The Destitute Teacher

I am slowly working my way through a massive backlog of posts that I have photographed and never done anything with.... Last year I made myself a vow that I would try and MAKE each of my students a little Christmas gift for them each at the end of the year. After much to-ing and fro-ing, I decided on CROCHET gifts, as there had been a wooly theme in the classroom. I found a super cute and super easy pattern for crochet monsters here . They work up quickly and it was a relatively painless process to make 21 of the little darlings. I started during the Term 3 holidays and gradually picked at the project. These little monsters were packaged up with a 3B1 notebook (which I bulk buy in the stationery sales at the start of the year... 5 cents each!), a pencil, and an eraser. The kids loved receiving them almost as much as I loved making and giving them. I also put together a simple theme for the chocolate gifts I gave to teacher aides, co-workers etc.... brown paper, twine and a little c...

Although this post is has "St Patricks Day" in the title, the content is totally adaptable to any themed holiday or occasion- as you will soon see! In NZ, Valentines Day occurs fairly quick into the school year. I usually take the opportunity to pop some Valentines themed board games into the Math group boxes for the children to play as part of their rotation tasks. Last year I made up a set of 'tic tac toe' for each group box. The sets had a coloured game board (glued onto card) and 6 felt hearts of one colour, 6 of another colour. I am slightly embarrassed to admit that I forgot about the games, and they were in the group boxes for the entire year. However, am excited that every set survived! I credit it to the fact that each heart was a double layer of felt blanket stitched together- very durable. However, this year I was less organised and just cut out single layered felt hearts. My plan is to stitch them together before next Valentines Day. No doubt it w...

I make it my personal mission to make sure that craft projects are completed to commemorate all possible occasions in my classroom. We celebrated Mothers Day on the 8th of May this year in NZ, and this was the perfect time to craft our little hearts out. Mothers Day crafts have two pre-requisites: 1. They must look homemade 2. They must be darned cute. I found this craft somewhere on the internet. I am sure it was www.activityvillage.co.uk, but I can't find the link anywhere. If this is your original craft idea, please leave a link to the reference in the comments section! This photo frame is cute as a button, costs very little and is perfect for recycling jigsaw puzzles that are missing pieces. Note: the little scrap of paper says "I love you to pieces".... so, so, so cute! First, take your popsicle sticks. Each student will need four popsicle sticks to make the frame for their photograph. Lay them out so they make a square (or other shape), and hot glue at the co...