Sunday, January 25, 2015

Home Decor

I always go on Pinterest and see photos like this and let out a huge sigh.


Who are these perfect people with perfectly organized, beautiful homes? I seriously want to be them! The major thing I am jealous about (besides all the beautiful furniture that I cannot afford right now) is the fact that everything in the photo is placed strategically and seems to have a perfect spot! I can do that!

I decided to start with my jewelry. I love how Krista from Covering the Bases  displays hers:


I love how the jewelry is showcased instead of stuffed away in a box. I especially love how she stacks books underneath to give the display some height. Here's my attempt:


Obviously, my photo quality is not even remotely close to the one of the previous photo. But you get the idea.

I also love the idea of using drink-ware (like the martini glass) as a storage option for trinkets. I have many "collectible" glasses from breweries, bars, etc. I also have many rogue hair-ties, barrettes, claw-clips, and bobby pins. I corralled them together in this never-used glass alongside my hair products.


I saw this post and decided to revamp my coffee table:
I got the tray and bud vase from Target. The whale coasters were purchased from Open House, which is one of my favorite stores for cute and affordable home decor! Last Christmas, one of my students had given me the tea-candle holder. I never really knew what to do with it, but I feel like it looks great on top of the stack of books!

I actually didn't think I had any books worthy of coffee table status. The only one I knew for sure was appropriate was our engagement photo album (we've just sent the photos in for our wedding album, and I can't wait to stack that baby on the coffee table soon!)

 Ahhh, NYC in the snow. What a magical time!


After looking through some of my cake-decorating books (many of you may know I love to bake, and even had a brief stint working in a bakery before I found my true calling as an educator), I realized the photos in those books were also beautiful to look at! Finally, I found Michelle Phan's book on sale and thought it had some great tips and tricks...not just for putting on make-up, but for being a woman in the modern world! As my friend put it the other night, it is almost like an etiquette book for women of the 21st century. Why wouldn't people want to see that in your home?

I hope you all liked some of my decorating changes! I hope to keep organized and tackle my closet next...wish me luck!

Friday, January 16, 2015

Aaaand We're Back!




For me, it's always a hard adjustment to go from "festive holiday" winter to just plain old winter. Especially because we haven't yet had ONE snow day :(

There's not much to get excited about, so I find ways to make it interesting! One of my new winter faves is the salted caramel hot chocolate from Shake Shack! MMMMM!

It's been a little over a week since returning from winter break. After such a long, relaxing vacation, I have to admit I was a little hesitant to get back to school. However, once we came back, it was really like we had never left!

The kids were most excited to return to our block area. One of my goals when I switched from a 3rd/4th grade to a 2nd/3rd grade was to integrate more block building into our daily schedule. Back in October, I asked the kids to name the blocks in our block area. We came up with a chart that shows the shape of each block and their name.


After we named the blocks, we put labels on the shelves to designate where each shape goes when it isn't being used in a structure.



On Friday afternoons, the class suggests some ideas for structures they would like to build throughout the following week. We vote, and the top two are the structures that kids can begin building on Monday. As a class, we decided that there should be no more than four children working on each structure (it can get kinda crowded in our block area). At the end of the week, during our morning meeting, the children who built that week share about their experience and answer questions and hear comments from the rest of the group about their structure! It's really awesome!

How do we know which kids are working on the structures? Well, as a class, we came up with the idea to pull eight popsicle sticks (each stick has a classmates' name on it) from a bucket, making sure to omit any popiscle sticks that have names of children who built the previous week. When your name is picked out of the bucket, you can sign up for one of the two structures we voted on.

Here's an example of one structure that was built this week (it's an air-base, FYI):


I'm looking forward to seeing next week's buildings! Happy weekend!



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