Cruisin' and Salein'

Senior-itis may have just turned into teacher-itis after stepping back into reality--the classroom. So...I've been MIA for a couple weeks--hubby and I decided to take our first "alone time" vacation. We went on our very first cruise to the Bahamas and visited Freeport and Nassau. Let me just tell you how beautiful the beaches are in Nassau!! The sand was the softest, whitest sand I have ever seen and the water was the bluest, clearest. We stayed at Sandals for the day and relaxed in the peace and quiet pool/beach area all day. The weather was absolutely amazing as well! It was absolutely the paradise that we needed. Ever since we got back I have been stuck on summer and am totally ready to go back to the beach. Check out my pics below. :-)

In the meantime, while I'm anxiously awaiting the last day of school (I think I'm more excited than the kids :-D)! While I'm trying to get back into the swing of things, I'll be having a sweet little sale at my TPT store that will run through Thursday night. Take the opportunity this week to stock up on beginning of the year themed classroom materials and other posters you may need to decorate your classroom in the fall. I have several items that coordinate well with any classroom theme.

Have a wonderful week and enjoy your last few days/weeks of school.

Phil, Polar Bear's, and a SUPER SALE

Growing up in Pennsylvania, Groundhog Day was an extra special celebration because the famous groundhog, Phil, was just a few hours away.  When I was in high school, some people would even head to Gobbler's Knob for the day to catch Phil's prediction first hand.  We have been working on missing number word problems in math, so I decided to create a groundhog craftivity that incorporates missing subtrahend word problems.  I actually used it as an assessment tool to see what my students knew and what they needed to work on.  You can click HERE to download Phil's Blackberries.

  Even though Phil saw his shadow this year, which means that Spring is right around the corner, you can still get in one last winter animal activity.  Polar Bear's Missing Numbers is a math game containing  missing number and simple addition/subtraction word problems with matching fact cards. Click HERE to download.

 

We used "Polar Bear's Missing Numbers" as a cooperative learning team game and I helped my students create their own learning teams.  I had students volunteer to be the group leaders:  First, I chose 4 "readers" (they read the story problem)...they chose a table for their team.  Next, I chose 4 "writers" (they record the work for the problem)...they chose reader to sit with.  Then, I chose 4 "walkers" (they walk the answers to me to be checked)...they chose which team they wanted to join.  The readers from each group then chose the team "helpers" from the remaining students in the class to join their table.  Everyone had a role on each of the learning teams and they worked together to solve the problem.  The reader read the word problem to the group:  they worked together to find the answer, the writer recorded the work, and then the walker walked to the back table to find the matching fact card.  We had a race to see which team could answer the most problems correctly.  This activity was both fun AND eye opening because it really let me see what true team work looks like.  It helped me learn more about how to help my students be better team players as well.

You can be a team player this weekend!  Check out my TPT store for some amazing deals and get up to 28% off everything on Sunday.  All of my products have a reputation for being very reasonably priced, so you're getting a HUGE deal when you shop during this SUPER SALE.  

A big thank you to Ashley Hughes of "The School Supply Addict" for creating this SUPER cute sale button for us to use.  Check out her graphics on TPT...they're so cute!!  Have a safe and fun Super Bowl Sunday!  

Happy Shopping!!

Back to School SALE and Gettin' Crafty

It's hard to believe that some of you have already started your school year!  The rest of us will be joining you in just a few short weeks.  Has anyone had any back to school nightmares yet?  OMG!  I usually get them really bad the entire week before school starts.  I have had dreams that it was open house (orientation) and my classroom was completely bare!!  That's definitely a huge worry of mine!  HA!

To help ease your fears of those back to school nightmares, I have a really awesome Back to School B.O.G.O. sale starting now and running through the end of August.  Click on the picture below to begin shopping! :-)

 When you shop at my Teacher's Notebook store, following your purchase, you get to choose any other item for FREE!!  Now that's a great deal!!!  After your purchase, just send me an email (michelle83mcelhinny@gmail.com) with your FREEBIE selection.  Please be sure to include your Teacher's Notebook user name just in case it's different from your email address. Remember, the free item that you choose must be of equal or lesser value than than the highest priced item of your purchase.  You can make as many purchases as you want in the month of August and you will always get to choose that FREE item!! 

GETTIN' CRAFTY

Well, before I left for vacation I was gettin' a little crafty with this boring directors chair that was sitting in my classroom.  I guess I probably should've been packing but I'm a huge procrastinator.  :-)  Oh well!  Read the rest of this post for a tutorial of how I jazzed up my chair and for how you can get crafty with a chair just like this one.

I use this chair in my classroom for writing celebrations and student sharing.  Students even like to sit in it as a special privilege for silent reading.  You can get a directors chair just like this one at Pier 1.  This is what the chair looked like before I began.   

 The first thing I had to do was pull the boring blue fabric off of the chair.  The fabric on the back of the chair just slides right off when you pull it upwards off of the poles.  The bottom part was a little bit tricky.  Once you take the top part off, the arm rests kinda fall down to the sides.  When the sides are down, it exposes a long piece of wood that is wrapped in the fabric for the seat part of the chair.  I just pulled the fabric up and out towards the middle of the chair and wiggled it until the wood pieces came out.  I removed the wood from the fabric and set them both aside.  

The next step was the fun part!  Spray paint!!   I took the bare wooden chair outside (Gavin and Landen tagged along) and placed it on a piece of cardboard in my driveway.  I kept the arm rest leaned down to the sides so I could get inside the crevices really good.  I sprayed every inch of the wood and the metal pieces with pink spray paint.  (I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to spray paint on metal hinges or screw parts...Oh well...I wanted it all PINK!)  So as I'm spraying, my boys think it's fun to experiment to see if a piece of grass would stick to it if they threw it on my FRESHLY PAINTED CHAIR!!!  Goodness!  Boys will definitely enhance a mother's ability to be patient!  After the chair was completely covered in pink, I just dragged the cardboard and chair into my garage so it could dry over night. 

  I went to a craft store (Hobby Lobby) and got just one yard of polka dot fabric.  When I saw it at the store, I just had to have it!  That was the easy part!  I could probably spend an entire day in this store!!  They just have so many great things that teachers get excited over...like this glitter scrapbook paper!!  Gavin actually spotted it because it was SPARKLING!!  I'm not sure I have a use for this yet, but a super fun must have for the future.  Way to go Gav!

Now on to the hard part...the fabric!  I used a seam ripper to take the stitching out of both pieces of fabric, including all of the edges.  This allowed me to lay the blue fabric completely straight.   Keep in mind the stitch points when the fabric is folded and sewed.  You will need to sew the fabric back together in the exact same spots.

I took the polka dot fabric and wrapped it around the blue fabric so I could get an idea of how much polka dot fabric I needed (it's kinda like wrapping a gift).  You want just enough polka dot fabric on the blue fabric but not too much.  I left about 1/2 inch of polka dot fabric around the edge of the blue fabric.  I put the polka dot fabric on my table face down and placed the blue fabric on top (leaving that 1/2 inch of extra polka dot around the edges).  I took some adhesive spray and sprayed the top of the blue fabric and then I folded the polka dot fabric on top of the blue fabric so the colored part of the polka dots was now on the outside.  You're essentially wrapping the blue fabric with the polka dot fabric, just like you would wrap a gift...only it's a lot thinner.  When you have smoothed the polka dot fabric onto the blue fabric, so there's no bubbles or wrinkles, flip it over.

Next, you'll want to use a regular glue stick on the edges of the blue fabric to get the polka dot fabric to stick to the uncovered blue side.  This will allow you to move things around if necessary without getting too sticky with the spray adhesive.  When the 3 sides are folded down onto the exposed blue fabric, you will then spray this side of the blue fabric and smooth the polka dot fabric from the middle to the edges.  You really don't want the edges of this side to stick just yet.  Once you have the middle smoothed out, spray a little more spray adhesive onto all of the edges and tuck under the fabric edges so the frayed part of the fabric is not exposed.  All of the edges should match up and all of the fabric should be tucked under to create a closed seam.  Set aside and do the same thing to the other piece of blue fabric.

On to the sewing!  After the blue fabric is completely covered with polka dots, you will need to sew around the entire piece of fabric to keep all of the edges tucked under.  Repeat to both pieces of fabric.  Then  you will need to sew the sides back together, just like it was at the beginning.  This is where you want to remember the stitch points where the fabric was folded and sewed.

Once everything is sewed back together, you can now reassemble the chair.  Make sure the paint is dry!  I waited 24 hours.  I cut the extra fabric into strips and tied it in knots around the top of the chair.

Here is the AFTER picture!

Sorry for such an extremely long post, maybe next time I'll try a video!  :-)  I hope this little (it seems harder that it really is) project will inspire you to jazz up your classroom by taking a boring piece of furniture and remodeling it to suit your personality.  A little fabric and a can of spray paint can go a long way to making your classroom visually appealing for your students.  It really was a fun project and it probably only took me a total of 4 hours total to complete this flip.  I look forward to hearing stories of how you get crafty in your classroom.  Leave a comment with your experience. :-)

Polka Dots Classroom Theme and a Sale

For those of you who liked the polka dot pirate themed classroom but weren't so into the pirates...I have added a polka dots classroom themed packet that has the same content as the polka dot pirate download...I just took out all of the pirates.  I used Thistlegirl kids instead :-)

It is available for you to download HERE. I have also slashed the prices on both of them!! :-)

I am also having a sale in my Teacher's Notebook store this week only.  Check it out for some really great deals.  You won't see 30% off in many stores, but because you are all such wonderful followers...you deserve it.  You can click on the picture below to check out my store!! 

 

100 Followers UPDATE:  

We are getting really close to our next drawing!! :-)  It's so exciting to be SO close!!  If you haven't yet entered the 100 Followers contest, be sure to click HERE to enter.  

Our Sweet Success blog is up to 94 followers...just 6 more!!!  Come on people!! lol  Tell your friends about us!!  Let's try to get this up to 100 by the end of the week.  We will have one more drawing when we get 100 Facebook followers.  You can click HERE to go to the Our Sweet Success Facebook page.  The winner will get to choose any 5 items from my TpT store!!!

Happy Shopping!!!

Teacher Appreciation Week SALES on both my stores

In honor of Teacher Appreciation Week I will be running SALES on all of my products from my TpT Store and from my Teachers Notebook store.  

You can enjoy up to 28% off at my TpT Store 

and 30% off at my Teachers Notebook store.

Teachers Notebook is also having a giveaway to WIN $100 each day until the end of the week. 

Click on the pictures below to view my products at each of my stores.

A SALE in Remembrance of My Dad

This Friday, April 20th, marks the ten year anniversary that my dad passed away suddenly from congestive heart failure.  I miss him so much and I can still remember all the times he made me laugh with his silly antics.  I still mimic those silly moments with my students and they just get a kick out of it.  While I visited Pennsylvania for Spring break, I had the chance to visit him:  

In remembrance of my dad and the carefree life that he lived, I'm holding a special sale this weekend as a tribute to his life.  Everything in my TpT store and in my Teachers Notebook store will be 20% off.  I will also be offering several FREEBIES throughout the weekend.  

RIP Dad

April 20, 2002

I can remember that day like it was yesterday!  It was my first year at college and I was preparing for a visit from my parents.  This was going to be my parents first visit to see where I went to school.  They had planned a trip to come see a campus wide performance that I was going to be in.  I was anticipating a phone call from my mom to let me know when they were leaving.  It was about 10 minutes after the time that I had expected the phone call, my phone rings...it was my mom.  She proceeded to tell me that they were not going to be able to make the trip but she didn't want to tell me why because she didn't want to ruin my day.  I could tell by her voice that she had been crying so I asked her to please just tell me why.  (I can still hear the words that came out of her mouth.)  She said, "Your dad passed away last night in his sleep."  Oh my gosh, I can just remember the heart wrenching feeling that rushed through my body.  I felt empty...broken!  I couldn't stop the emotions that took over me.  I couldn't stop the crying!  Just to think that I never got to say good bye, never got that last hug, never got to say I love you!  I have so many things that I wish I would have done differently and things that I wish I had said.  That day changed my life forever! Be sure to say "I love you" and give those hugs because you never know when your loved ones will be taken from you! 

This is the last picture that I took with my dad.  

(My high school graduation.)

In Loving Memory of my dad:

Ronnie Kennedy

November 16, 1963 - April 20, 2002

Leap Day Sale

February 29th is Leap Day and everything in my TpT store will be 20% off.  Once you have your items in your shopping cart, just enter the promo code L2P9Y for an extra 10% off.  

That's a grand total of 28% off!!  

This is a great deal and it's 1 day only!  Leap year doesn't happen very often, so take advantage of this sale...you won't see it again for another 4 years!  Just click on the picture below to go straight to my TpT store.

Have a great Leap Day!

Sale and Groundhog Day

I have started my first sale!!!! YAY!!!  lol.  I honor of my mom's 49th birthday, my sale will run for 49 hours.  I know I said that I was going to start it later tonight, but I got a little excited so I had to start it early.  :-) The sale will still continue until 10 pm on her birthday, which is Monday night (Jan. 23).

I have also posted a new "Groundhog Day" unit which will also be included in the sale.  Don't forget to tell your friends, so they can get some really cute things for cheap this weekend.  Groundhog Day is coming up and Valentine's Day will be here before you know it. 

Click on the preview below to go to my TpT store.  Have a great weekend everyone!! 

49 Hour Sale!!!

 

 This is a great chance to get your winter activities before the end of the season.  I also have my Valentine activities that were just posted!!!  Happy Shopping!  :-)