Birthday Display Idea *freebie!*

There are so many great ideas out there for posting birthdays in the classroom. For the past few years I have used the birthday cakes from Carson Delosa, but this year I wanted to do something different. Those big honkin' things take up so much room!

Do you want to know how I made it? I put all the directions together for you! Here are some sneak peaks.

This is what I used for materials:

The best part? It takes up very little room. 

It's a FREEBIE for a short time. Check it out! 

Monday Made It - Where we Learn...a Tour of my Room

Monday Made It has never been so satisfying. I'm going to give you a little tour so you can see all the things I've been making!

It's taken fo' evah to get my room close to being done. I finally snapped some shots today. Wanna see?

Ha! That's not my room. That's ME. And this is what our beginning of the year photos looked like. I wish I had looked in the mirror first, because that 'stache is spread really far apart! And check out that gross vein on my color bone. Creepy!

What? 'nough 'staches? Ok, onto the good stuff.

This is my door. Do you like the lime green paint? I do! Because my room is this crazy color I decided to make all of my borders the same color and pattern. I used my Mustache Fun Classroom kit. The boards are for assignment notebooks, jobs and that sort of thing. I made the cursive alphabet, the job chart (which you can hardly see) and the tags for the assignment board.

I have a thing for Albert Einstein. Not a weird sexy thing, but like, a thing. I think he's the cat's pajamas. Even though he is the father of the atomic bomb.

This is clockwise from the last photo. My smartboard is acting up so I'm not very happy with it. It's lucky it made the photo shoot. I would put it in the corner on a stool if I could lift it. The rack below it is my "Hot Reads". Those are the books I read over the summer, and I loved every one. Next to the smartboard are the handsignal posters I created. Next to the clock is our birthday board. Close ups and directions on how I made it will be coming soon!

I ditched my sweet 1940's wooden desk because I'm a "desk hoarder". I never knew my affliction had a diagnoses. When I have a desk with drawers I fill the drawers up with crap until I can't get the drawers open. I went to IKEA and bought a $20 table and put everything I need into organizer drawers.

I feel a B.Y.O.O. comin' on!!

Did you notice the speakers? I have a sweet pair of Rolands because I l-o-o-o-v-e to listen to Pandora.

This is the same corner where my table is, and you can see my small group table. See the organizer drawers behind the chair? The CAFE posters are part of the OWLS classroom kit I designed. The flowers are from my garden. The giant piles of sh!t are from Scholastic. Thanks for the duplicate  triplicate catalogs!

I created two display spaces on the back wall. This one says "How Pinteresting". We are going to use this space to categorize and sort. We will put whatever it is onto posters that look like pinboards. I'm loving this idea! After all, why would we all love Pinterest so much if it wasn't for the fact that we need to sort and categorize because that's how we make sense of the world.

See Albert?

This is the space that holds my classroom library/ The neon bins are all non-fiction. I spent a great deal of my budget on those red baskets, and wouldn't you know I ran out of money without being able to house all of my books in them? The are from Really Good Stuff and they are actually Really Bad Bins. They were expensive and are more cheaply made than the bins in the dollar aisle.

I mean, they look nice from afar. They just don't look $3 apiece nice up close.

I just realized that I forgot to take a photo of the reading area in front of the library. I have an old couch, lots of pillows, and it is college-dorm cool.

This is a little nook that will be a flex space. It will serve as a quiet working area, a small group instruction area, and a computer lab. Our fish Mrs. Smith, Mr. Behnke, Bubbles and Kirby live here, too. The buns will be back here when they return from summer vacation.

I made the crate seats, and they hold our clipboard and other junk.

Almost done! We are back to the door. Our mailboxes are here, stacked on top of two cement blocks painted red. The tub is for box tops. The magnetic boards are cookie sheets, done up with a little Mod Podge. There is one for notes, and the other is our "bathroom/nurse/errand pass". Let's look at it up close.

Each student has a number, and each number is glued to the underside of a flattened glass bead with a magnet on the back. Whenever a kid goes anywhere, they put their number on the corresponding tag. This way I can quickly look and see where all my kiddos are and I will never lose a pass to the toilet again.

That's it! It seems rather small and unimpressive after being chopped up into little photos. But it's really very nice. It will be even sweeter when it's filled with my kiddos on Tuesday.

A big shout out to the following bloggers who have created linky's for showing off our rooms. Thank you!!

Monday Made It

Oooooh, my favorite time of the week! A big shout out to Tara at 4th Grade Frolics her

marvelous Monday Made It linky!

There is a reason everybody is doing them.....

I couldn't resist making birthday pencil toppers. 

Here is what I needed:

• bin ($2.50 Target Dollar Aisle)
• florist foam ($2 Dollar Tree)
• Pencils ($2 Dollar Tree)
• Mod Modge
• tape
• printed and laminated pencil toppers
• printed bin label

Total Cost: $6

1. I Mod Podged the bin label to the front of the bin

2. I glued the florist foam into the bottom of the bin

3. I taped the pencil toppers to the pencils (on the back!)

4. Then I stuck the pencils into the foam, like a bouquet

Voila!

Now I know you are dying with curiosity about the mustache in the frame. It's a singing mustache card. We had given one to my Olivia for her birthday, but she wouldn't give it up to me. I bought my own at Target for a whopping $7. $7 for a card?! Only for a singing mustache would I pay that kind of money. 

I tore the back off the card. Then I put some 'stache scrapping paper in the frame without the glass. A few dabs of glue later and THIS is what my kids will get to play on their birthday (no regular old "happy birthdays" in my room, no sir).

Because I am a happy mustachio I am throwing this out there for free for all my mustachio-ed friends. 

Because, really, who doesn't want to have a Magical Mustache Day?