Amazing Holiday & DIY classroom ornaments- Just saying!

Hey there! Again it's taking me way too long to post.  It's not because posting has not been on my mind but quite the opposite.  I have been so involved in our school's craft fair and now I'm on to obsessive over my classroom observation.  I have no idea why I thought it would be a great to schedule both within 7 days (actually withing 5 days) but apparently I am a glutton for punishment.  I guess maybe I could go for the sympathy vote??? Who knows.

Anyway- during this whole craft fair process I have become acquainted with so many cute ideas to do in the classroom.  I would LOVE to do all of these but being a travelling teacher I rarely have time for one craft a year.

The first little nugget I found is something that I am actually doing in my daughters classroom on Friday (yes can I squeeze one more thing in??)

Hand print snowman   

In an ideal world I would LOVE to do this! A variation would be to use magnets- Just something a little different.  

Bottlecap snowman

This cutie pie is made with dried glue! 

Glue snowman

Keeping this one a large photo because shortening it would not do it justice! 

snowman keys

All of these are so adorable and fairly easy to make.  I love being able to have students bring in items from home to make their craft.  It just shows them that a craft can be made from anything.  They don't have to make a special trip to the local big box store to make something cool.  

PS- As far as my awesome holiday- I HAVE to share that I have been starting to use Ebates and have been getting back $ hand over fist! Seriously.  Just got back $20. on my last shopping order.   Here is my referral link if you are interested.  Takes 10 seconds to sign up and you can shop at all your normal stores.  

Sign up for Ebates here!

Classroom ideas on a budget

I have been looking for inexpensive ways to make classrooms easier to manage.  I found a few but any suggestions would be helpful.  

Bookmark for interactive notebooks! What a quick and simple solution.  A lot of this kind of ribbon can be found at yard sales and who wouldn't like cool duct tape.  Students can even assemble this themselves.  Wish I knew this when I taught fourth grade.  Totally loved waiting forever for students to find the next page- NOT! 

How many times have I had to fix those tags on the classroom mailboxes.   What a great idea to use binder clips to identify who belongs to which slot.  I also had students who used to get confused as to which box was theirs- The one above or below the clip.  I may add an arrow just to show which box.  

 

Cute and inexpensive way to have students match upper and lower case letters.  This would make an awesome center activity.  You can also use this for addition/subtraction facts.  

Okay so I have pinned this several times.  Totally LOVE this idea! 

Stops the line from forming over and over again. 

I LOVE these little cups! Can't wait until the end of summer when I can get some in plastic! I use these for sight word practice all the time.  This is a cute activity involving the bear.  I usually just write the sight word on the bottom of the cup and allow the student to read them off.  For every one they get right they get to hold the cup.  Afterward they make a pyramid with the words they know.