My friend is a part of this craft group that I rarely get to go to but when I saw this awesome project I had to have a stay at home- craft- date night.

Here's what You need

• Shoes (Flats or canvas ones like these.. with lots of flat areas)
• Old Comic Books
• Exterior Modge Podge
• Varnish (At the very end to not let it stay sticky)
• Time Be patient there is some waiting in between coats of modge podge.
• Black Paint (optional) I outlined mine. Fabric pens may work better.
  

This is my go to comfort food which ties all things delicious. What I love most about this recipe is that I can make it ahead, freeze it, then defrost while I am at work and its just a matter of heating it up and adding some sprinkle cheese. We were on vacation for a few days last week and I knew when we got home we would want something home-cooked. I put the frozen meal in the fridge to slowly defrost. When we got home it was ready to go!

There are o many amazing ways you can do this, but here is how we do it:

We enjoy it with salad. It should potentially serve up to 8.... 6 servings is more realistic in our house.

So this is the second year I have done this project, and the results seem to show a little clearer understanding of what I was asking. Or maybe  I had a little bit of a better understanding of what needed to be relayed to the students. You can see the original post here with instructions and my major mess ups in the lesson. Enjoy!

  This past week we were fortunate enough to be able to help my husbands grandmother in San Diego. I hadn't been since conference, and did get a chance to go to the beach and have dinner in little Italy. Although the majority of our time was spent assisting his grandmother, we did manage to go to my favorite beach.... DOG beach! It was a nice little break from the business of our lives.

Does anyone else do this??! I like to mix it up every year, and have all my units basically done before the semester starts. Obviously there are more units then I have time for... which makes for hard decisions. So many choices!!! It doesn't help that I am behind schedule for creating units!! What do you do?! For some reason the list of lessons below doesn't show up until you click the heading... sorry!

So many choices... so little time!

Many of us, well at least for me teaching Junior High struggle with what to do the first few days. Students are switching in and out of classes, orientation is occurring, different bell schedules for the first few days,so on and so forth. I wasn't planning to use this project this year because I wanted to take Janine Campbell's idea of 'Clay on the First Day' but considering my classroom is under serious construction I would bring this oldie but goody back. I found this lesson on pinterest, but I believe this is the source here.

Below is the worksheet I use to get them to start brainstorming. When they are all done we display them in the office almost like a quilt. They come out really nice and it is nice to get to know the students, their interests, and a little bit about their skill level.

Looks scary, I know. I did bake some cookies and brownies for the contractor and he assures me at least one of my classroom will be ready by July 31st. We report back July 31st. I will be a crazy person but so happy they are working hard. Photos courtesy of my principal. There are actually several more ha ha.

I love my friends dearly, but when they make the comment of "your so lucky, you get summers off!" I want to cringe, and maybe sometimes punch them. At one time this could have been the case, maybe with the "good ol' days" I hear so much about in education, but i missed the memo and was never apart of that...EVER. I look forward to my summers not because of the time off, but the time away from kids so I can focus on beefing up my curriculum, attending conferences, and meeting with people that share the passion for teaching to be that breath of fresh air that so many of us need at the end of the year.

My end of the year ended in me packing my entire classroom for some serious construction that is going to occur. They will be digging trenches, tearing out walls, all new pipes (why they thought glass pipes was good to begin with is beyond me) and putting in flooring and counter tops. This is bittersweet. Of course it is not going as planned and I will not have my room at the beginning of the year, BUT I get new flooring and stainless steel sinks/counter tops. So I am diving into my curriculum planing my first units with little materials. I am also so excited for all of the technology I am implementing in my STEAM cohorts! Below is some pictures of my packed room, and a quote I am learning to live by this summer. I have some great lessons to add in the next few weeks, I need to add some more clay and beginning of the year stuff!!