Monday Made It - Bucket Seats

Bucket Seats With Mrs. Labrasciano

Materials for Bucket Seats
Add in staple gun and sponge brush.

 I love making bucket seats to go under my guided reading table.  They are simple to make, have great storage and if you do it right, you can use recycled products.  It takes about an hour to make a seat.

The first thing that you will need to do is take scrap paper and mod podge it to the bucket.  I like to use a nice layer of mod podge to make the bucket durable for the classroom.  After you glue it to the bucket, use a scraper and roller to get out all of the air.  Once you are done putting the paper on the bucket you should give the bucket 3 coats of mod podge.  Make sure that you let it dry in between layers.

After you have covered the bucket, you will need to make the seat.  You will need to cut cardboard and foam to fit the circle on top of the seat.  Lay the circles on the fabric.  Staple the fabric as shown above.

 After you have the seat covered, use spray adhesive to coat the top of the bucket.  You can then push the cushion down.  I used scrap fabric to embellish the handles.  Just tie the scraps on.

Bucket Seats With Mrs. Labrasciano

Tips and Tricks For Back To School

This week's tips and tricks comes to us from Coast To Coast Kinder.  They are going to tell you all about center rotations! I can't wait to see what they have to say.

High/Low Linky Party with A First For Everything

So I'm teaming up with one of my favorite bloggers A First For Everything to show you the highs and lows of my week.  It's still the summertime here so they aren't school related, but you'll get a little peak into my life.

I just got back from vacationing with two of my girlfriends and their families.  The high is that we are all still talking! Seriously though, we went to North Carolina and camped in the mountains.  It was one of the most beautiful locations that I have stayed in.  This image was our front yard for the week.

All three of my daughters had celebrations in their sports this week.  My youngest added her black stripe to her green belt in Tae Kwon Do.  My middle daughter made the competitive gymnastics team. Last but certainly not least, my oldest got her green belt. This means mom and dad are going to be BUSY this coming year.  The girls will be preparing for their black belts by going to competitions.  Not to mention the traveling for gymnastics.

When we were setting up camp and taking down camp, the only two storms of the week blew in.  We had no choice but to stand in the rain and lightning to save what we could and keep the kids safe in the tents.

My youngest took a spill and kept complaining about her foot.  At first I told her to just take it easy, ice it and it would get better.  Then after a couple of days she was still complaining and there was a strange sort of swelling. So I took her to the doctor's office for an x-ray (of course in another thunderstorm).  The x-ray showed no fracture. Thank God! The doc said if it still hurts in a few days to come back for an MRI to see if there is damage that the x-ray couldn't show. We are a "suck it up and move on" kind of family, so here's hoping that next weeks low isn't a leg in a cast!

Florida Teacher Blog Hop - Come Learn More About Why I LOVE My Vacation State!

Welcome to the Sunshine State! Enjoy yourself as you take a tour around our wonderful {and large!} state! Grab some freebies along the way, and be sure to enter to win our Bundles of Sunshine!

I am a Floridian.  Everyone who knows me is well aware of how much I LOVE my #vacationstate.  By technicality I was not born in Florida, I was born in Washington State.  I moved back to Florida when I was just 2 months old.  That's right.  My parents lived in Orlando until my father was shipped out to Washington State.  My mother went to join him for my birth and then brought me back when I was a newborn.  I consider myself a Floridian by birth (even if it's complicated.)

I have lived all over the state.  Currently I live in the Brandon/Valrico area.  It's a tiny little residential area without a ton of stuff to do.

The words "Summertime and the living is easy" come to mind when I think of our sleepy little town.  It's quiet and easy going.  Not much stress over traffic or rushing around.  In our area we have a lot of crops.  Everyone loves strawberry season here.  We share a border with Plant City.  Chances are that you have enjoyed some of our wonderful strawberries.

If you aren't picking strawberries you could enjoy a lovely horseback ride.  There are plenty of stables to choose from.

My family loves kayaking.  While we prefer to kayak in the gulf, you could kayak down the Alafia  River.  It's a huge river with lots of wildlife to see.

Just 45 minutes to 1 and 1/2 hours west of us are a ton of beautiful beaches that are on our gulf.  Some of these beaches are voted in the top 10 in the U.S.A. If we go to the beach during the summer, we go at sunrise or sunset.  It gets a little hot here in Florida at the peak of the day.

I hope that you have enjoyed learning about where I'm from.  If you are ever in the area, make sure to stop by.

This weekend, we have freebies for you to enjoy! Stop by each of our blogs for an activity or idea to use in your classroom. To grab my freebie just click the image below!

This freebie will take you through my frugal guide for setting up your classroom.  There are also labels that are included.  To celebrate this beautiful state, I have discounted one of my top selling items.  If you are a first grade teacher  the following item will help you get started on your year.  (Not to mention that it will help you to get through a lot of your year!)  The first grade Common Core Bundle has lesson plans, graphic organizers, materials and anchor chart guides to help you through the entire 1st grade ELA fiction and informational standards.

The Florida teachers below have two fantastic giveaways for you! You can enter once from each one of our pages. All you have to do is follow my blog! Hop around to all the blogs listed below, and be sure to follow them to get more entries. The more entries you have, the more likely you are to win! Each pack also includes a Starbucks gift card (because, well, a teacher's gotta have a coffee!).

a Rafflecopter giveaway

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Come find out more about the beautiful state of Florida by reading about these other sweet teachers!

An InLinkz Link-up

A big thank you goes to Meredith from Creativity To The Core for putting this together!

What's Under Your Cape? A Character Book Study Chapter 5- R Is ForRespect

What's Under Your Cape?

Earlier in the summer I stumbled upon an author by the name of Barbara Gruener.  She had recently written a book titled, ""What's Under Your Cape?"  Every teacher that spoke about the book had nothing but wonderful things to say. So I decided to order the book directly from her website.  When it arrived I was delighted to find that she had autographed it for me. How nice was that?  I was immediately drawn in by her first hand accounts of how different character building worked for her children, students and community. I could relate to her book because she wrote from the perspective of a mom and educator (counselor).  The bonus was that the book is a quick read which means that you can implement it in your class immediately.

Shortly after reading the book I was lucky enough to join a book study.  Today I'll be referencing chapter 5 along with Tiffani from Time 4 Kindergarten.  One of my favorite topics, R-E-S-P-E-C-T! My favorite mantra that Ms. Gruener quotes is, "May I be treated tomorrow how I treated people today." This is a concept that seems integral to a society that works well together.  She is quick to point out that we can't expect children to understand the abstract view of respect without showing them concrete behaviors that go along with respect.  The book also details a picture book, song and activities to accompany teaching children about respect. It then goes into how bullying goes hand in hand with disrespect.  Respecting others means that children will not turn into bullies.  In a perfect world everyone would live this concept.  So you will have to read the book to get her suggestions, but I am going to offer some resources from youtube to accompany the book.

Video On Respect

Song About Respect

Defining Respect

I recently blogged about using character education bracelets to help turn the abstract learning of character traits into concrete tangible learning.  Click the picture for the post.

If you missed the beginning of the book study, you can click here:

To get to the next chapter click here:

Be sure to check out Tiffani's post on Chapter 5 here:

Primary Peeps - Back to School Tips and Tools for the Greatest School Year Ever!

Welcome to another week of Tips and Tools by the Primary Peeps.  This week's featured blogger is a good friend of mine, Marissa from The Inspired Owl's Corner.  Let me tell you what I LOVE about Marissa... She makes the cutest things.  This week her post really resonated with me.  If you have been following me, you know that I had a super tough year last year.  Well this coming year I'm moving back to my dream position in 2nd grade and working with a partner who I respect so much that she taught two of my kids.

Rag Wreath

I am bound and determined to make this the greatest school year ever! Then along comes Marissa who shares the cutest "Greatest School Year Ever!" printables with us for free. So here's what I did with them:  I stuck her cover page in my rag wreath .

Greatest School Year Ever! Free Bookmarks

Then my cutie pie helped me cut out bookmarks for my new students.  How adorable are these? (I know she's holding the scissors wrong.  Oh well.)  Let's think about this for a minute... How powerful will it be if we tell the students when they walk in that this is going to be the greatest school year ever?

Greatest School Year Ever! Free Bookmarks

Tips and Tools for The Greatest School Year Ever

Primary Peeps