Creative Breaks

While I'm still digesting the information from Teach Like a Pirate, one of my big take aways was about preventing a professional and creative stalemate.  (For more feelings on being creative, read {here}.)

I've been in a bit of a professional stalemate, which is one of the reasons I'm super excited to move to third grade.  I've never had the desire to be one of those teachers with thirty years experience, but only in one grade level.  I'm looking forward to a new curriculum, getting to know a new team, continuing to mentor, and quite frankly, smaller class sizes (with smaller humans).

One of the things I'm excited to bring back to next year's classroom is pillows for my library.  I had them years ago, but fifth graders got a little inappropriate with them, so I discontinued their use.  Granted, not setting the appropriate boundaries was a rookie mistake (and I was a rookie teacher).  The entire class got punished for a few students' poor choices.  Again, rookie mistake.

So I had my mama turn some old school shirts into pillows for my classroom library:

We used a 16" x 16" pillow form from Joann's (and coupons, a teacher discount, and an {Ibotta rebate}, because I like to save money.  If you're new to Ibotta and would also like 10% back on Joann's in store purchases, sign up with my referral code: uvnspet  and happy savings).  It took her about twenty minutes to transform a clean shirt into a new classroom pillow.

While she was whipping up some pillows, I decided to create a new wreath for her door.

I snagged flowers on sale at Joann's, so the whole project was around $20 (and I still have flowers left over for the next project).

With the help of wire cutters and hot glue, I created this:

I used a {twig oval base} and two bouquets of {fake flowers} (from the heavily discounted spring section!)  Green is her favorite color and pink is mine, so the color selection was easy.

 I cut apart the flowers with wire cutters and used a hot glue gun to attach them right to the base.  Tomorrow I'll use floral wire to secure the flowers to the base to ensure gravity doesn't undo my crafting.

The final product:

Teachers need creative breaks too!

#BestYear

Even though we don't go back for a few more weeks, I acknowledge that the start of August means it's time for back to school.

For me, that means a tango between actively avoiding those aisles at Target...

...and gleefully couponing/cartwheeling to stock my classroom.  I am super excited that I picked up some new gray bins and polka dot fabric for a bulletin board (no one should be surprised that polka dots are involved!) for a super sale price.

 The bins were on sale and significantly cheaper than Target's price.  The fabric was on sale.  If I spent $40, I got $5 back on Ibotta (join my saving adventure with code uvnspet).  But when I got to the counter, I joyfully discovered that my entire purchase was an additional 25% off as a teacher appreciation day sale.

Naturally, that had me like:

 But I was in public, so the excitement had to be kept to a socially acceptable level.

I'm trying a lot of new things in the classroom this year.  We're doing a lot of integration and emphasizing technology, history, and critical thinking.  We're being more creative and that excites me because I function well with freedom.

I'll have the GATE kids, so the fluidity between subjects will be a nice structure for my outside of the box thinkers.   

After a few rough years, I'm optimistic that this year (#8!) will be my best year ever.

With that theme, I'd like to share that it's the annual TpT back to school sale:

And my {entire store} is 20% off for the next few days.  Happy shopping!