AVID Tool Box

In case you haven't picked up on it, I worked this last year for a program called AVID. AVID stands for:

A= Advancement

V= Via

I= Individual

D= Determination

Its a program designed to help those students "caught in the middle" and bring them up. It is also designed to help students who might not otherwise consider or have the means go to college. If you want more information, check out their website http://www.avid.org/ or contact me. 

Last year, I served the roll of tutor for several grade levels in the local big school district. Seeing the direct benefit for students by partaking in AVID really touched my heart. When I got hired at my new school, I knew that my principal also had a soft spot for AVID. After mentioning that I was interested in trying an AVID strategy called interactive notebooks (INBs) that had a unique twist, my principal offered to send me to an AVID pathway training in my old district. Two days. 12 clock hours. AVID notebooks. You bet I hoped on that metaphorical train.

At the end of the training, in addition to all the other cool tips and tricks, it became abundantly clear to me that I needed some sort of way to organize the additional tools and resources my students were going to need if notebooks were to be successful.

You see, INBs require not just your usual note taking strategy of sit, listen to a lecture or read a book, and take notes on the major touch points. INBs require glue sticks, scissors, tape, markers, white out (for those whoops). I know that my students may not have access to those items due to monetary constraints. So I hit up the "Back to School" sales and went to work. 

I found the school supply/pencil box for $0.57 each; purchased five of them. Then the scissors were $1.50 each, found the glue sticks at a steal of 8 for $6.00, and correction tape and scotch tape for about $0.50 each. Essentially I got enough for six students to share one box, times five boxes and then some extra supplies for back stock. Each box is located in the back of the room, on the windowsill and the oversize "B"s from Ikea that make great book ends. Additionally, I printed up an inventory list so that students should know what is suppose to be in the box at the end of each class period.

As a final touch, I put up a list in the back of the room on my supply closet. Each box is numbered (one through five) and then students can report missing supplies or damaged items. 

For roughly $67 I have stocked my classroom with what I will hope an organized method while also supplying my students with the tools they need to be successful. 

How do you organize your room at the beginning of the year?

Baby Peanut

My friend Danyel and her husband Joe are expecting this October. They already have two dogs, named Woody (a golden lab) and Charlie (a giant Chocolate lab). So it made for a good laugh when they announced their daughter is going to be named Lucy. Anyone else catch the Peanuts theme?

Instead of making the cliche even more plain, they decided on a different theme for their nursery. There is a victorian, fleur de lief etc theme for their daughter's room. Dusty rose, milk chocolate brown and eggshell white for a color scheme. It seems like they have been planning this for more than a few months and knowing Danyel, she probably has.

I know that new mom's always enjoy getting their bigger items from their family and friends at the baby shower. Unfortunately, Danyel's shower is in the final month of my summer paycheck (or non-existent) season. So my creative and thrifty crafty brain had to come online and do some serious thinking.

My usual go to for new mom (and dad) friends is to make a baby blanket. And two out of three times, it has become the blanket for the child. The third one? The baby hasn't been born yet and I won't know until January. :) The other reason my go-to item is a baby blanket is because they can usually be done for about $15. So, off I went to the fabric store to find baby appropriate fleece and in the dusty rose, chocolate and white colors.

While on the way, I recalled that I hate trying to wrap the blanket when its finished. So I figured I would just find a creative way to gift wrap the package. My brain also went into the mode of, "what can I use to wrap the gift that can have a dual purpose?" Ah-ha! Perhaps baby Lucy could use a toy box of sorts.

So in the craft store I found an unfinished wooden crate, paints in the right colors, some Victorian, fleur de leif style stencils, wooden letters that spelled Lucy and for $15 I had custom gift wrap container.

Lastly, I went to Target and found a set of baby onesies, pants and diapers. Roughly $20 there....

So you can tell already that this project got a little out of hand on the expense side..

Originally, I was going to wrap the baby clothing items like the little cupcakes on Pinterest. Hence the box on the top of the wooden crate. However, that was an epic fail. I couldn't get them to fit correctly at all.

Anyway, I went to town and started painting. White for the main part of the crate, brown for the wooden letters and then pink for the victorian stencil work. 

My afternoon was thoroughly booked up with this painting. In between paint coats, I was working on the baby blanket.

I usually do a tie blanket for little kids because of the ability for the child to pull on something. Additionally the fabric for a tie blanket tends to be fleece. I found some ultra-soft cuddle fleece in the correct color scheme. However, the brown side I chose my of the bird look. I thought it might be nice to spice things up but tried to get as close to the Victorian style theme as I could.

By the end of the day, the box looked something like this:

As a final touch, I was going to hot glue the wooden letters to the outside of the crate but my hot glue gun has gone missing since the wedding. So I think Danyel will have to find a good use for the letters in Lucy's nursery.

How do you prepare gifts for a baby shower? Anything more or less elaborate? Have you found a way to do things cheaper?

Out of Class Passes

As you may have noticed a great deal of my blog posts have been teaching and classroom related lately.

I love seeing creative hall passes. My senior government teacher had two full sized wooden shoes that could be seen all the way down the hallway. Every teacher in the building knew whose class you were from with those shoes. No, we wouldn't actually wear them. Though as I recall one of our football studs did try once and he actually cracked the shoe. 

Before I found out that my school had a regulated hall pass system, I saw an amazing idea on Michael's webpage advertisement. I knew it seemed a little kiddish but I figure my high school students might still by into it. And even if my passes do disappear or get damaged, they cost me roughly $2 total.

Items needed for this project:
-Plastic paint can ($3.99)
-Scrapbook paper
-Pens
-unfinished wooden paint brushes ($0.99/each)
-Paint
-Stencils ($1)

I took three of the major colors in my classroom and used them to base my paper design. Forest green, ruby red and marigold yellow. From there I just stenciled "Out of Class" on the yellow paper, which was then mounted on the red, in turn mounted on the green. There was some measuring involved to make sure the paper fit inside the paint can but that's pretty self explanatory. I added a few embellishments courtesy of the scrapbook paper sticker section.

For the paint brushes, I painted the handles yellow and red. Then in a second color I wrote "Pass #1" and "Pass #2" respectively. I did this rather than, "Boys" and "Girls" because sometimes the students aren't headed to the restroom. Additionally, I only allow two students out of the room at a time. This helps me manage that - and a substitute teacher for when they come into the room.

Pretty easy project and it really only took me about forty minutes to assemble it (plus an hour for paint to dry) and for roughly $7 I have two hall passes and storage spot for them. I plan on hanging the paint bucket on a command hook right by the door.

How do you manage bathroom/hall passes at your school?