Hawaiian Blogger Hop

Aloha friends! E' komo mai!  So happy to be able to celebrate with some new Hawaiian bloggy friends. When I first started blogging in March 2012 I was the only Hawaiian blogger that I knew about.  Then I started getting emails and comments from other bloggers who were considering moving to Hawaii and finally a comment from Courtney at Teaching In Paradise who thought she was the only Hawaiian teacher blogger!

So a year later 3 lovely ladies have moved here to Hawaii and I have had the pleasure of meeting them all and being able to collaborate with them.


We thought it would be fun to introduce ourselves and offer you a fun little Hawaiian freebie.
If you have followed my blog for awhile or read my About Me page you know that I am originally from Colorado.  I do NOT love being cold and snow is just not something I enjoy.  As a teenager I used to watch MTV Spring Break specials and dream about being near the ocean.  I always loved surf movies and figured I would try it someday.

Well in 2000 while living in California I met a very handsome gentleman who happened to be a surfer. We started dating and he took me to Santa Cruz a lot where he surfed with all his buddies.  I tried it, but it was sooo cold in that water and it wasn't as fun as I thought it would be.

Fast forward a few years and I now have a surfer hubby and baby girl who I wanted to stay at home with.  We decided to move to Hawaii for a year to relax and enjoy being parents. 

Fast forward 10 years and we are still here!!  I still wake up sometimes and can't believe that I live in the middle of the pacific ocean!  Mahalo to all of you who continue to read my blog and who don't get tired of my surf posts or pictures of Hawaiian rainbows.  We have a saying here:


Today for our blog hop I have my Aloha Banner as a freebie for you.  I have this hanging in my room.



It will be free for today only.  Just click on the picture to grab it in my TpT store. I am also having a sale in my TpT store today and tomorrow.  All of my items will be 20% off. Don't forget to check out all of my Hawaiian items!



Now it's time to hop on over and meet my friend Tonya from Tonya's Treats For Teachers.










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Back To Work Monday Made It

Can I just say how much I have loved my summer break and how productive I have been.  I am very proud of myself for completing most of the To Do list and also making some fun things along the way. I really enjoy the Monday Made It posts from everyone.  Such great ideas and I love getting crafty :)

I am back to work this week with meetings and classroom set up.  I don't have anything too crafty. I finished some items that I needed in my class this year.

The first are some labels for all of my math manipulatives.  I have been sorting and organizing and I needed to get all of my bins labeled.



If you like these just click on any of the pictures to get them from Google Docs.

The next project that I need to complete is labeling my book bins.  I have some plain tags right now, but they really need to be updated.

I purchased this set from Ladybug's Teacher Files.


They match my schedule cards that I purchased from her and they are editable!!


I added my own numbers in the powerpoint program and a few other labels.

I used my new EK tools Scissor Pro Circle Cutter to cut all of these out.  



Center the circle on top of your paper,

  Find the measurement you need.  This circle was 6".  You can see the 6 in pink.

This little tool pops in, you push it down and a blade comes out while you rotate the circle around.


Viola! You have a perfectly cut circle.  It does take a few tries to get it just right so make a few practice circles first to test it out.


This was the cutting board that I used first. It's one of those flimsy plastic cutting boards.  It went right through my board and made a slice in my table!  I grabbed a thicker cutting board from the kitchen to finish the rest.  I heard that you can use a glass cutting mat so that it doesn't snag on the plastic and get dull.  I will have to look into that.


I also made some new surfboard tags to attach to my kids cubbies.  I decided not to do names and just have numbers so I don't have to make these again.

My final project was to beautify my not so pretty shelves in my classroom. 

These are right by my desk to divide the area, but the back looks horrible.

If you have ever been to Hawaii you know that they sell these beach mats everywhere for about $2.


This was in my car from when my sister came to visit and when I saw it I had an idea.


I measured out the size of my bookshelf,


marked and cut,


then put bright tropical green duct tape to finish the edges.


I used a staple gun to attach it to the back.  I covered the rest with white shelf paper.  I love the way it looks and it matches my tropical theme.  Pretty happy with it and it was super cheap since I already had the the duct tape :)

I think this is the extent of my craftiness for awhile.  I need to start planning for the first day/week of school which is August 5th.  I don't get my class list until Wednesday, but I have heard that I have about 17 students.  Sounds like a nice small number to me!

Please stop back tomorrow for a fun blog hop I have planned with some sweet bloggy friends...







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Back To School Purging

Yes I am back in my room the week before we are officially supposed to go back.  It was nice to chit chat with the office staff and catch up before I headed into my room.  The whole school is being rewired to support more technology so the campus has been off limits all summer.

I got into my room and it was nice and clean, but no electricity.


Luckily I have lots of windows


 I got to work rearranging the furniture which actually didn't take that long.


Then I changed out my bulletin board borders and decided to get to work on my math manipulatives.

This summer I have been reading Math Work Stations by Debbie Diller.


Her first few chapters are about organizing and purging.  So I pulled out all of my tubs and containers.



Doesn't look so bad, except for those huge containers from Go Math!  I have not had any place to store those and have just been shoving them under tables to get them out of the way.

 I decided to start with the base 10 blocks.  I have two sets and I really didn't use both of the sets.  I actually didn't use the yellow set at all last year.  The green set from the Go Math tub are foam and not as noisy.  There are also enough for each student to have their own set.
 There are way too many pieces though.  I decided to break apart the sets and make it more convenient for my needs.  I placed 5 hundreds 20 tens and 20 ones in each bag.

 I made 25 sets and placed them in one of the smaller tubs.


It almost fits!  I put the rest in the huge tub it was in.


Then I just started opening boxes and purging items I had never even seen!! Yikes!  Do you know how many plastic clocks I found that I have never even opened?


I also found all these goodies from Everyday Math that I have not even opened after 9 years!!


Now this is all I have left to go through and organize.


I think I may need to just pick up a few more tubs like the smaller ones above to house the rest of my items.

I can't believe how much junk I have accumulated over the years and how many things I have never even used.  I thank Debbie Diller for making me clean out and get rid of wasted items.  Hopefully a newer teacher might take some of my overflow.  Otherwise I don't know what to do with it. I have such a hard time throwing things away!  What would you do?





26

Another Monday Made It

Aloha friends!  I am nearing the end of my summer break and am now working on projects that I have been procrastinating all summer.


The first project I finished was a job chart for my class.  I usually have 20 students each year so I decided to have 10 jobs with two students for each job.  So I came up with these 10.



These cute little surfboards will have their names on them. I just need to cut them out.


I plan to hang these on the wall and place velcro on each side of the job to hold the names.
You could also glue the surfboard onto a clothespin to make a clip chart job board.


The next thing I made was a surf themed calendar set.

I have this calendar in my classroom this year. I bought it last year from Lakeshore.


I think it's great, but it is a bit plain.  So I came up with this:


Monthly headers cards,

Date cards,


  Odd/Even date cards,


Dates, day and year cards



It's simple, but I think it will really tie in the rest of my decor.



Today I am headed into my classroom.  I haven't been in all summer and I officially have to be back next Tuesday.  I actually really enjoy this time to play around with furniture and rearrange.  I will keep you posted on my progress and take lots of pictures.

 Both my job chart and my calendar set are available in my TpT store. I tweaked them a bit to make them more general for anyone who would like to use them. Just click on the pics below to check them out.







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