Corryopoly

Dr. Corry is a veteran teacher in North Las Vegas and she just happens to send me things she has created to put on my blog. She thought this would be great to share for other teachers out there. Enjoy!

Last year, I had many students who did not fully complete their homework.  Because our homework is so focused on helping the students maintain their academic mastery levels, it is important that they do it.  So, this year, I created Corryopoly.  I took various ideas from the internet on Homeworkopoly and changed them up specific to my classroom, the school, and a fairy tale theme.  All students who complete the homework for the week get to play.  They each take a turn rolling the dice and moving around the board.  If they land on a property, they earn a classroom penny, nickel, dime, or quarter based what row they are traveling.  Coins are traded up to quarters, half dollars, and dollars to go shopping in the class store.  In addition, if they land on Chance or Community Computers, they pick an extra incentive card.  They especially like those cards because the cards say things such as "sit at the teacher's table" or "lunch with a friend in the classroom" or "phone call home from the teacher to a parent with lots of praise for the student" or "bring in a special show and tell item to share."  

Corryopoly Cards

Other Sets 1

Red and Yellow Sets

Pink and Orange Sets

Green and Blue Sets

Dark Purple and Light Blue Sets

Teacher's end of year gift

I am one of those moms who loves to create things for my kids to give to their teachers for all the work they do. I have been a sub for 3 years, and in the meantime I earned an elementary education degree. I have a pretty good idea of just how much these teachers invest in my children emotionally, physically, and educationally. Giving small gifts throughout the year is a small way to say thank you.

This year I had a Kindergartener and a Preschooler who had two teachers. I needed 3 gifts. Earlier in the year I found this on Pinterest, and I know some people who have old wood so I thought I'd give it a try. Because of weather I haven't had the chance to pick up this wood yet, so I had to improvise.

I know that subway art is crazy in right now. I like the look of it, and thought maybe I could give it a try. I started by goggle-ing subway art to get some ideas. My favorites were the ones with gray and a mustard yellow colors with the chevron pattern in the background. Though it isn't what I envisioned, I think they turned out pretty dang awesome.

If you want to try one, I will do my best to walk you though my process.

Supplies I used:
Microsoft Word
Google
8x10 White picture frame (or a cheap black one painted white, and any size you want)
White scrapbook paper cut to 8x10 (or whatever size your picture frame is)
Color printer

1. Google the chevron pattern to find the one you like. I used this website. Right click on the pattern, click copy, and then open Word and either right click again to paste the image or hit the control and v button on your keyboard. For a Mac like I have hit command and v. This is the shortcut for paste. I use this all the time. For me it is just easier than all the clicking. Resize by dragging on the corner of the image until it covers your entire page. You can try different formatting, coloring, and filtering by clicking on the image and then clicking on the format picture tab at the top of the screen. That is how I got my chevron pattern a little blurry.

2. It is easier if you make all your images so that they show behind or in front of all the text. This allows you to freely move the image anyplace you want to despite the margins or text you might have. To do this click on the image. Click on the format picture tab at the top. Then click on wrap text. I choose in font of text, but behind text works too.

3. Create a box in word. Recolor it to whatever color you would like. Mine is plain white. I created a glow effect to give it soft edges. You can do this by clicking on the box or image, clicking on the format button at the top and adding the glow or any other effect you'd like to try. You can customize the effect by right clicking on the box or image and clicking on format shape. This should open a new dialog box that will allow you to adjust the size and color of the effect and a whole lot of other things. Don't be afraid to experiment. With the undo buttons in Word, you can pretty much do anything and undo it if you don't like it.

4. I wanted more than just a white box behind it. It just looked like it was missing something. So I googled a ton of different backgrounds until I settled on a rustic looking lined paper. I made this slightly bigger than the white box. Again, play with the format by recoloring and filtering and adding a glow or shadow. It takes time, but it will help give you different ideas for what you want.

5. To make it easier for me when I started working on the wording, I grouped the three backgrounds together. This is a step that is totally optional, but if I accidentally moved the background while working on the words, it was easy to put back because all three were connected into one. To do this you need to click on one of the background images. While holding down the control button on the keyboard on a PC or the command button on a Mac click on another background image. Repeat this until all of the background images are clicked. You will know you have all of them if each image has a little circle on all corners.

I know that this is an image of the words, and a preview of what is to come, but I wanted to show you what I meant by all the images have little circles on the corners. This is what it should look like if all the background images are clicked.

6. Once you have the backgrounds done how you want them, you can move onto the words. I started by typing my quote one word at a time into a text box. You don't need to worry about the size or font yet. Just get the words. These are the words from the pin I found on Pinterest.

7. The next part was one of the harder ones for me. I liked so many fonts. I started by choosing two that looked schoolish. Then I went to find some that matched those, but didn't seem to find what I was looking for in word. I went to this site that has many fonts to download for free. I fount two I liked. The downloading process is different for each computer and software you have, so if you need help with that, I suggest googling it. It is usually pretty easy once you have the directions in front of you. 

Then, working text box by text box, just change the font and size. It doesn't have to be perfect yet, just eyeball it. For example, I knew I wanted child to be big so I made it really big. 

8. After this I started coloring the words. I knew I wanted a yellow in there so that's where I started. Then I rotated the other colors through the rest of the words. There were some spots where the color didn't look right with the font so I either changed the font or the color. I used purple, green, yellow, orange, and blue. You can customize your colors too if you don't like the selection they have. You can also add shadows and different effects to the words which is what I did to create the glow look around each word. Play around. Have fun. Don't be afraid to try different things.

This is what I had as a final product until I made another one and added an image. Then I redid this to add an image.

Here are the final pieces:

The most important advice I can give you is to try different things out. It can always be changed back. Have fun!

*UPDATE* 

I was asked to provide the fonts I used. If you want to give it a try yourself the ones that were already on my computer are chalkboard and chalkduster. The ones I found online are scretch and teenage angst. 

If you would just like to use the ones I made, go for it. For some reason, however, the words only work if you open them as docx files. You should be able to have the choice of how to open them after you click on the orange download or print button.

Here is Life is about dreams...

Here is A teacher plants the seeds...

Here is A truly special teacher...

I also wanted to share what my daughter's kindergarten teacher did with hers. She had each of the students sign the white frame on the front and wrote the year and who gave it to her on the back. I thought that was such a great idea. 

Verbs- Jeopardy Game

I just finished my Masters in Elementary Education so while I wait for a position to open up at our local school, I have been given several job opportunities to keep me at school as much as they can. Teaching 5th grade grammar is one of those wonderful opportunities. I started right after I was done student teaching last fall and have been trying several different things out to see what works best with the students. For the unit on verbs I wanted to do something that they were not used to. I made notes for the students to fill in while we learned about the many many rules that go with verbs. I hope to upload the notes soon; but for now, I will give you the review game I made for them.

It is a Jeopardy Game that aligns really well with the book we use, but some of you might be able to use it in your classrooms.

Enjoy!

2nd Grade Reading Unit

During my student teaching I had to complete a large unit. I chose to compile a reading unit based on the new common core standards. I spoke with my supervising teacher and together we came up with one main common core standard that was not covered in the curriculum currently used in the classroom.

Second Grade Literature: "Recount stories, including fables and folktales from diverse cultures, and determine their central message, lesson, or moral."

I started off by reading several fables and folktales to the students. With each one, we discussed specifics such as characters, setting, beginning, problem, solution, and moral. For one we focused on the beginning, middle, and end. The students created a flipchart where they could flip open the first flap and draw a picture of the beginning, then move to the middle, and the end. For another one, we focused on the problem and the conclusion. Finally, I read three stories to the students and we filled out their own charts like the one below.

Title & Author	Characters & Character Traits	Setting	Beginning	Problem	Solution	Moral	Comparison

I focused on Little Red Riding Hood. The variations were Lon Po Po  by Ed Young, Betsy Red Hoodie by Gail Carson Levine, and Petite Rouge by Mike Artell. Petite Rouge was my favorite because I read it with a southern bayou type accent. The kids loved it and asked me many times to talk with an accent throughout my student teaching. 

When we were done discussing and comparing the different variations, we made a huge class chart that we got to hang in the hall for parent/teacher conferences. 

After the class chart, the students were given another individual chart that looked exactly like the one above, but it only had one row. The students were to fill their chart out with ideas to begin writing their own stories. Once the chart was done, they used it to write their rough drafts, they used partners to help edit and revise their stories, and then they published them. They were so proud. Unfortunately, I had to leave before they were all finished. However, I had a great master teacher who invited me back when the students had completed their illustrations. I got to hear each of them read their own story and see their creativity shine. It was a very proud moment for a silly student teacher.

This was so much fun, I will most definitely be doing this kind of thing again when I get into my own classroom.

Valentine's Day Box

Happy Valentines Day!

Yesterday was a special day for us as we got to celebrate valentines day with our kiddos. I know that many people find valentines day to be a "made up" holiday for an excuse to spend money to show someone you care about them when you should show that special someone everyday you care about them. But since my husband and I have had children, we enjoy celebrating valentines day because it is another day when we can surprise our kids with some fun things. More on the surprises later...

For now, I have a special box to share with you. My youngest daughter was instructed to create a valentines day box for school. I had seen these and even though they are technically called "Tattle Boxes," I thought they would make a cute valentines day monster. After consulting with my daughter, she decided this is what she wanted to do for her v-day box.

Step 1: Gather materials. For this part we used a tissue box, paint brush, acrylic paint, and newspaper. 

Because purple is her favorite color, that's the color she wanted the box to be. We mixed together red and blue to get a purpleish color.

I let her do most of the work. Sometimes I tend to get crazy involved in helping, but this time I knew she would be so proud if she did this on her own.

Step 2: While the paint is drying, gather the materials for the next part. This time we used blue card stock,  a hot glue gun, googily eyes, and plastic thread spools, and newspaper.

Step 3: We turned on the fan and the paint dried pretty quickly. We did a second coat and while that was drying, Little Miss cut teeth out of the blue paper. I'm not sure what prompted her to use blue for the teeth, but that's what she picked...

Step 4: She decided she liked the dots on the example boxes that I showed her from online, so we went with it. Again, I mixed some colors together to get a greenish color. She used a q-tip to dab the dots on the box. 

Step 5: Here is where I stepped in. I used the hot glue gun to attach the googily eyes to the thread spools. Then I used the glue gun to attach the teeth to the box. I thought this part might get tricky, but if you cut the paper into four pieces (at least for my style of box) and then put the glue on the paper instead of trying to put the glue on the inside of the box it goes rather smoothly. Lastly, glue the spools to the box.

It's cute, huh?

To finish it off, she wanted a bow. She was so excited to take it to school on Monday. Unfortunately, Monday we had a blizzard and school was cancelled. However, her box, which she named Melly, made it the next day and was filled with all kinds of fun valentines day goodies.

Dia De Los Muertos

I finished student teaching quite awhile ago. But I've been holding on to this blog post idea since then. I student taught in 2nd grade and it was a blast! I finally feel like I know this is what I was meant to do in life. Once a week, while I was student teaching, we would have art in the classroom. In order to cover more than art during art time I sometimes tried to incorporate social studies as well. This particular week we were learning about Dia De Los Muertos. We watched a few short videos on what the celebration was and how they decorate. I explained that instead of focusing on gory and gruesome, like halloween does sometimes, the skulls and decorations are a symbol of happiness.

For this art project, we used styrofoam plates, the backs of paint brushes, the brush part of the paint brushes, large construction paper, and acrylic paint.

After showing the students different pictures of decorated skulls, they carved skulls on the back side of a foam plate using the back of the paint brush. Next, they painted a thin coat of bright colored paint on the back of the plate. Then, they stamped the plate onto construction paper. They rinsed their plate (we were lucky enough to have a sink in the classroom), dried it, and then painted another color on the plate. They stamped it again and then repeated the process until they had filled up their large construction paper. Then they chose a color to paint their background. After letting them dry, I strung our banners together and hung them in the hallway. I think they turned out great, don't you?