Teacher Toolbox

I really love the teacher toolboxes I've seen on Pinterest. They turn out so cute and are so useful! I thought I'd make a smaller one to fit into my Ikea Expedit shelves in my classroom. Here's what I came up with!

I decided to just use plain construction paper because I have a primary colors + green trend going on in my classroom. I just printed the labels out and used scalloped scissors to add some interest. I glued on the paper labels (that's why there are some dark spots). Then I laminated the labels and put them in. Very excited to use this!

Writing Center Sign

I wanted to create a sign to post in my Writing Center. I'm getting a much bigger room this year so I'm excited to be able to have designated centers! Anyway, I saw some really cute ideas on Pinterest but there was nothing that was readily available for me to print for free. So, I decided to create one that fits my needs. Although this isn't necessarily crafty, it took some time to put it all together!

I'm going to mount it to some red construction paper and laminate it. Then it's a helpful tool for my students while they are at the center :)

BANG Center

Another great idea I got from Pinterest, the BANG Center. The idea is simple. You have a shoe box that you cover up, decoupage, with paper of your choosing. Then you cut out a hole in the top of the box, just big enough for kids to put their hands into. Then you fill the box with cards that have concepts the students have learned. They pull out one card at a time and answer the question, read the word, identify the person - whatever your cards may cover. If they get the card correct, they keep the card. Then there are some cards thrown in there with the word BANG on them. If a student chooses that card then they have to put all their cards back in the box. The point of the game is to have the most cards at the end. I love this idea because all I have to do is switch out concept cards and its a center that can grow with my students as the year progresses.

So here is one of my BANG boxes. I'm making a few just so I can have more than one going on at a time, or I can use different boxes for different subject matters.

Here's one of my boxes:

Tin Can Pencil Caddy

I've been working on this project for a while. It started with an idea I had for a "Back to School" gift for my IA. I thought it'd be great to make her some sort of caddy to hold her pencils, pens, markers, etc. I came up with the idea to use tin cans. So I began to save tin cans, and even got some from my friends and family. My mother-in-law even joked that I was more than welcome to anything in their recycling bin. After I started saving cans, I decided to make one for myself too. :)

So when I had enough cans, I began to come up with configurations. I finally had the layout. Now came the real work:

My IA's cans all spray painted

My cans spray painted

The wood bases cut to dimension by my husband.

I had to put the cans on there to figure out how much to cut off the corners

Bases cut and painted. Time to attach the lazy sue, purchased from Home Depot for $5 each.

I drilled the lazy sue into the wooden base and glued shelf liner to help the caddy from sliding around.

Power tools to screw in all the cans.

My caddy all finished!

My IA's caddy all finished! I hope she likes it :)

The fun thing about this project is that the caddies spin around! So they're colorful, functional, and fun. The only real cost I had was the spray paint and the lazy sues. Otherwise, the cans were free and I already had the plywood.

Cardboard Caddies

Ikea has these cardboard caddies that they keep in the wrapping area. It's meant to help hold plates or glasses. Well being a teacher, I saw the potential immediately! I grabbed some to use in my classroom. One idea I had was to put one in my listening center. I could easily fit multiple copies of a book, along with the audio cassette or CD on one side. So this way, I can have two books available and organized at the center. To make it a little cuter, I decoupaged it with some scrapbook paper.

Tada!

Before

After

Here's one that my friend and former co-worker, Sarah, made.

Side One

Side Two

The Crate Bench

Hello again! So one of the wonderful ideas I found from Pinterest was the crate bench. I've seen the stool idea where you just use one of the milk crates and place a cushion on top of the opening. It's a cute idea, but I fell in love with the bench idea. For my inspiration, check out this blog: Crate Bench

So I decided that it would be one of my first projects. I went out looking for supplies. It took a lot of searching to try and find the best deals. I found my milk crates at Target for $3 each. I got my batting from JoAnns for less than $4 (using a coupon). I found a vinyl tablecloth from Walmart for just $2! I decided to go with vinyl instead of cloth because it cleans easier and my school serves really low income families where lice tends to be an issue. I already had the plywood and just had to get my husband to cut it to size for me. 

So here's some pictures from my crate bench journey:

Checking to see if the wood fit properly.

Cutting out the vinyl tablecloth.

Fitting the batting.

Finished product!

I was happy with the end result. If you are wondering how I connected everything together, I stapled (with a staple gun) the tablecloth with the batting in between to my plywood. Then I used zip ties to connect the crates and the plywood to the crates. Just staple gun the zipties to the bottom of the plywood.

I almost gave up on this project because when I went to buy the crates, I tried sitting on them to see how sturdy they were. They were not sturdy. My husband encouraged me to still try the project anyway. I am very excited to report that the bench is very sturdy. Both my husband and I sat on it at the same time and it didn't give at all.

I got the baskets from Target for just $2.50 each from the dollar section and plan to put books in them. So for just $28 I was able to have this bench for my classroom library! I also had a lot of extra tablecloth left so I was thinking of making some pillows to match :)

New Blogger

Hello! I am a relatively new teacher (this coming year will be my third), and this summer I had time to finally look through Pinterest and saw a lot of great and fun ideas for my classroom. I am so excited to make all these crafty projects and I wanted a way to share the results. I thought it'd be fun to give the blog a try. We'll see if it becomes anything more than a place to share pictures of my fun projects :)