Monday, February 17, 2014

I'm Ready for Spring!

What a week! We been out of school for five days! We only had about four inches of snow but the nighttime freezing and a holiday today kept us home. I can't believe I'm saying this but wow! I'm so ready to teach for a week straight.

So, we weren't in school for St. Valentine's day but I always have the kids bring in their valentines way early. Filling them out was the homework for last Monday night and they brought them in on Tuesday so they're all sitting at school just waiting for us! Tomorrow seems like a good St. Valentine's day for us!

My fantastic TA had the BEST idea for valentine  holders. She got in touch with a cigar shop and had them hold cigar boxes for us. They gave us over 30 boxes for FREE!! They are beautiful! Some are so pretty we decided not to paint or decorate them and use them for storage around the classroom (dry erase markers, pencils, etc.).

We let each child pick a box. We pulled sticks with their numbers on them to be fair! They sanded them down and we spray painted them gold and silver. They are in the process of decorating them with buttons, beads and colored pasta. It's amazing to see their personalities come out in the way they decorate! Of course, because of the snow it's still a work in progress. We are planning to use bags tomorrow for the valentines and we have re-branded the boxes as "forever boxes" for them to keep all kinds of special items in.

I heard one cutie say about the Fruit Loop necklace he was currently sucking on "I'm not eating this...I'm just sucking on it because I want to keep it in my forever box!" Of course, we let him know that he might as well eat it because it wasn't going to make it in the box!

Here's a picture of the cigar boxes before we did anything to them. They really are beautiful. Once we get the forever boxes finished I'll post some pictures of them, too!


Wow, when I look at the table I see no fewer than two coffee cups and a Diet Coke tumbler. I might have a problem! :)