Crayon Wreath

The teacher inside of me was screaming to try this when I first saw the idea pinned on Pinterest:

My only problem with it was there was no tutorial.  No worries for this gal, I just decided to make my own up.  If you'd like to make a cute classroom wreath for your child's teacher for Christmas or Teacher Appreciation week (in May), here is the tutorial to make one just like the Hobby Lobby one!

Here are the supplies all from Hobby Lobby (except crayons):

-2 scrapbook pages - 1 with the alphabet and one light yellow

-Wide red ribbon

-3 wooden letters: an m, r, and s

-A bag of alphabet letters

-3 bags of miniature, colored clothes pins

-a bag of small, flat pieces of wood

-6 boxes of Crayola Crayons (got them for $0.50 at the beginning of the school year)

-1 10" embroidery hoop and 1 12" embroidery hoop (these came from my mama so they were free)

Step 1: Place your embroidery hoops inside one another on a flat surface

Step 2: Hot glue crayons to both embroidery hoops all the way around, leaving a small gap between each one.

Step 3: After all crayons are glued on the first layer, go through and add a second layer to hide gaps between each crayon. Do this all the way around the wreath.

Step 4: With all clothespins facing one direction, glue them around the perimeter of the wreath.

Step 5: Glue another row of clothespins next to the first row of clothespins going in the opposite direction (no picture - sorry!)

Step 6: Create the ribbon for the top of your wreath by cutting strips of your alphabet paper around the tops and bottoms of the letters.  You want these strips to be slightly narrower than the width of your red ribbon.  Take spray adhesive (I used Elmer's) and glue the alphabet strips to your red ribbon.  Then, using the layered strips you just glued together, cut strips out of your yellow paper wider than the ribbon.  Use spray adhesive to glue all layers together. You will make 2 strips, the width of your alphabet and yellow paper.

 

Step 7: Form your bow.  Take one of your strips and create a flattened circle out of it (lightly fold both sides down so that they overlap in the back) and hold it against the 2nd strip you made.  Wrap a piece of red ribbon around it.  Using a staple gun (and a pad of paper underneath it), staple your bow together in the middle.  Glue your letter block to the middle (I chose "K" for my first name).

Step 8: Paint your wood.  I wanted to make my little wood plaque look like a chalkboard. Using painter's tape, I made an edge to my board by painting the inside black and the outside red.  After it all dried, I wrote with a metallic Sharpie my last name on the chalkboard.  I painted my letters that spelled out "mrs." a pale yellow and put red, green and blue polka dots on them using the tip of my paintbrush.  Then, I glued the "mrs" to the top of my chalkboard.  Lastly, I assembled everything onto my wreath.  I took floral wire and wrapped it around the top of my embroidery hoop in the back to use as a hook and hung it on the inside of my classroom door.

I hope this tutorial helps and that you're able to use it to make the day of a teacher!  Let me know if you have any questions or if you make one yourself.  I'd love to see it!

Hallelujah, Praise the Lord, Sound the Alarm!

Ladies and Gentlemen, I have done what I previously thought was the impossible: I've completed this school year.  It was painful, slow and painfully slow, but I'm happy to say that I've done it...and I've learned a few lessons in the process.  Some things I've learned (that I've always known but I didn't know how true they were until I had the constant reminders this year):

*Change is hard and changing jobs is hard especially when you loved your old job and you really didn't    want to leave it.

*Children need structure.  C.O.N.S.T.A.N.T.L.Y. I knew this, but I didn't realize the huge difference between the amount of structure a child from a broken home needs versus a child from a home where mom and dad are both investing in them.

*I should never put things off. EVER. Do you know how many times I was up until 1-2am working on report cards that had to go home the next day?  Everytime Actually that never happened ;).

*My "to-do" list will NEVER be completely done; I shouldn't hold it against myself when I go to bed at night and there's not a "check" next to even item.

*I shouldn't let the way others treat or view me change the way I view myself.

*People are hard to love - all the more reason to try (who doesn't like a good challenge???).

*The job of a teacher is NEVER done (until summertime that is).  Actual teaching only represents about half of what's expected of me.

*I need more sleep as a teacher than any other job (except motherhood) and it actually hinders me from getting sleep (hmmm...starting to sound like this is motherhood...)

*I have infinitely less amount of patience when I'm tired.  infinitely.

*Living intentionally and working in an intentional manner is far better than flying by the seat of your pants - especially when teaching. (not that I've done the latter...)

I could keep going and going but I'm feeling a little sleepy and Catching Fire is catching my attention...you know, the book I bought LAST SUMMER but didn't have a second to read it during the school year - yeah, that one.

Where I spend most (let's be real: all) my time...

I figured that I live spend so much time in my classroom that it only seemed appropriate to show you what it looks like.  I have a thing for primary colors...I really like them.  In my very first apartment, I had different primary colored pillows for our couches and we decorated in primary colors.  It only seems appropriate for me to incorporate that color scheme in my elementary classroom!

This is a picture of me standing in back of my desk looking out onto the room...it's definitely lacking in size...we're getting to know each other reeeeaaallly well in the cozy space!

This is a view from me standing in front of the door looking into the room. 

This is a view of the white board.  To the right is our calendar, jobs and mailboxes and to the left is the "Who Is Mrs. Corsi?" board (which will later be turned into the "Star Student of the Week" board).

To the right of the white board

To the left of the white board

Here is our sink area...this is where their lunches hang out (if they brought them from home) until lunch, where they switch out their dull/broken pencil for a sharpened one, and of course, where they wash their hands :)

Here's our "book nook" and the site of all of our morning meetings and number talk discussions...that rug sure does look big but my big 4th and 5th graders definitely don't all fit on it!

Here are our student computers as well as our Mastery Club board...if you're a teacher and you haven't checked out Mrs. Renz's website, you definitely need to give it a look!

And lastly, here is a view of our SMARTboard (I have a chart taped to it for this particular discussion) with our lone window to the right (my desk sits right in front of it).

It's so funny how the room looks so peaceful when it's empty.  It's definitely anything but peaceful during the day, although I feel as though I'm starting to figure out day by day a teeny-tiny bit more on how to survive in a split classroom.  For the longest time I couldn't get them to stop talking.  Like, seriously?  Why won't you stop talking???  I figured out something today that surprisingly worked really well: I started talking very quietly so they had to turn off their voices in order to hear mine.  I was pretty impressed with such a simple solution...I know I sound like such a debbie-downer when I say this, but I only give this solution a short amount of time before they decide they really don't care to hear what I'm saying!  If you're a teacher, do you have a great website resource that you recommend I check out for some great classroom ideas?

In other news...

Stephen and I close on our house tomorrow!  AHHHHH!!!!  We had our walk-through tonight and I snapped a ton of photos.  These will be great for me to look back on after we've worked in the house and made it more of our home.  I'll definitely share the pics here on my bloggity-blog as soon as I get a moment...expect them before next week is over :)