Embracing my teacher values - Monday Made It

I mowed today for the first time in probably eight years:

 

 

It took three hours, but at least the view was good.  So that's made it number one - a lawn mown in the style of Jackson Pollack. ( Which is probably not "in" when it comes to landscaping)

 

But after that was over, I got to work on a wall art project for my classroom.  I've been working for the past month on my Curriculum map.  Here's a quick peek of the unfinished product:

 

 

 

I'm using colored "manila" folders for separating the quarters, so here's the inside of first quarter- done up in Crayola.  Which I love.  Crayola makes me happy.  But anyway...

 

I've been taking a bunch of courses offered by Sally at Fairy Dust Teaching.  Even though she is an early education teacher- everything I've learned so far is going to translate beautifully into my second grade classroom.  So I'm super excited.  One of the things we did when we began mapping was look at who we are as teachers, and what we valued.  I ended up picking five values I wanted to focus on in my classroom this year.  Love, commitment, enthusiasm, creativity, and humor.  And then I went and found quotes that went along with those values that I felt fit into teaching.

 

I've put the values in an order- Love is first because it is everything.  And then commitment, since it is the demonstration of love.  And Enthusiasm is the face of love.  Creativity is the passionate response to love, and finally humor is the expressive joy of love.  Here are the little posters I made up today:

 



 

Isn't that font fantastic?  It's called Iced Coffee and it is by the Fabulous Deniece at This Little Piggy Reads.  I LOVE her fonts.  And she gives them away for free!

 

 

 

I have these quotes written in my curriculum map binder- but I wanted them to be visible in my classroom.  I wanted to be able to see them daily, and I wanted people who visited my room to be able to see them as well.  I don't want them to be just thoughts I'm carrying around, but something that actually becomes part of my room.

 

Next stop, my favorite teacher store- The Dollar Tree.

 

 

I found these silver trays there.  I got only one circle, but two each of the oval and rectangle.  Originally I had in mind that I wanted a clear tray- but they didn't have any- but then I saw these and decided it would work.  Then scrounging around in my daughter's craft drawer (gasp- yes- Mommy "borrowed" some scrapbook paper) and came across this little cutie:

 

 

I picked out some pages that I liked and I thought would fit my color scheme, and then went to work fitting them to the inside of the trays.  I had to paste the together to make them big enough- but the nice thing about the paper booklet is that it gives you two pages of each design.

 

 



 

 

Then I printed the little posters I made on cardstock and cut them out.  All that's left to do is to glue them down permanently and brush them over with some modge podge.

 

 

I just can't decide how I want to arrange them now.  Whether I want them in a strip, in the order I was thinking, or something more congealed.  It might even have to wait until I get back in the room and see where it will fit best.

 

 

 

 

All I know is that I want it up.  Thoughts anyone?

 

If you made something, or want to see more made-its, head over to Tara at 4th Grade Frolics and link up!

 

 

 

And I know how much you love freebies!  Did you make it through the Virginia is for Bloggers blog hop?  It's 20+ freebies, kittens!  I was impressed with what everyone came up with. I am giving out a card game for practicing quick tens, and holding a little contest for custom football kids clipart.  You can check out my post here, or start at the beginning of the hop over at Nikki's Teaching in Progress.

 

 

 

 

And if you liked those quote posters I made- have a set!  Go ahead and click on my lovely little butterfly lady:

 

If you do happen to pick up a set, would you mind leaving me a message?  Dropbox doesn't tell me how many people download, and I'm just curious as to how many people are actually interested.  Thank you much, kittens!