What do you do with old crayon pieces?

At the end of the year there are always pieces of crayons left over. I use the old crayons to make new shape crayons. Fill 8oz measuring cups with crayons. Put them on a cookie sheet to prevent spilling the wax all over. Put them in the oven at 375 degrees fahrenheit for 35 minutes.

Remove the crayons from the oven and let them cool to 160 degrees fahrenheit. 

Stir the melted crayons before you pour them into the candy molds.

Pour the melted crayons into the candy molds and let cool. When they are solid, put the molds into the freezer for five minutes. Then, take the candy molds out of the freezer and turn them over on the counter. The crayons will fall right out. 

Here are the finished crayons.

They are so much fun to make and use. I am going to make welcome to school bags with the crayons in them.

Classroom Update

Last Friday, I went up to school to work for a little while and I was pleasantly surprised to find that my bulletin boards were painted and my floor was waxed. Our facilities manager and his assistant did an awesome job on my room. They touched up the paint on the wood work too. 

This is what my room looked like when I got to school.

 Here is the front of the room.

I got to work putting up boarders in the bathrooms. I am hoping to find some cute woodland creature wall decals.

I started putting boarders on all of my bulletin boards.

Here is my room at the end of the day.

Here is the writing wall in the back of the room.

I have more to do, but it is a good start. 

Summer Fun

What do teachers do all summer? Well, I think that most of us work to get ready for next year. My classroom bulletin boards are being painted this summer so I took everything off of them.

I decided that this is going to be a great time to change themes. I have had a frog theme in my room for the past five years. This year I am going to switch to a woodland friends theme. 

 So cute...

Frogs live in the forest too so I can still use my frog alphabet and number line. At the end of last school year, I made Froggy Folders for next year so it is a good thing that frogs work with my new theme. Last week, I sent postcards to each child who will be in my class. 

I also made this cute chalkboard sign for the kids to hold on the first day of school.

Here is my favorite new find. I got a Scotch personal laminator. It is AWESOME! I have used it for school projects and to laminate items at home.