Well, after a very busy year with implementing our new Wonders Reading series, being very busy with my own family's activities, and with my reassignment to 1st grade, I have decided to discontinue with any more posts in this current location unless I am reassigned again next year to kindergarten.

I am currently working on building my site for first grade.  Here is a link to my new blog

https://sunshineforfirstgrade.wordpress.com

I had thought about closing this blog, but after seeing the page count this month alone, I decided to leave it up.  I enjoyed creating my theme and decorating my kindergarten classroom, and hope that the pictures I leave behind can continue to inspire others.

Respectfully,
Robin

Harvest Fest Auction Items 2013

Here are the two items I am entering for our class for the Silent Auction that will be held at William Holliday on October 18, 2013.  

Pete the Cat Rockin' in Kindergarten Shirt wit Thumbprint hearts of the class

Framed 8x10 class photograph

Classroom Tour (partial) 2013

Here are some snap shots of my classroom this year.....  Email me if you have any questions....

Inspired By Creative Teaching Press Dots on Chocolate:  Birthday bulletin board

Inspired By Creative Teaching Press Dots on Chocolate:  Birthday bulletin board

Inspired By Creative Teaching Press Dots on Chocolate and Paisley on Brown: Back of classroom library at entry door of my classroom.  Wooden sign from Hobby Lobby hung with peg board hooks, elements cut with my Cricut for banner and owl.

Inspired By Creative Teaching Press Dots on Chocolate:  Focus Wall with Common Core Standards.  Pocket charts hold letters we've studied, sight words (printed on Dots on Chocolate name tags), cookie sheet with magnets for lunch sign up, Common Core posters that use binder clips to hold standards for quick exchange, and I CAN statements posted.

Inspired By Creative Teaching Press Dots on Chocolate:  Daily 5 sign up Pizza pans:  created using Jumbo Designer Cut Outs, letters and numbers cut with Cricut, $1 Pizza Pans from Dollar Tree, Ribbon, hung after drilling holes in pizza pan to string ribbon and hung with nails under my old chalk board ledge.

Inspired By Creative Teaching Press Dots on Chocolate:  Daily 5 sign up Pizza pans:  created using Jumbo Designer Cut Outs,  Students have magnets to put on the numbers to sign up for our 3 sessions of Daily 5

Inspired By Creative Teaching Press Dots on Chocolate:  Schedule and Literacy and Math Stations Charts.  I have 2 sets of the students' pictures one for Literacy on left and one for math on the right.  I use the pre-made cards in green and orange to assign tubs/stations.  I'm also using for Daily 5 this year.  I have the schedule cards color coded for in classroom and a different color for outside of the classroom.

Inspired By Creative Teaching Press Dots on Chocolate:  Job Chart.  I use students' pictures and change out the jobs weekly.

Inspired By Creative Teaching Press Dots on Chocolate:  Art Gallery.  When I rearranged some furniture, I was left with this "dead" white space.  If you know me, you know I hate white space!  I decided to create a partial art gallery here.  I used left over fadeless paper and Dots on Chocolate border to create a back drop.   The top hangs from a tack strip, while the bottom is secured with painter's tape.  I then used wooden dowels, 3M hooks that perfectly fit the dowels, and made chalkboards to cover clothes pins I painted to write students' names on and hang art work.

Have you ever seen those cute play kitchens that people pin and make using an old entertainment center?  Well, I thought it would be a good project this summer.  I got this for $25 from am former student of mine.  I started taking it apart before I remembered to take pictures.  It had the two smaller doors shown below and a glass door on the right.  I thought it would be a weekend project, boy was I wrong!  It took me almost a month to complete!

These are the doors I removed from the front.  I lovingly sanded, primed, painted and painted, and painted
and I got......... 

Pinterest Inspired Play Kitchen by Robin Ibel:  complete with mostly recycled materials:  from Salvation Army:  dish rack, microwave rack turned into an oven rack, The Shelter Shop:  Window box and telephone, from our house renovations:  faucet and sprayer with hose, nobs from my father in law's stash, hinges and magnets we reused.  Purchased items:  stainless steel drain covers for burners, a stainless bowl for the sink, fridge and door handles, fridge baskets and a white hook system (on inside left used to hang utensils) from Dollar Tree, reused items from my old playlet:  plastic microwave.  I used a picture from a magazine for window and sewed the curtains from some scrap fabric I had.  

House Keeping station also includes a table I stripped and lovingly restored to match the kitchen, and a set of 3 plastic drawers and baskets for all of our props

Inside the kitchen:  Plenty of storage.  The oven has a stainless rack and is compete with speckles ( which I painted, then painted over, and repainted when my 5 year old became upset when she realized they were no longer there! )

Inspired By Creative Teaching Press Dots on Chocolate:  Word Wall and Book Baskets.  I used a vinyl tree as a focal point on top of the fadeless paper.

Inspired By Creative Teaching Press Dots on Chocolate:  I like the cohesion of these two boards better now that I switched the border to match and the papers to coordinate. 

Pinterest INSPIRED!  I saw another teacher use vinyl circles for dry erase and thought that is awesome, plus I love the pop of color.  I searched for weeks for lime green vinyl to cut, and was about to give up when I came by these babies at JoAnn Fabric and was able to use my coupons!   I also am loving my crate seats still that I made last year.  These ones with the slicker material are keeping up better than the ones I covered in plain fabric.  I also recovered my two chairs to match each other.

Our school-wide theme this year is Star Wars based with "May the Character be With You"  I am going to use this space to keep the stars you see below as they move through the levels.  On the side of this cabinet, I hung 2 sets of those hooks from Dollar Tree to keep my students' name badges and peace keeper necklaces from getting all tangle-y.  

Star Wars Inspired Bulletin Board for Character.  I used foil starts from Party City to hold Lego Star Wars Stickers that I bought, each star has a student's name on it and will be used in the above classroom display once I take this down.

Inspired By Creative Teaching Press Dots on Chocolate: My area....It's tight, but I'm really not here much.  Love my recovered chair!

Inspired By Creative Teaching Press green Chevron:  I was so looking forward to adding some Chevron to my classroom, well....I just couldn't make it work and stick with School Girl's decorating rules, so I used it to cover the insides of my drawer system.  Gotta say, I love it!

Completely Pinterest Inspired...Birthday balloons for my students,. I cut the balloons with my Cricut, printed labels, and taped curly straws and fancy pencils to my balloons and finished off with curly ribbon!  They've been a hit!

Love my real green on my desk!  Hope I can keep it alive all year.  I added a pop of color with this flower I found at Hobby Lobby!

Inspired By Creative Teaching Press:  Ugly, cracked, but well used.

Inspired By Creative Teaching Press and Duct Tape....gave it a little face lift.   

Inspired By Creative Teaching Press Dots on Chocolate:  Teacher Name Banner....my best friend found something like this on Pinterest, and we just had to make them!  I used the Jumbo Designer Pennants and ribbon tied together to create 

Inspired By Creative Teaching Press Dots on Chocolate Jumbo Pennants:  I reused a couple of my mini paper lantern owls from last year to "hold" my pennant

Inspired By Creative Teaching Press Paisley on Chocolate: Desk decorating

My blinds are broken, so to let some sunshine in, I tied all of the blinds in two places across my whole back wall with matching ribbon bows.  So Cute!

My Reading Chair:  my chair got damaged over the summer, and has a hole in one of the arms  :(  So I tried buying a slip cover, but it was too big, I found this very cuddly brown blanket and awesome owl pillow from Bed Bath and Beyond and voila my chair is back to being awesome!

Whole Brain Teaching:  where we start for the year.....

Inspired By Creative Teaching Press Dots on Chocolate Calendar:  updated with Dots on Chocolate calendar, new fadeless paper, and reused the border.  Love it so much more!  

Inspired By Creative Teaching Press Dots on Chocolate:  Rules posters based on Dr. Jean's Rules of the Classroom Rap that I use with my Whole Brain Teaching

Inspired By Creative Teaching Press Classy Chocolate Cards:  Skip counting banner, also money and money poem.  The green pocket chart holds the letter of the week, the sight word of the week, and picture cards for that letter.

Inspired By Creative Teaching Press School Girl Style:  updated my paper lantern owls with green poms and love it!  

Inspired By Creative Teaching Press Dots on Chocolate Mini Pennants:  love love love ribbon!

Word Work storage:  (just some of my gems)  twisty-words from Lake Shore Learning, Versa Tiles for kindergarten, Clipboards for write the room, rice bottles with sight words, popcorn tub with sight words, letters, and number games, magnentic letters and cookie sheets, stamp sets, rings with sight words, letter tiles, chalk boards, dry erase supplies, foam letters, 4 compartment plates I repurposed and repainted for making words, dry erase pockets.....

IKEA book shelves for individual book boxes, tool boxes, larger school supply caddies, basket for practice books and folders.  Each table group has their own book case.

Classroom Door

Pinterest Inspired Project:  I saw these with numbers for birthdays, but thought, why not make a K for kindergarten.  I used a wooden letter, covered it with orange scrapbook paper, then used coordinating colored buttons for my classroom, and some ribbon.  

Ollie from JoAnn Fabrics....Love this little guy...he's hit the floor a few times, but he's still cute!

Inspired By Creative Teaching Press Paisley on Chocolate and school Girl Style:  loved the clipboard remakes, so I thought I would give it a try.  This is the back of my dismissal clipboard.  I used left over letters, paisleys, scrapbook paper and ribbon to decorate my clipboard.  I love it!  I had to sneak some chevron on it!  I'm lucky my name is so short!

We made this as a gift for my daughter's teacher.  I used silk flowers because I know her well.... :)  Peanut butter jar, pencils, glue, ribbon, wooded pre-made star, and voila!  the perfect back to school gift!

Pinterest Inspired jumbo clothes pins:  I made these as gifts for my 3 best friends at school to put on their desks.  We all have green, but I added the colors and ribbon to coordinate with their rooms.  On the other side, I cut out letters to spell their names.  Perfect for holding pictures and notes!

Do you fight this battle?

So, I have a 5 year old with definite opinions on just about everything...she's been that way since the day she was born!  But, at our house, "mommy always wins" and there are rules that help us all keep our sanity.  

As we begin the kindergarten year, our newest battle seems to be clothes (actually we've been fighting that battle since 3 year old pre-k) it comes down to "you can't wear a dress/skirt every day and you're going to have to wear PE shoes. "

As a teacher, I have a hard enough time remembering which special I have which day, let alone keeping track of her schedule too, so we made a note and taped it near her closet that says which days and states no skirts no dresses, voilà, now there will be no argument since she will at least comply with written rules....I wonder how much longer that will work?  Hee hee!  Oh, well!