First Day of School

Tomorrow is the first day of school. This year I am teaching a 4th/5th grade combination class. It has been a little stressful trying to get ready for this school year because I still don't have all of my fifth grade curriculum. I am hoping that when I show up at school tomorrow, everything will be in my classroom and be ready to go (but I won't hold my breath). I have been reading things online about how different people handle teaching combo classes, I have also been looking for books about how to, but it doesn't seem like there is very much out there on combo classes. So, I thought I would blog about things that have been successful and things that maybe didn't turn out as good as I had planned (Who knows maybe someday I can turn my blogs into a successful book that could really help some teachers out?). If anyone else out there has some helpful hints or ideas to contribute it would be very appreciated.

So far the biggest thing for me is organization. I have 4th grade curriculum in one area on my back counter. The 5th grade curriculum is right next to it. Having the two curriculums right next to each other really helps. I also ended up buying two Lesson Plan books. I tried to cram everything into one book, but the sections that they give you just aren't big enough to fit two grade levels in.

Wish me luck! I will keep everyone updated on the latest and greatest combo class!

Nicole

Home Sweet Home Garland

A friend of mine just moved into a new house and he invited me over to come see it. As you can tell from reading my previous blogs, I am totally into making garlands right now. So, I decided to make him and his family a home sweet home garland to put somewhere in their house. I hope they like it!

Lair Garland for Ashli

It is definitely feeling like summer here in Chico!!! It is super hot outside which means scrapbooking inside the air conditioned house! I made this garland for my sister, who is working at the Lair of the Golden Bear. We have been going to this family camp since she was only a couple of months old. I used to be a staffer there (for three summers), my brother staffed there (even if it was only for a couple of weeks), and now she is staffing there (this is her second summer). I thought that when I go to visit her I would bring her a little "I Miss You" present. I hope she likes it!

Lair of the Golden Bear, Lair of the Bear, The Lair, Camp Blue, Silly Camp (it has several names and nicknames)

The name of the tent that she lives in all summer is "Stairway"

I am going to make 2 more garlands for her friends that are also staffing there this summer. I thought it would be cute to make all of them with similar color schemes, so I decided a cute little tag on the end of the garland would help differentiate between all of them!
This is what it looks like on my bookshelf! I think it turned out super cute! I can't wait to get some pictures on it for her :)

Here is a view with some of the tags sticking out!

Day 106: Fun With Fabric...with a twist

Stamp an image on patterned fabric and incorporate it into your card. I used to sew when I was in 4-H (a long time ago). Luckily, I still had my sewing basket with a couple of scraps of fabric. Out of the small amount of choices I had to choose from, I chose the green and white ginham fabric. On it I stamped, "Many Thanks." On the stamped image, of course, I added a cute light green button. Underneath the fabric I added a cute green a white polk-a-dot ribbon to contrast the fabric. The paper I used was from "GRENN STACK" which was a stack of paper from Michael's. My card today is very simple, but if you have followed my blogs you will notice that I like simple. :)

Summer Camp Garland

I used to make Scrapbook Garlands all the time. I was super bored today and decided I wanted to scrapbook something. I came up with super cute Summer Camp Garland. I was trying to think of someone that I could give this to...I decided that I would give it to a family friend's daughter. We all go to this family summer camp, called The Lair of the Golden Bear (a Cal Alumni Family Camp). I decided to personalize it a little bit by putting her name on it and what age group she will be in this year. I used paper from "GREEN STACK" from Michaels. I think it turned out pretty cute and I cannot wait to get to camp to take some pictures of her to add to the garland.

Day 105: Super Sketchy Sunday

Here is the sketch for this week and here is my take on it! I love hoe it turned out, so cute!

I cannot wait to give my friend this card :)

Day 104: Life's a Party

The challenge is to use the word 'party' somewhere on your card.


I used my Life is a Beach Cricut Cartridge to cut out this adorable party saying with the pineapple drink. I think it turned out super cute and I love the colors on this card!