Rustoleum Door Handles-DIY

Guys. I leave for Zambia TODAY. In less than 7 hours, the mister and I will be on our merry way to Dubai, where we will stay overnight, and then onto Lusaka the following morning (which will be Sunday already!) But, before we go, I wanted to show off my latest DIY in the Gomez house. I know it's not teaching-related, but part of being a teacher is taking full advantage of summer time--which for me means updating our house!

One thing I have always hated about this house is gold EVERYTHING. The faucets are all gold, door handles, toilet paper rolls, towel racks, mirror edges, you name it... GOLD. It is so very '92. After more than two years in the house, I have finally started to do something about it.

Obviously, it costs a fortune to replace all of those things with more updated versions. Being a teacher, I don't exactly have a fortune to spend! So I gave Rustoleum a try. I have read online that it is pretty durable, inexpensive, and looks good to boot. 

 Here is a "before" shot. See how awful they were? Not only were they gold, they were all scratched, and whoever painted the door got paint all over the handles.

The process was pretty easy. I just took out the handles, sanded them down (that was the worst part), stuck them in this little flower holder from Joanne's, and gave them about 2-3 coats of Rustoleum (I used he Oil Rubbed Bronze color). I only had to wait around 30 minutes for each layer to dry. 

 

As you can see, I did it in our garage. A garage in Texas summertime heat is no joke, even with the door open. But the smell of Rustoleum is so overwhelming that there was no way I could do it inside.

Anyway, here is the finished product:

I think it's a huge improvement. It's hard to tell, but it has this interesting matte-but-shiny-at-the-same-time finish. I only had time to do the handles on all of the downstairs doors. When we come back, I will do the upstairs door handles, as well as all of the toilet paper holders and towel racks. If I'm feeling very brave, I might even try to tape our glass shower up and do all of the edges of that too. Look at me being domestic.

Anyway, thank you for reading. I'm off to wrap my pack in saran wrap:)

Love,

Mrs. G

P.S. I will report back in a few months on how durable they actually are!

Reading Comprehension

Hubs and I are leaving for Zambia in 5 days!!! I can't believe it's almost here! In anticipation of not being around a computer for 2 weeks, I have been a busy bee making everything I think I might need for the beginning of the school year. 

 One of the major things we cover during the first grading period in reading is comprehension. We want our kiddos to be able to identify the characters, setting, problem and solution. We also want them to be able to make connections to what they are reading, and be able to retell the important events. With that in mind, I created some printables that would be great to use either in center activities or with small reading groups.

I also created these cute little posters to hang on the wall of our reading corner. I made one for characters (shown below), setting, problem, and solution. I also made posters for the different types of connections that readers can have (text-to-self, text-to-text, and text-to-world.)

So, what do you think? I will probably be adding more to the packet as time goes on, but for now there are 20 worksheets available, along with seven posters. If you would like to see more, please visit my TpT page for the full preview!

Thanks for reading--I'm off to write up our itinerary! AHH!

Writing Center

First things first....

Happy 4th of July!

Now, onto business. My second mission for this summer was to design a meaningful, interactive writing center that I could use all year. I wanted the kids to have a choice in what they wrote, whom they wrote it to, and what form they wrote in. Over the past week, I have created my Ultimate Writing Center. I think it has everything I need for my First Graders to be engaged all year long!

First, I set up different cue cards for them to choose what type of writing they want to do. They can choose from List It, Prompt Me, Letter Writing, Book Making, Poetry, or Write About It.

Once they have chosen the type of writing they want to do, they can choose from the idea cards I have created to help them decide WHAT to write. For each month, I have created three different ideas for them if they are stuck. Of course, they can always choose to wing it and write what they feel like writing!

Here is one of the sets of cards from December.

Here is one of the sets of cards from April.

As you can see, the different months have ideas that are related to events that happen during that month.

In addition to the cue cards, I have also created ALL of the handouts that you will need! Many of these can be used with Lakeshore's Dry Erase Pockets, which will save you lots of copies if you have a limited amount.

 Here are a few more samples. If you are interested in seeing more, please visit my TpT store. I will upload images of my future kids using the station as soon as I have kids to take pictures of!

Thanks for reading!

-Mrs. G

Welcome!

Hello!

I am Mrs. Gomez--welcome to my blog! I have taught Kindergarten in the past, but this year I will be starting an all-new adventure in First Grade!

There were many things that I wanted to make this summer to make my classroom great. My first mission was to create signs to go along with my Reading Buddies. 

Reading Buddies are something that I started last year, thanks to an idea from a friend of mine. The idea was simple: Assign a stuffed animal (I used Beanie Babies) to a reading strategy. When a student got stuck on a word, they tried one of the strategies we had learned while holding the animal that represented the strategy. Here are some of my strategy-animal match ups:

There are many more too! I am excited to have the signs to go along with the animals. I plan to print them on card stock, laminate them, and bind them together. Then I will just put them in a bin with the animals themselves!

My kids last year LOVED these. (I wish I had thought to take pictures of them in use!) I think it really helped the students think about the different strategies they could use to help them solve a word. I think it prevented them from just giving up because they wanted to be able to hold more animals. Now that I am moving into First Grade, I am excited to add more animals/strategies that would be age appropriate for them.

The great thing about these is that they can easily be changed to suit the unique needs of your classroom. If you don't have the exact stuffed animals that I have, you can also get creative with the animal names as well. For example, "Changer, the Chameleon" used to be "Flipper, the Dolphin" until Flipper was tragically taken out of the game (R.I.P., Flipper.)

I put the fully editable powerpoint up in my TpT store for FREE, so you can download it there and edit as you need!

Thanks for reading! Stay tuned for more of my summer work!