target in the party section and letters were from the Target Dollar Spot

Black calendar pocket chart: Amazon (made my Scholastic)

Lights over sink: Target

Turquoise tablecloth: Target in the party section

Gray couch slipcover: Wayfair

Black and white damask contact paper on file cabinets: TJ Maxx

Turquoise desk and rocking chair: I inherited the rocking chair and the desk is from Target.  I painted both of them with a paint that I blogged about below.  Check out the post right before this one!  :)

I hope you enjoyed my little tour!  :)  I hope your school year is starting off well!

Monday Made It - The Best Paint in the World

I promise I didn't fall off the face of the earth.  If you follow me on Instagram (sarahlynnkirby), then you know I'm alive and well.  The end of the school year got the best of me and summer has been full of family time, rejuvenation, and projects.  I'm linking up with 4th Grade Frolics today to show you a project I just finished!  I HAVE to share it with you because it has made me entirely too giddy and made me want to paint all the things.

So what is it that I just have to share with you?  Just the most amazing paint in the world!  A girl I work with told me about a place in Grove City, Ohio called Zassy's Treasures.  "They have this paint that you can use on anything!  The have the prettiest colors!"  So I checked it out and ordered it.  But let me tell you, deciding on a color was nearly IMPOSSIBLE!  The thing that appealed to me most and made me bite the bullet and get it was that you don't have to sand, prime, or anything!  It's actually a self-priming paint.  It also dries quickly, which makes adding other coats (if you even need to) very fast and easy.  You can paint on virtually any surface.  That had my attention, too, since a lot of stuff in my classroom is either plastic, wood, or sealed with a high-gloss coating.

I ended up choosing Turquoise.

So what did I do with it?  Well, my classroom rocking chair was in DESPERATE need of a makeover.  After about 7 years of wear and tear on my good ole white spray-painted rocking chair, it was time for a facelift.

Using the turquoise paint, I MIGHT have used a quarter of the can.  It went on so thick and smooth.  I just used  basic paintbrush, as seen above.  For the most part it only took one coat.  I touched up a couple areas with another coat, but this was the easiest and most beautiful paint job I've ever done.

I added some close-up pictures for you because I tried to capture how SMOOTH the paint is!

Sorry that this pictures isn't as nice as the others, but it was dark outside and raining...again...(if you're from Ohio, you know how our summer has gone!).  But I found a pretty gray rocking chair cushion from Kohl's.  It's made by Food Network.  My son, Sawyer, always finds it interesting to see what mommy is doing with the camera!  ;)

So what am I doing with ALL my leftover paint?  I'm going to be painting my desk for my classroom this week.  :D  If I have any left after that I might try painting some of my book boxes.  We shall see what happens!  All I know is that I completely LOVE this paint and I can't wait to get these furniture pieces back in my classroom!  I highly recommend this paint and the store I received it from.  You might say, "But Sarah, is it really worth $30 for a quart of paint?"  Yes, yes, and yes.  :)  Go for it!  You won't ever want to use any other kind of paint.

Dum Dum Lollipop Activity

I am so excited to share a fun project with you that I've had the honor of doing with my students a few weeks ago.  I partnered up with the company that makes Dum Dum suckers (did you know they're made in Ohio?  I had no clue!) to bring you The Magic of Spring.  They sent me a box of Dum Dums suckers and some "magic jelly beans" and asked me to use them with my class in some way.  I saw a picture or two from friends that did something like this with their toddlers, so I was thinking how in the world could I do this activity with first graders that would keep them engaged, be educational, and teach them something?

Since Dum Dums and jelly beans are edible and made of sugar, I went with it.  We created an edible treat that involved multi-step directions, predictions, and a little experiment.

Supplies for each student:

1. Ice cream cone
2. Cocoa crispies
3. Sugar packet
4. Popsicle stick
5. Jelly bean

I typed up a quick little packet for the students to fill out.  The first thing they did was write out the list of ingredients.  I passed them out one by one so the students could observe them, write them down, and put them together.

I used ice cream cones with flat bottoms so they could stand up.  These were their "pots".  I gave them each a small cup of cereal and they poured that in as the "soil".

Then the dropped in a "seed" (jelly bean).

Next, they wrote their name on a popsicle stick using a Sharpie so that we could identify each child's cone.

Then they sprinkled on some "water" (sugar).

Finally, they wrote out their steps of what they did.  Then they drew a picture of what it looks like and what they thought it would look like when it grew.  They wrote a prediction of what they thought would grow.  The fun part was that NOBODY predicted that a sucker would grow from a jelly bean!

We put them in paper cups so that they wouldn't fall over and spill.  I took them home over the weekend because I was afraid the ants might find them!

I used my Silhouette machine to cut out some paper flowers to stick the Dum Dums through.  I just used some cute printed scrapbook paper.  When they walked in on Monday morning, they were SO surprised!  We talked about if their predictions were correct and why a sucker could grow from a jelly bean.

SO MUCH FUN!  It just goes to show that you can use just about anything and make a great project from it.  This was a cute spring activity, but it could also be a cute Mother's Day gift!  So if you need a last minute idea for tomorrow, go grab some suckers and jelly beans!  :)