Library update

My goal this week was to get my classroom library organized. Honestly, before Friday I had no idea what books were even in the library. They were all here when I arrived. I was pretty excited to find a whole stack of Boxcar Children (my faves) as well as a large collection of American Girl books. I'm kind of in love with American Girl.

Anyway, here's my library "before" picture...

The curtains are new... everything else needs work!

And here's my library now!

The bins came from the dollar section of Target. They're so cute up close--the sides have little circles on them. I made labels using a free chevron pattern template that I found on Pinterest. They look great with the chevron curtain, which you can't see in this picture. My books are in really random categories, but that doesn't matter to me. I'm just happy that each book has a place to go! I hate when you categorize things and there are one or two items left over. Drives. Me. Crazy.

The rug, which I'm sure you're admiring, was $9 at Kohl's. It is made from upcycled scraps of fabric. Love it! I think I'm going to hang a sign in the corner that says "Firestone Library," which is one of the libraries on the Princeton campus (Princeton is our classroom's college this year).

To keep the library organized (hopefully) I have a container of book markers, which are just Lowe's paint stirrers with the students' numbers on them. Each student can put his or her marker in the appropriate basket when removing a book. This will help the kids remember to put the books back in the right places, or so I've been told :) We'll see if it works for us. At least the paint stirrers were free!

Chair makeover!

I'm so excited about my chair makeover project that I'm writing this post on my phone--no time to get the laptop out! Upon surveying the odd mishmash of chairs in my new classroom, I discovered this beauty:

I have no idea where this chair came from, but its life is about to change...

Okay, I realized earlier as I was blogging on my phone that the Blogger app won't let me put the pictures where I want them to appear on the page. So I am now doing a late-night blog post edit, and I'm moving some photos around. Anyway, that photo up there is my "before" shot: a metal-framed chair upholstered in vomit-pink, with mysterious stains on the cushions. Despite its appearance, this chair is actually super comfortable. Luckily for this potentially ill-fated chair, I fell in love with this adorable chevron fabric and couldn't resist buying a yard. Perfect for my very-first-ever attempt at reupholstery!

Here is a lovely Instagrammed photo of my fabric. The top one is for my curtains, which I made last night. Photos to come, once I replace the warped curtain rods. The bottom fabric was just calling my name!

So this morning I headed over to my classroom, armed with my tool kit and staple gun (side note: I noticed today that most of my tools are pink. Kind of embarrassing). I managed to take the chair apart, and then I just did what I've seen people do on HGTV: I just started pulling the fabric tight and stapling it. Over and over and over. (Another side note: this process only takes ten minutes on HGTV. That is not the case in real life.

The underside of the chair. That's my pink phillips head screwdriver right there. Since she's pink, she's actually a Philippa head.

This process was made easier by the fact that all the hardware on this cheaply made chair was visible and easily accessible. Nothing my pink wrench couldn't handle! Here's a quick photo run-down of my upholstery process. I tried to document it with my phone, but I kept forgetting to take pictures...

I removed the seat first... did a rough measure and cut...

Then I began pulling the fabric as tight as I could and stapling it in place. First the front and back of the seat, and then the sides. Note: be careful not to cover up the holes! You'll need those in order to reassemble the chair :)

I had to take my jewelry off before I could start staple... the staple gun kept getting caught on my Pandora bracelet! (Isn't my Stella & Dot vintage twist bracelet adorable? Can you tell I am a Stella & Dot stylist? www.stelladot.com/jenniferhunter)

The back of the chair was screwed together, and it came apart in two pieces. Perfect! I covered them both, the same way I did the seat...

Then I screwed them back together and reattached them to the frame of the chair.

My hard work paid off: I am incredibly proud of my new Teacher Chair! I even decorated a bulletin board to coordinate with it :)

Time to Scotch Guard this bad boy!

Okay, I lied. Here is a picture of one of my new curtains. I love them! Would it be weird if I made a matching skirt?

I'm moving!

Happy summer to all three of my readers! :)

I started this blog at the beginning of the school year as a way to document some of my more creative ideas, and to sort of "give back" since I feel like I just take and take and take other teachers' ideas off the internet! I'm not sure if anyone is actually taking the ideas I'm putting out there, but at least I've eased my conscious a little bit! :)

Last month, I received some incredibly exciting news... I had applied for a fourth grade classroom position, and I GOT IT!!! I am staying with the same school, but I am moving out of the suburbs and to our campus in East Memphis. I am beyond excited about this. I have some great friends who teach there (I'm not even going to think about the great friends that I am leaving... nope, too sad, can't think about it) and I am ready for the change in environment. I have felt called to move out of the 'burbs and into the city, and I am so thankful that God has allowed me to do so while staying within the same school community.

Of course, my summer got a lot busier! I am SO overwhelmed with the amount of planning and organization that I have ahead of me! Due to other obligations this summer (VBS, family vacation, mission trip, etc.) I haven't had much time in my classroom. Here's what it looks like right now:

I added a nice Instagram filter to make it look cooler :) Actually, it looks worse than this now; after I took this picture, I started pulling stuff out of my closet, so now it looks like an Office Depot exploded on top of the desks. But look! Look at my awesome Smart board! Look at the laptop cart! Woo-hoo!!!

Here is my to-do list for next week... oh boy... maybe I'll make that the next two weeks!

• find cute fabric and start making curtains and table skirts (I started this, but I couldn't find any fabric I liked. I went to three stores! Unfortunately, I had already decided in my mind what I wanted, and apparently no one makes that fabric.)
• once I find my dream fabric, take a trip to Knowledge Tree to pick out coordinating bulletin board trim, cute lettering, motivational wall posters, etc.
• arrange the furniture
• finish cleaning out and organizing the closet
• search for a new desk chair (it's not in the photo, but you should see my olive green pleather chair. I think it was a prop from the set of Welcome Back, Kotter)
• inventory my classroom library and decide on an organization system

I think I can, I think I can, I think I can...

Building Vocabulary through Blogging Presentation

Well, I have completely lost my voice. I am on day two of not being able to speak, and as someone who talks for a living, this is really hard!
Last night, I presented my Word of the Week program at the InnovatEd technology conference at PDS. I was a little panicky yesterday when I woke up and my voice sounded croaky--how was I going to present?  As the day went on and my croak progressed (worsened?) into a whisper, I decided to find someone to do my talking for me.
Thanks to three very helpful fifth-graders, I managed to put together a presentation that required minimal talking on my part! I just recorded them as they said everything I wanted to say! Here is my presentation:

Word of the Week Presentation

More PowerPoint presentations from Jennifer Hunter

Just a note: This is my first time using authorstream.com to upload and embed a PowerPoint. It says that it's not really compatible with Mac presentations, so I'm sorry if this doesn't work or if there are glitches!

Thank you to everyone who came to or streamed my little presentation yesterday. I hope you found it helpful!

More duck-themed writing

I am sorting papers right now, and I came across another stack of cute duck stories written by my first grade book club! This time, the writing assignment was, "Determine whether or not you would like to have a duck for a pet. What are the good reasons to have a pet duck? What things would be a problem with a pet duck?" As with the last stories, this writing assignment was completed after we read The Case of the Elevator Duck, by Polly Berrien Berends. I was so impressed with the details that the first graders included in their writing! Some of them gave very specific reasons as to why they would or would not want a pet duck. I think the consensus is that we would rather just visit the Peabody ducks!

"It would be cool to have a pet duck because you could put him in a bathtub and watch him swim. For me it would be espeacialy cool because I've always wanted a duck. It would not be cool because you would have to listen to a slapping noise all day. You couldn't get to bed because they make this ridicolus quacking noise. If my parents would let me get one I would name him Easter like Gilbert."

"I would not like a pet duck. I would like a pet duck cause duck's feathers look pretty cool. I would also like a pet duck cause their orange feet. But I don't want a pet duck cause it's a pet! It might not be too smart. It not might be good to sleep with. We would have to pick up its...... I'm not going to say it."

"I wouldn't like to have a pet duck because it might peck you at midnight when you are asleep. I wouldn't have a pet duck because it would tear your clothes up. I would like to have a pet duck because you can put it in the bathtub and watch him swim. I would like to have a pet duck because it might be nice, and its feathers are very soft. I wouldn't want a pet duck because there would be a ridiculous slapping sound so you can't go to bed."

"I wouldn't like to have a pet duck, because I'd have to clean up his mess. Also because I'd have to make a bath for it. A few reasons to have a pet duck are you don't have to get a leash. Also it would eat all of your bugs. So there are also good reasons to have a pet duck."

"It would be a good idea to have a pet duck because you could cary a duck and the duck couldn't hurt you. Also it would be a good idea to have a duck because they look sweet. It wouldn't be a good idea to have a duck because it would wonder off and break everything. And it would also not be a good idea to have a pet duck because they would peck at everything. I can't decide which one!"

"I would like to have a duck as a pet because you would be more popular. Also ducks are cool. I would not want to have a duck as a pet because it would get annoying when he keeps quacking. Also it would get durty. But for right now I think I'm happy with a dog for now!"

"I wouldn't want to have a pet duck because they poop everywhere. Also they rip up blankets that you really love. But I would want to have one because if birds were eating your corn the duck will chase them away. Also he will play with you in the pool. He wouldn't be a good pet because he would eat your homework."

"I wouldn't want a pet duck. I would not want a pet duck because it's too much work. I also don't want a pet duck because if you have a baby in the house the pet duck will wake the baby up. A good reason I would want a pet duck is that if you have leftover food the pet duck could eat it."

"I do not want a pet duck because when I was 5 years old I got bit by a duck. A duck would be a good pet because if you lived in a hotel and you can't have a pet and you had a pet duck that is quiet you would be safe. A duck would be good for a pet because if that duck didn't poke you, you would feel fine. A duck would not be a good pet because it would poke you a lot. A duck would not be a good pet because if you train him but he does the opposite of everything you tell him."

"I would like to have a duck for a pet because he would replace you for taking a bath/or shower. I would like to have a pet duck (also) because the duck would be very soft and you could make him/or her a fort. The bad thing is the duck would chew up your things. The other bad thing is that you would have to keep up with him (or her)! It would be awesome to have a pet duck."

"I wouldn't want a duck. I would want a duck because it might be fun to play with. A duck might be a good pet because it problay wouldn't bite. I wouldn't want a duck for a pet because it might scare my kittens. I wouldn't want a duck for a pet because my brother is allergic to feathers."

"I won't want to have a pet duck because they pee everywhere. I also wouldn't want one because they could tear up your shoes. One reason you might want a pet duck is they're animals that sit around and swim all day. You also might want a pet duck because they are probaly really nice. Ducks are annoying when they quack!"

If I Were a Peabody Duck...

My first grade book club just finished reading The Case of the Elevator Duck, by Polly Berrien Berends. Such a cute story--a boy who wants to be a detective finds a duck in the elevator of his housing project, and he has to find the duck's owner before the housing inspector finds out that he is hiding a duck in his apartment. Every year when we read this book, our culminating project is to create an Elevator Duck movie. I have spent the last couple weeks running around campus with seventeen kids in tow (one dressed like a duck, of course!), filming in strange locations (in an actual elevator!), and trying not to be too nitpicky about editing in iMovie. I have to brag on my kids a bit; I usually end the movie with a "blooper reel," but these kids are so good at movie-making that we haven't had any bloopers! I'm having to improvise, and we're going to film a "dance party" instead. Today I had them all dance out of the elevator, and it was hysterical.

I digress... my point in blogging about this is that here in Memphis, we are lucky enough to have our very own "elevator ducks" at the Peabody hotel! I couldn't pass up the opportunity to share my love of my hometown, so my students spent some time learning about our feathered friends downtown. First we read John Philip Duck, by Patricia Polacco. It is a fictional story about how the first ducks came to live in the Peabody fountain, but it is loosely based on true events. Of course, after reading that story we had to listen to some John Philip Sousa marches! I learned that it's pretty much impossible for first graders to sit still while Sousa is playing, but that's okay. It was almost recess time anyway. :)

I found a great video on the Animal Planet website that shows the ducks' fabulous digs at the Peabody. You can find it here. I'm thinking about applying to be a duck--their apartment is much nicer than mine!

Finally, the students wrote about what it would be like to be a Peabody duck for a day. Their stories were precious. To be honest, I came up with this writing assignment at the last minute--I needed to fill some book club time while I finished making preparations for filming our movie. I just sat them down with paper and pencils, no guidelines, and I was thoroughly impressed with their creativity! I wanted to take pictures of their stories, but that would make this post incredibly long. So instead, here are some of the stories, typed, including the original, ahem, creative spellings:

"If I was a duck at the Peabody I would feel good because I would have friends and a nice place to live. Also I would have a nice place to spend my day. I would have lovely red carpet to go down. I would also go back to the wild after three months. I would say hello with a quack to everyone I see." (Side note: She really paid attention. The ducks really do go back into the wild after three months!)

"If I was a duck in the Peabody I would run around in circles saying quaaaaaaaaaaack and singing! If I was a duck in the Peabody I wish I could quack in guys ears. If I was a duck in the Peabody I wish my name was Superman! But I don't know if they'll name me that? If I was a duck in the Peabody I wish I had my own home with no neighbors."

"If I was a duck at the Peabody I would sit and swim. I would quack a lovely hello to everybody in the morning. I would be looked at by a lot of people. If everybody didn't know the curious one, I would climb up the statue, and stand out. I would have an awesome time."

"If I was a duck at the Peabody I would wake up at 2:00 in the morning. After that I would start quacking like crazy. At 9:30 I would get in the elevator and get readdy to walk in the founatan and see a lot of faces. I problay would get anoyed by the cherring [cheering?]. I would love living in the pent house."

"If I were a duck at the Peabody... I would like it because I would get to swim in the fountin everyday. It would also be cool because it would be cool to live in the replica of the Peabody. The pent house would be cool too. You have a private fountin. The marching would be cool too."

"If I was a duck at the Peabody, I would swim in the fountain a lot. I would walk down the red carpet and get in the elvator I would go to the roof of the building. And stay up there for the rest of the day. The next day I would wake up and get into the elvator. I would go down to the bottome with the duck master. I would walk down the red carpet. Then get in to the fointain."

"If I was a peabody duck I would walk on the red carpet and quack a lot. I would swim a LOT. I would have fun being a peabody duck. But I would not like all of those YEA things. That would hurt my ears. I would have LOTS and LOTS of fun!"

"If I were a Peabody duck I would march down the red carpet proudly. I would like making people laugh. I would always snugle up in my little minnie hotel. It would be fun getting to swim all day. I would like to be a Peabody duck!"

Synonym & Antonym Bingo

I decided that Bingo is really the best way to spend a groggy Monday morning. I found an old set of sight word bingo cards in my file cabinet that I used for my kindergarten groups this morning. Then I made a quick set of synonym and antonym bingo cards for my first grade groups. Here are the synonym bingo cards and calling words:

Synonym Bingo Cards


These are the synonym calling words, which I wrote on index cards:
small, sofa, difficult, sleepy, leave, mad, silly, trash, clever, present, glad, strange, under, cook, rest, lady, ill, road, big, close, yell, home, infant, fast


Here are the antonym bingo cards:
Antonym Bingo Cards

And these are the antonym calling words that I used:
question, winter, sad, late, soft, woman, left, big, full, top, wet, long, loud, strong, new, day, true, boy, win, go, after, push, dirty, hot

One more thing... I just discovered an awesome website that I want to share! I use this bingo site to create custom bingo cards. It is free, and you can download ten cards in one PDF file. If you want more than ten different cards, you just click the "make my bingo cards" link a second time and the site will generate ten different cards. I wanted to post all 20 cards from each bingo game here on my blog, but I didn't want to upload four separate PDF files. A quick Google search led me to this amazing site that lets you merge PDF files! And it's free! You just upload the PDF files you want to merge, click the "join" button, and then download your new file! I think I am a little too excited about this...

Anyway, happy bingo-playing and file-merging to you!

Christmas Math Projects: Math Paper Chains and Advent Calendars

I found the draft of this blog post today--I forgot that I never finished it! Things always get so crazy around the holidays, don't they? Maybe I can adapt this activity for Lent to make it more seasonally appropriate :)

I love creating special holiday activities for my math club. Before Christmas I wrote about the octahedron ornaments that my students made. So now that Christmas is a distant memory and there are signs of spring in the air, I finally found time to write about my other math Christmas project: paper chains! I love making paper chains. I do not, however, love cutting 400 strips of construction paper. But it's worth it when I see how excited my kids are as they assemble their chains.

In order to justify spending a day making paper chains, I had to find a way to make them extra math-y. Last year I came up with the idea of putting a Christmas word problem on each link of the chain. The chains have 17 links--one for each day that we are on Christmas break. The students remove one link each day of Christmas vacation and solve the word problem on the link. In January, I give them a treat if they bring back all seventeen problems (solved, of course). The students eat this up! One boy told me yesterday that he's already done 12 of the problems!

Here are the Christmas word problems I wrote:
Math Christmas Paper Chain

The students cut them out (this year I drew lines between the problems, but I couldn't find my master copy to scan in) and glue them on red and green strips about an inch and a half wide. I let them make patterns if they want. And I have them write their initials on the back of each strip so that they don't get mixed up in our frenzy of cutting, gluing, and stapling.

The students were so excited to bring their deconstructed and solved paper chains to me when we came back to school after Christmas break. The assignment was optional, and about 2/3 of my math club completed it. I let them choose something special out of my prize bag (thank you, Dollar Tree, for your never ending supply of foam footballs and giant pencils).

Our paper chains in various stages of completion.

For my kindergarten enrichment group, I created math Advent calendars. A friend brought me a spare copy of this Advent calendar:
Advent Calendar

I printed it on 11x17 paper and made tiny holiday-themed math problems for each space. I laminated the calendars, and the students created little numbered "doors" for their calendar. Here are the math problems:
Advent Math Problems

And here's a picture of the laminated calendar:

Happy belated holidays! Maybe someone will stumble upon this blog post in time to use these ideas next Christmas!

Quick and easy vowel game

Some days I am just really really proud of myself :) I spent about 30 minutes on Tuesday afternoon making a vowel sound game that I found on a website... and it was time well spent! I have played this game with all of my small groups this week, from junior kindergarten to first grade!
I printed out a few sheets of pictures, all of which came from my Microsoft Word clipart. I laminated the pages, did a quick cut on the paper cutter (I love the paper cutter), and voila! Vowel game! I also created five construction paper "mats" for sorting the cards. They look like this:

One side just says the vowel...

And the other side has separate columns for long and short vowel sounds.

Once the students sort the cards, I have them sort each vowel sound into long and short. This game has been a big hit with all my students! I typically pull groups of five students, so I let each student be in charge of one vowel sound.

Okay... and now I'm less proud of myself... I thought I had saved the picture cards, but I just realized that I didn't... I was going to upload them to Scribd and share them here. Oops! If I get a spare minute, I'll go back and make new cards to share... but I pretty much just went through my clipart library, found pictures that I thought students could identify, and inserted them into a Word document (12 pictures per page.) Sorry about that!

Clever as a fox...

My book club has been reading The Case of the Elevator Duck, by Polly Berrien Berends. A lot of the chapter titles in this book are idioms, like "dead duck," and "hatching a plan." Every year when I read this book, the students and I have a big discussion about idioms. I got this idea from my friend Emmy, but it's super cute so I wanted to post it here. I assigned each student a different idiom. On one side of their paper, they had to draw a picture of what the idiom sounds like. On the other side, they drew a picture of what the idiom actually means. Their pictures are so adorable! I'm sorry for all the photos, but I couldn't choose any favorites... so I had to post them all!

She made sure I noticed that she colored the girl's cheeks pink, "because she's embarrassed!" 

This student explained that her picture was an illustration of herself zooming from one activity to another. Look at the little "moving fast" lines that she drew!

In the picture on the left, the speech bubble says "hhhu"--it's a breathing noise! And in the picture on the right, the boy is pointing to his eye. Such great details!

She's been learning how to draw horses--can you tell?

I love the picture on the right--being chased by a buffalo (or a bear... I can't remember) AND there's a cliff! Also she would want me to mention that the skeleton on the left glows in the dark.

This cucumber cracks me up.

My example when explaining this idiom was that even though I had 3 Barbie houses, I always wanted to play with my friend's Barbie house because it had an elevator. The boy who drew this picture drew a Barbie house! And a few minutes ago, he was standing outside my door showing off his work and saying, "I don't even know what a Barbie Dream House looks like." So funny!

In case you can't see it, there's a cat in the tree on the right. Precious.

Recycled log garden

I am a member of the environmental committee at my school, which I am probably way too excited about. I have really been trying to work on my relationship with God's creation, so I figured this committee would be a good way to do that. The committee members decided at the beginning of the year that our goal was going to be to create a functional outdoor space on one of our three campuses. We received a generous donation of logs and stumps, and we all agreed that a multi-purpose "log garden" on our East Memphis campus was something we could construct quickly. So yesterday afternoon, we all met out on the playground and worked our magic! It was so fun. The third grade class was out at recess, and they all jumped at the chance to help us move and arrange the logs. Here are some pictures of our log garden:

Making the logs more stable...

This is the generous man who donated the logs! He was teaching us all about the different layers inside the tree trunk.

Some of the committee members "testing" the play area.

Improving our balance...

The kids couldn't wait to play on the logs!

We arranged the logs so that the students could hop from one log to another (which they love doing!) We also imagine that a teacher could take her class out there for some reading time or for an outdoor lesson in the log garden. At some point, we would love to add a wood border and maybe some cedar or recycled tire chips... but clearly the kids are enjoying the space already!