"Sing"lish Bulletin Boards

This school year, I've challenged myself to try to have a lot more fun in my classroom. So far, my bunch of kids are really great, and not having to deal with behavior management has given me time to be a bit sillier than I normally am. It's so wonderful to be able to be myself in my classroom, rather than a strict dictator.

I started with my classroom layout. I put up this Carly Rae Jepsen bulletin board because 1) I can only use part of this board since the bookshelf obscures it and 2) I saw something similar on Pinterest and thought it was fun.

The second poster is an awesome (read: extremely dorky) play off of Nicki Minaj's "Starships" for our vocabulary quiz average tracker.  (If you follow the link for "Starships," be prepared for an acid trip. It is weird... unless you think that Maori hip-hop dancers on an island being invaded by an alien in the form of a bikini-clad, green-haired, gigantic-badonked, sand-wallowing Nicki Minaj is reasonable and normal.)


And then (my favorite display of all), a nod to LMFAO's "Party Rock Anthem" on my classroom door.

Currently, none of my students have said any of the following, "Oh, wow, Ms. G.! You're so funny!" "That is the coolest thing ever, Ms. G.!" or "This poster has changed my life! It's made English class relevant!" I have gotten a half laugh from one kiddo and a lot of eye rolls from the rest.

I'll take it. I spend a lot of time in my room. It's nice to look around the room and feel at home, comfortable, and happy. And, it's nice to crack myself up once and awhile with a stupid pun or two.

-Jo

Quilts of Valor

I spent all of Saturday shopping with my mom-- groceries in the morning and then fabric in the afternoon. We dodged some pretty serious storms to get to the border of Lancaster and Lebanon for Burkholder Fabrics' annual sale.

Mom is a quilter and a Family and Consumer Science Teacher (read: Home Ec). I'm not a quilter or a FACS teacher, but I enjoy giving second opinions on patterns and colors, so we had a fun two hours scouting rows and rows full of fabric bolts to find just the right material for Mom's projects for the next year.

And, even in the least likeliest of places (as it always has a habit of doing, at least in the past two years of my life)... the military popped up.

This year, Mom's program is taking on a new service project called Quilts of Valor. QOV is non-profit that connects quilters and their homemade quilts with wounded, recuperating service members. Coincidentally, Burkholder's is a supporter of the program and sells coordinated, patriotic fabric rolls. 

Take a look at the QOV website. The quilts are astounding-- true works of art. And, if you're a quilter, think about joining the project!

 

-Jo

Birthdays are the Best!

Today was an awfully hot, miserable day. My classroom was insanely muggy, and the kids, while they weren't bad, were sluggish and tired. I don't blame them.

J's birthday was two weeks ago, and he received his packages, so I can safely post the care package I sent him. I definitely went overboard for J's birthday, but I have no regrets. It was the summer, I wasn't working, and it was a lot of fun to construct them.

I sent this package so it got to J a week before his birthday. In it were 7 wrapped presents with instructions on which day to open each package.

 This was the rhyme I wrote and glued onto cute scrapbook paper ($5 tablets of  50 pages of cute, coordinated papers are available at Wal-Mart in the craft section). Then I glued it onto each side of the inside of the box.  (I'm rather proud of this rhyme! My English degree's working for me!)

 I tried to find cheap, funny, and useful things for J's countdown box. Here's what I ended up with:

A) I bought these stick-on mustaches at Michael's in the dollar section of the store. It was $2.  The same ones are at the Dollar Tree for $1. And, of course, I couldn't help a writing a dorky pun.

 B) The last present J opened was an Earth, Wind, and Fire "best of" CD that I bought from FYE's crazy awesome cheap-o bin. Most of the music is from our marching band days, which is pretty awesome. And seriously, how could you be sad listening to EWF?

C) I wrote J a letter on a roll of crepe paper and rerolled it with directions for him to unroll it. I thought it would be annoying in a fun way and make him slow down and enjoy the package instead of rip through everything!

D) Some of the other items I included... a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch (but I forgot to include a spoon... whoops!), a removable wall sticker with a fantastic Emerson quote for his barracks wall (found at the Dollar Tree), sour gummy worms with a dorky note ("Bookworms for my bookworm") and a few magazines, Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, Creole seasoning and Chicken of the Sea pink salmon packets (if you haven't seen these, they are fantastic-- healthy and ready to eat!), a pocket lint package (J told me he'll just save it until he comes home... I thought it might be helpful with uniform stuff, but count a swing and a miss on that one for me), and a package of pretzels.

After I filled the box, I had some room, so I blew up balloons and threw colorful pom-poms and little notes to J. If you're going to do this, make sure you don't blow up the balloons too much. It's better if the balloons have a little give for the trip. J said that all but one of the balloons made it intact and that he enjoyed popping them.

The outside of the box was a bit plain Jane, but I wanted to use the packing tape I bought on sale at Michael's. Check out the packaging aisle where they sell paper bags, tins, plastic containers, and package decorations. I picked up a bunch of graphic packing tape rolls for 99 cents (normally they're between $2.99-3.99). When I sent this box, the postman smiled (which is rare for him) and said, "Wow! That's tape? Nifty!" And then he went back to scowling.

Time to watch a bit of the DNC convention and try to stay awake past 9 PM!
-Jo