Monday Made It

So I realized as I was typing this post that the Monday Made It linky party is now over for the summer, but I am too stinking proud of these boxes for them not to get their own post!
I'm starting Daily Five this year, and I knew that I would be needing book boxes. Ideally I wanted ones that matched my classroom, but my #1 was that they needed to be plastic not cardboard. After the sticker shock of looking at some teacher stores, I decided to go with ice buckets from Walmart. I brought them into my room and let them sit for a few days before taking them back home to paint! Since my room is teal and read, I went with doing 10 teal and 10 red. After talking to the very helpful man at Lowes, I went with a primer and then my color of choice. Now all I had to do was wait for it to cool down! We were having a heat wave, so I waited until it cooled down a bit. Finally, about two weeks after making up my mind to paint the boxes, I had a perfect, 85 degree day! I did all of my painting outside on the picnic table that I covered with a dollar plastic sheet. Next time I would also use gloves since my hands ended up a total mess!

Ready to get started. 

The future teal boxes out on the table. I primed them, let them sit for about an hour, and then spray painted them. 

The teal boxes are done and the red are primed and ready to paint! 

My finished boxes! I love the way they turned out. I let them cure at home for about a week before I brought them to school and filled them with books.

The finished product! I made the numbers to match, though cutting out circles was a nightmare. I'm sticking to squares from now on! They were a lot of work, but I think they look great and really help tie the room together. 

Wrapping Up

Only one day left of school! I can't believe how quickly this first year is ending. We were supposed to go to the end of this week, but our air conditioner is not working, and it is almost 90 in the classrooms! While I am excited to start in-service early (and grateful to end the torture of trying to teach in a hot classroom), I am disappointed that I can't do all of the fun things I had planned for this week!

Snapshots from this week:

Our summer countdown chain! I got the sign from Mrs. Wheeler and made up our rewards for each day. We pull a chain each afternoon if we have had good conduct, and we get the reward the next day. So far the class favorite has by far been taking off shoes in the classroom! They have enjoyed everything (from chalk and painting to a movie), but on their end of week reflection on Friday, taking our shoes off Tuesday afternoon was the most discussed. It makes me laugh to realize what they love! 

We went outside on Friday afternoon and did addition and subtraction with regrouping on the sidewalk with chalk. Each student got a slip of paper with four problems on it, and once they had me check their answers, they were allowed to play with the chalk. One sweet kiddo wrote this and said I had to take a picture! So precious. 

Class compliment books. I have been doing class compliments from Across the Hall in Second Grade all year long, and have loved it. Usually we just draw one person's name and write one compliment, then share them with the class. Last week we as a class each writing a compliment to every student. It has taken a  lot of time, but now I have a booklet of compliments from each student and myself to give out on the last day. Compliments always make me smile, but these almost made me cry. It has been a really great way to finish out our class compliments for the year.

My lovely sister painted this tree for me on a canvas after I sent her this post. Thursday during independent work time I pulled students back to my table and had them put their fingerprint on the tree. I still need to add a few students, but it is exciting to have my first class on my tree! 

This is exactly how I feel! Grades, projects, meetings, clean-up, graduations, summer packets, the list keeps growing! 

Good luck with the last few days of teaching!

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