DIY Picture or Card Display

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I saw something like this on Pinterest, and had to create my own for our holiday greeting cards. I love how this looks in my dining room and it was SO easy and fast. Below are the directions :)

I absolutely LOVE this setup and I saw a few different styles online and decided to have a go at it! :) 

Materials:

Hot Glue Gun

Glue Sticks

Hemp

Picture frame - without glass 

Clothes pins or paper clips to attach pictures to hemp 

Take the hemp and hot glue it onto the back of the frame. This is a great way to display pictures, cards, or cute notes. Woohoo, I LOVE this! 

Questions, comments? I'd love to hear them in the comments! :) Have a wonderful holiday season & happy new year everyone. I can't believe it's almost 2014!!

10 minute Snowman Door

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I am so in love with this snowman door decoration idea! I saw this a week or so ago at the school district office here in town while I was finishing up my substitute orientation with my friend Carly. She mentioned she wanted to do this on her kitchen pantry door, and I stole the idea too :) Are you a fan or what!? 

All you need:

*1-2 pieces black construction paper

*1 piece orange construction paper

*Ribbon for the scarf

*Loctite Fun-Tak

Eyeball & Button circles - I used some drinking glasses as templates

Mouth circles - I used shot glasses for the template

Then I just cut out a nose

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Do you have more cute holiday door ideas? Leave them in the comments below!! Happy Holidays everyone!!

WIN IT: Red Ruffle Scarf

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Hello there, just in time for the holidays, I am giving away a Red Ruffle Scarf!! 

Along with a couple other vendor prizes...just in time for the holidays!! This is just until Monday, December 16th at midnight!.

If you would like to order one of these in this color, or a different color, message me on my Facebook Crochet Page here!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Russian Nesting Dolls from water bottles

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These Russian Nesting Dolls were made from plastic bottles and felt for an art class back in college. We did this for our Art class which also integrated cultural projects. It was such a fun thing to do. There were 3 other people who also did this project with me! 

The smallest was made from felt, the second (red) one is made from a 16 oz. water bottle, the next one was made from a larger plastic bottle, and the blue one was made from a 2 litter bottle! Great recycling project for earth day as well!!

I hope you can use this idea in your classroom :) 

Free Spelling or Sight Word Bingo Template

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This is perfect for those of you who are teachers, or have young children. Make practicing those sight words, spelling words, or vocabulary words something they look forward to! When I was student teaching I had a reading group daily for about 30 minutes, and this is something we would do with spelling words and sight words once or twice a week and they LOVED it. 

Another good idea is to have the winner for the first game come up and draw the words and be the announcer (if they wanted to) and each time someone new wins, they have the chance to go up front. Most of my kiddos loved it and wanted to participate and play the teacher role. Plus, they LOVED the microphone I let them wear. haha. Enjoy! You can download the template below and customize it as you like. Feel free to share!

Sight Word Bingo

Teaching with Fancy Nancy

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Those of you who have children in or teach the younger grades may be familiar with Fancy Nancy books. If not check out the Fancy Nancy Website here, there are games to play online and on apps. 

These are adorable books and I love them so much. Nancy is a wonderful little gal with a very bold personality, she loves anything fancy and loves to use fancy words. I read a few of these to my class during student teaching (in 1st grade) and they loved them. These books could be used to teach vocabulary as well as word choice. Many of these books are targeted towards girls, but some are not so bad :)

Teaching Subjects

My friend Maura Carman and I made this list for an assignment in college.

Fancy Nancy Sees Stars - This book is a great teaching tool. It introduces a lot of the major features of the night’s sky, like the North Star and the Big Dipper.
 Science: Introducing the constellations.
Math: Teaching about shapes. 






The Dazzling Book Report - This book is all about Nancy doing her first book report in school about Sacajawea, and includes all of the important aspects of a book summary. 

Writing: This could be used as an introduction to writing a biography or writing a book report. 

History: This could also be used as a supplement in teaching about Native Americans, Sacajawea in particular. 

 At the Museum - This book is about Nancy’s class taking a trip to a museum and observing all of the paintings. 

Art: This could be used as an introduction to the different types of paintings mentioned in the book, such as still life, masterpieces, landscapes, and portraits. 

History: This could also be used as a supplement to a trip to a museum.

Fancy Nancy’s Favorite Fancy Words: From Accessories to Zany - This book is an ABC book that has fancy words for each letter.  This is a great way to get children excited about learning new vocabulary words. 

Language Arts: This could be used in the classroom to teach word choice, as there are many words that have a certain spice to them. 

Writing: Another way this could be used is by teaching voice and vocabulary. 

Bonjour, Butterfly - This book is all about Nancy’s love for butterflies and how she has to miss a beautiful butterfly party to attend her grandparents’ anniversary party. 

 Science: This could be used to teach about the different types of butterflies such as Monarch and Azure butterflies that are discussed in the book. 

Science: This could also be used as a supplement to teaching the stages of a butterfly in a science lesson.

Heart to Heart - In this book Nancy males Valentines, receives a Valentine from a secret admirer, and tries to uncover who it is from.

 Art: This could be used to introduce students to making their own Valentines.

Reading: This could also be used to practice segmenting the fancy words into syllables.

The 100^th Day of School - In this book Nancy needs to find 100 of a creative thing to bring to celebrate to 100^th day of school. During her search, Nancy writes a poem about her sister’s pet fish Goldy, who unfortunately passed away.

Math: This could be used to present the idea to have students bring in 100 items for the 100^th day of school.

Writing: This could be used to encourage students to help write a poem as a class. 

Fancy Nancy: and the Boy from Paris - Robert is a new boy in Nancy’s class. He is from Paris. Nancy says “Bonjour” to Robert, and they start taking about France and the United States before Nancy learns he is from Paris, Texas.

Geography: Students could find Paris, France and Paris, Texas on a map.

Social Studies: Students could research famous landmarks like the Eiffel Tower. 

Check out this link to Fancy Nancy Classroom Activities. You could also have a "fancy words" bulletin boards for descriptive words.

I found an adorable worksheet at a first grade blog to pick out fancy words in books and create a sentence using their favorite one, what a great way to use this concept while reading any book. Repetition is key, right?!

I had a couple Fancy Nancy books in my office but the rest are in my garage. Here is a peek into the books and I also have written down all of the vocabulary words used in each book. 

P.S. Did I mention these make GREAT gifts for kids and of course teachers! :)

     

     

     

The set below includes: Fancy Nancy....

1. And the Delectable Cupcakes

2. Spectacular Spectacles

3. My Family History

4. The Dazzling Book Report 

5. Sees Stars

6. The 100th Day of School

As Fancy Nancy would say: Enjoy these links and ideas, and have a marvelous day. (That's a fancy word for great.)

Have you used Fancy Nancy to teach? How did it go? Did you come up with any creative teaching ideas? If so please leave a comment below!

Back to School Icebreaker for Any Age!

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Me by the Numbers: This is a great activity that my mentor teacher Kira planned for back to school while I was student teaching. It was used in 1st grade, but could be used for any age. I made one before school started as an example to show the kiddos, and I had so much fun making it. 

You can tell the kids they are going to make a poster that describes them using numbers and pictures to go along with those numbers.

Here is mine and what they stand for:

I  hope you enjoyed this icebreaker idea and if you have comments or questions please leave them below. I'd love to hear how it goes if you use this idea. 

Reindeer Beer Christmas Gift

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This is an adorable Christmas gift idea for anyone. I made a 6 pack of beer one for a gift a few years back, and also made them with the Coca-Cola that comes in the glass bottles for a bunch of underage friends and family! 

They turned out great and I love this idea. It is inexpensive and adorable! What do you think? Have you gifted this before?

Make your own: