Introductions and Birthday Treats!

Hello, all! My name is Meredith. I live in Utah, and I teach fifth grade. This will be my second year in Utah and my fourth year teaching. I really love this age group because of their independence, their great senses of humor, and the leadership potential I get to foster in them. It is a dream come true to teach this age group. I truly feel blessed and honored to do what I do everyday. It's not all rainbows and sunshine. Somedays it's a struggle to make it to 3:30 with everyone alive and in one piece, but I have no idea what else I would be doing!

I have been wanting to start a teaching blog for a while now, and today is the day it gets started! I love to share my ideas or my variations on others' ideas or just other people's ideas. I also wanted to start this blog because I use Whole Brain Teaching in my classroom management. This summer I joined their book club, and it has been FABULOUS! I highly recommend purchasing the book and going through the club yourself. I have been using WBT for two years, and after going through the book study I am excited to incorporate more WBT into my classroom this year. After I receive a certain amount of points, my blog posts and the number of followers I gain help to aid in certification points, hence another reason for wanting to start a blog.

Well, now that the introductions are out of the way, I wanted to share with you my variation on several ideas found on Pinterest. Oh, Pinterest! What would we do without you?

This cost very little and took about 30 minutes to complete. Here we go!

First of all, I am terrible with birthdays. Every year on the first day of school, we play the birthday line up game. No one is allowed to talk, but they have to line up in birthdate order, January-December. It's always a big hit. I learned the game at a classroom management workshop, and the ladies who ran the workshop made this game so fun! They taught us to make a personal connection with each child's birthday to help them feel special. For example, "You're birthday is on the 26th of March? That's two days before my sister's! November 24th? No way! That's my dad's AND my dog's birthday!" And, when two kids have the same birthday, yell out, "Birthday buddies!" Hand them a silly prize like a pencil or something.

So, every year we play this game. Then I write their birthday on a birthday poster, and.........that's it. I ALWAYS forget their birthdays. And sure, I know you're thinking, "Why don't you write yourself a reminder in your planner?" Because that's too easy, okay? It makes way too much sense. But, bless Pinterest, people have posted these birthday treats they make at the beginning of the year. A kid shows up, it's their birthday, hand them a treat. DONE! There are several variations with crazy straws, pencils,  sugar straws, etc. I went with what the Dollar Store had, which were crazy straws.

Materials:
30 crazy straws
32 party blowouts (shown below)
birthday wrapping paper
birthday ribbon
clean jar
Mod Podge
brush for the Mod Podge
scissors
newspaper to cover the table

The "Krazy" Straws, excuse me, come in packs of six.

The party blowouts come in packs of eight. (Father of the Bride reference, anyone?)

I took the paper off of the blowout and swiveled it onto each of the crazy straws. Done!

I tore the wrapping paper into small sections and Mod Podged them onto a clean spaghetti sauce jar. I'm sorry I didn't take pictures of that process, but I thought it was pretty self explanatory. I also could have chosen neater sections of the birthday paper, but I personally like the ripped, thrown together look.

I also used the Mod Podge to glue the ribbon exactly into place.

 All done! Ready for the birthdays of my new little friends.

Thanks for looking! I hope to add more ideas every week. Please follow me if you like what you see. And remember....

http://www.keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk/p/keep-calm-because-5th-grade-rocks-6/