kitchen rake

I went to my hometown of Eden, Texas this weekend.  I leisurely stopped at every antique shop and garage sale that I saw until I ran out of money!  I have seen a rake head like this used for various things.  I love this to just display vintage kitchen things!  Looks great in my kitchen.

Plastic jack-o-lantern creations

My great painting  friends in Amarillo inspired me to decoupage and decorate these plastic Halloween buckets ($1 at Walmart)!  The scarecrow is covered in brown paper bags and patches of burlap,  The Chef is covered in a 1948 cookbook.  The owl is a worldly owl, covered in maps.  The nose and mouth of the chef and the circles around the owl's eyes were molded with KwikWood.  That stuff always amazes me!  Just a little glue and a little imagination and these creations were created.  I hope these inspire you to create your own!

old window pane transformed

Look at what I got with my Christmas money!!!  I took my daughter antique shopping for her birthday.  She didn't find anything, but I did.  This was just a plain window pane.  I went through my hardware stash and found these antique key plates and added them to the pane.  I backed the window with burlap and hung a iron hook at the bottom.  My favorite part was adding my 6 grandchildren, one for each pane.  It greets my visitors as they enter my front door.

This is my Christmas centerpiece.  I love to collect enamelware.  This tray is old enamelware.  Next I added deer horns from sheds from our ranch.  I have had the pinecones for YEARS.  I added berries from Michaels.  The candles were made with jars wrapped in jute for the bottoms and a small, clear glass plate that I glued Christmas tissue paper to the back of.  I had all of it at home except the candles that I bought at Dollar Tree and wrapped with jute..

Church song candle holder/vase

Music is from an old song book. I added the fish that I painted black and attached with jute.

Christmas bottles for candle holder or vase

Simple wine or beer bottles made into Christmas gifts.  Glue, jute, yarn, Christmas songs, paint, ornaments, and stencils are all you need.

magnets

Buy clear jewels at Dollar Tree.  Glue small pictures on back (this was scrapbook paper).  Stick on magnets.  Great gift.

Johnny Appleseed

If you have ever visited my room, you know that I am "The Apple Teacher".  September 26th is Johnny Appleseed's birthday, so we had a week of celebration!  So many of our activities fit right in with our units of study in each subject area.  Following is just some of what we did.  I forgot my phone at home one day and didn't get pictures that day.

We had real apples to cut into and explore the parts of the apple.  Great new vocabulary was introduced to the students, like flesh and core.



 We are going to watch decomposition of an apple.  Here is what the apple looked like one day after we explored the parts of the apple.

 In science, we used a balance and cubes to measure how much mass an apple has.

 



 Our writing for this week was about apples.  Before we do writing, we make a circle map (not shown here), a tree map (the picture below), then I demonstrate (picture above) exactly how to use those two resources to write a story.

 Each week, we read a big book together as a group each day to help students learn how to read.   Of course, our story had to be about apples!

 If you notice in my newsletter, a poem is read every day.  You can see the work we did on rhyming words, spelling words, and beginning and ending blends.

 For an added bonus for science, we predicted if an apple would sink or float in water.  Then, we conducted our experiment.  The apple floated!  Remember apple bobbing games?

 

 

We used a string and cubes to see how many cubes around the apple measured.  We stacked cubes to see how tall the apple was.  Lots of science and math mixed together in these activities.  The picture above is a recording of information (data) from their findings.



Live Love Laugh

This was made for a very special friend.  Here's cheers to you.

David Goes to School

My students are wild about David Books.  For the beginning of school, David Goes to School,  is a favorite.   The book is also a good way to reinforce school rules.  The picture shows what our bulletin board looks like.