Teacher Black Friday

This morning I had an amazing opportunity. A local nonprofit, Crayons2Calculators, operates a warehouse and invites teachers from Durham public schools to "shop" for free! This weekend, 4 or 5 schools were included on the list.  Everything in the warehouse was labeled with "points," and you had 100 to shop with.

When I arrived, 10 minutes before it opened, there was already a line waiting. Now, I've never done Black Friday, and I fortunately didn't deal with a Wedding Dress Blowout Sale when I got married -- so this was a new experience for me. The warehouse was small and crowded, but hey - free stuff! Ain't nobody nowhere who likes free stuff more than teachers.

I got to stock up on many things I've run out of, thank goodness. I swear to you, my kids must eat pencils and cap erasers. I also got dry erase markers, some paper organizers, poster board, watercolor paints (!), binder clips, markers... all for free.

My FAVORITE find, however, was in the "creative corner." This was an area full of fabric scraps, wallpaper samples, carpet remnants, etc.  All those items were 20 for 1 point. I'm standing there, looking at the stuff, going "there has to be something I could do with this stuff..." when I had a brilliant idea.

My students use individual white boards every day to start off our math lesson. Up until now, we haven't had any erasers for them. The kids use their hands, sleeves (sorry parents!) or paper towels from the sink. I have been asking parents to send in black socks to use as erasers but have not received a response.

A box of small square carpet samples caught my eye in the warehouse, and I thought, "Hey! The kids could TOTALLY use those little carpet squares to erase with!" 20 for 1 point. Sold.

Anyway, I came away with a bunch of free stuff, which is so greatly appreciated. The staff was so nice and friendly, and it was nice to meet teachers from other schools. It seems like such a little thing - pencils and pens and carpet squares - but to teachers who spend hundreds of their own dollars every year, it's such a huge gesture. Thanks so much to Crayons2Calculators, and to everyone who contributes to classrooms.

Early bird special

Had I been a bird, I would definitely have caught a few worms this morning.

Often when I have a lot going on at school, I have trouble getting back to sleep if I wake up in the middle of the night. Today was no exception.

I woke up around 4:30 - one hour before my normal time - and couldn't stop planning and replanning my day. Finally, I just went ahead and got up.

After getting my work done, I went through my usual morning and realized I still had a few spare minutes.

So I hung my masterpieces from this weekend.

I swear, I'm using nothing but foam core art in my house from now on. No picture hangers! Just stick em up with Command strips!

DIY Madness!

I returned to school today after one of the best weekends I've had in a while. Why, you ask? Well...

It was 3 days long. Duh. The Hubs was working the entire weekend, which would normally be a downside, but I really managed to get a lot of things done. One of those things was to take care of some DIY sprucing up of my casa.

First project completion: CORK BOARD!

I have been collecting wine corks for years - both from our own imbibing and from friends and restaurants. I began working on this cork board in July before I started work. It has sporadically been added to until I finally finished it this weekend!

I used hot glue to arrange the corks onto plywood. We will at some point figure out how to get it onto the wall behind our bar. And fun fact! Not all corks are the same size, or even close - it makes fitting them together super fun. Trust me.

Project completion #2: DIY ART!

Hubs and I are renting a fantastic old house that we love.  There are high ceilings, wood floors, and lots of character. However, it's taken us a while to get everything looking like real adults live there. Our upstairs hall has this long wall that was just begging for something on it. The problem is that anything that fits a 14-foot-long wall is expensive. I hatched the idea recently (thank you, Pinterest!) to make a series of pieces myself. Downside: I lack any real talent for painting or drawing.

So I decided to create some abstract art reminiscent of Piet Mondrian, whose work I have always found really interesting (and useful in teaching math -- more on that later!). I decided to create a series of five pieces using horizontal and vertical lines and blocks of color. I measured and taped the lines to make sure they were perfectly straight.

I went with blue and yellow because it's one of my favorite color combinations.

I created lines of different widths - 1/4, 1/2, and 3/4 inches, depending on what I felt like. It was really fun planning out where the lines would go! Plus I find painting therapeutic, particularly if it's just filling in a rectangle with a solid color.

By the end of the evening, I had a five-piece series of Mondrian-inspired art. Since I used foam board instead of canvas, everything all together cost about $35. Not bad!!

Looking forward to putting them up on our hall wall tonight and making my house a little homier. I highly recommend doing something a little different when you have some extra time - it's the best pick-me-up I've had in a while.