The Destitute Teacher

I am an avid lover of the "free" concept. If not free, then it must be as close to free as possible in order to warm my heart completely. If I can find something that is 'free' AND 'pretty' then I am on cloud nine for several days. These tins really tick my boxes. They are recycled tin cans donated by a commercial kitchen (thank you mummy), covered in the prettiest paper that I can possibly find and then coated in decoupage finish. Marae kitchens are also a great source of the big tins. First, find yourself a collection of empty, clean tin cans. The ones that I use were once 2kg tins of fruit, so there is no staining on the inside.  The 2kg cans are ideal for class or group sets of equipment. However the average family does not eat 2kgs of tinned fruit very often, so also try to collect other sizes- kidney beans, pineapple, condensed milk, and single serve beetroot also make great tins for covering and give a variety of sizes. The labels remove really easi...

Teachers spend ridiculous amounts of money on resources for school. With most resources I just name on the front cover with a black permanent marker, so everyone can see that it is mine at a glance. One particular vice of mine is to purchase beautiful, beautiful picture books. And when I spend all that money on a new picture book I want to keep it in pristine condition and ensure that it comes back to me if it is borrowed. There is something about a bookplate that makes a book really special. Try going to http://www.myhomelibrary.org/bookplates.html for the cutest printable bookplates to put inside your favorite books. The artwork on each book plate is divine, and the plates come in both color and black and white. Happy printing!

I love this website, and not just for the pancakes. I love it for its aboslute, unequivocal awesomeness (I hope I used 'unequivocal' correctly, i've always wanted to use it in a sentence). www.mrspancake.com , home of the most beautiful printables you can possibly find on the internets. And they are free (although the website creators do accept kind donations). Fire up the color printer and the laminator people, because you are going to be here a while.

Easter is really really close now and I am getting extremely excited. It could be the crazy sugar highs that are hitting me in that direction, but I think that it is mainly the Easter sales that I get excited about (and the copious amounts of chocolate, but that is another blog altogether). Last year in the Easter sales I picked up an Easter egg mould for $1 from Spotlight. Totally exciting, this bad boy means I can mould 12 (half) eggs at a time. So as we approached Easter this year I started wracking my brain for a little moulded craft idea for my class to complete. I came up with Easter plaster of paris magnets.   Having only one mould and 25 students, I decided that I would mould and dry the eggs myself. This turns the activity into a definite craft rather than art activity, but was very managable and easy to complete in a short space of time. I also wanted the magnets to be an Easter gift to my students, rather than several weeks of tedious work. I made up 31 eggs, which ga...