Crafting, Cooking, and Writing

Hello all! This is my last Monday Made It in the USA for a while :( I go back to Italy on Wednesday! I'm definitely feeling a mix of excitement and sadness to be heading back to a place I love, but leaving the people I love. This week, I did a little crafting, a little writing, and cooked a tasty (maybe...) Greek meal for my family!

I don't know if you've read it yet, but if you haven't you should! "What Do You Do With An Idea," by Kobi Yamada, is one of my new favorite children's books! It's so beautiful, and I can't wait to share it with my class! The book tells the journey of a child who has an idea (embodied as a cute little egg), and though he tries to ignore it, the idea follows him all around. He's nervous to share it with others, but nurtures and cares for his idea. Eventually, his idea colors his world, spreads its wings, and takes off. He discovers what you do with an idea, but I'm not going to tell you because the last line of the book brought me to tears and I want you to have the same experience :)

Anyway, I was so excited when I bought it that I read it aloud to my mom as we drove home. I couldn't decide when to share it with my class! First day? As an introduction to Writer's Workshop? When talking about being brave with our ideas when sharing them with the class? Before starting Genius Hour? If we do our Invention Convention this year, as an introduction to that? I decided I'll use it all throughout! My mom and I came up with a thousand fabulous ideas just discussing the book, and here is my favorite: 

Isn't it darling!?!? They still need to be jazzed up a little. I think I'm going to mount them on bottle caps and maybe do some green scrapbook paper along the bottom to be grass. I might change the crown size and add a little sparkle too :) The plan is that for the day or so before reading the book for the first time, one of these little guys is going to be sitting out on my desk. Whenever a kid asks what they are (because you know they will), I'll respond with something like, "Oh, just a little idea, I'll tell you about it later," or, "Just an idea I have..." After reading the book, the "Ideas" will end up being desk buddies for the day for kids who have a fabulous, out-of-the-box idea, who bravely share their plans and ideas, or who make amazing connections. For example, during our Processes that Shape the Earth unit last year, my student from Indonesia, as we're discussing plate tectonics, says, "Ohhhh, we probably get a lot of tsunamis in Indonesia because we're part on the Indo-Australia plate, but also on the Eurasia plate." DING DING DING!!!! I was so excited by his fabulous thinking, and that would have been hugely deserving of a Idea desk buddy for the day. I think that they're going to be tough to earn, but everyone will have ideas that are deserving :)

I've jumped aboard the Washi Tape bandwagon and can't be stopped. 

Oh my gosh, I'm obsessed. I bought tons for my two new Erin Condren planners (yayyyy! They arrived!!), but have used it on all sorts of things. I'm planning an herb garden for my brand new apartment, so I made little chalkboard tags with wash tape posts to label each plant, and I've been decorating my binder clips... yes, I'm that obsessed.

Can't wait to set up my garden!

I'm on a journey to Domestic Goddess-hood, and part of it is attempting to become a fabulous chef. 

Right now, pretty much all I can make is pasta salad, but I took a cooking class in Greece and learned to make a few things. The other night I tried them out on my family! Greek salad, tomato fritters with tzitziki, turkey feta burgers, and stuffed grape leaves... I'm pretty proud of myself!! You can read more and find recipes if you want on my other blog :) (The picture is actually from the first time I tried making these- I didn't take any cooking pictures! Oops!)

Finally, my fourth Made It, which is more of a "wrote it" than a "made it." 

I love writing, and keeping my personal blog, Adventure in the Great Wide Somewhere (I love Disney) is very therapeutic for me. I love looking back at where I've been, and adding to/crossing off my bucket list! My only real complaint about life in Italy is that I feel dumb a lot; I can't be as independent as I'd like, and I don't know how to take care of things the way I would here. So when my internet went out last Thanksgiving, and my landlady said she didn't want to renew it since I'd be moving out in July (!!!), I just accepted it (angrily) and went without. It was hard not being able to skype my family from my apartment, but I also got very behind on blogging. Anyways, I've been trying to update this week and have a few new posts if you're interested (so far, A Series of Firsts in Cervinia, and Switching from Mozzarella to Feta)!!

'Tis the Season! (to cover your classroom with glitter)

Tis the season to get crafty!

How do you spend the last day of school before winter break? Many students leave a few days early, and the ones who stay are so excited they can hardly contain themselves. The fourth grade team decided to hold Pajama Day that Thursday as a way to celebrate the hard work we'd been doing in our realistic fiction writing unit. Thursdays are my favorite days because our only special is Italian (we have Italian every morning, and I have one or two other specials on each other day) and I feel like I am able to teach so much more. I prepared myself for stress and craziness, and yes, there was some intense craziness, but it was actually one of my favorite days of teaching I've ever had! It was a wonderful day of bonding, sweetness, holiday-spirit, and tons of glitter. Here are the three crafts we did throughout the day: 

Decoupage Candle Holders

She's very focused on her candy-cane inspired jar!

I grew up with decoupage, but most of my students had never seen it! I found a market-type store in the city that sold little jars and bought one for each student, then went on a tissue paper hunt around school. We used Elmer's Glue instead of Modgepodge as a sealer. Most chose to do either light blue and white for a snowflake effect, red and green, or red and white. I found a huge bag of tea-lights as well to add in the end. Once our jars were dry, we glittered the jars to pieces! They ended up beautiful and so unique! I love how our jars turned out, and hopefully my students will enjoy giving them as gifts!

Glitter everywhere!

They're very easy to make. Mod Podge works best, but glue turns out just fine- it does leave the glass with a 'frosty' look though! To make them, rip your tissue paper into small pieces- about a square inch. Then paint a thin layer of your adhesive onto the glass and lay a piece of the tissue paper onto the glue/Mod Podge. Afterwards, paint another thin layer over the paper, making sure to smooth out any wrinkles.  You can overlap the edges of the tissue paper pieces, but be careful because some colors will look muddy when they're mixed. Once they are dry, you can add glitter and a candle!

She's doing some excellent smudging! The kids wanted to hang up their snowmen to decorate the room until they brought
them home that afternoon, and you can see one in the background :)

Aerial Perspective Snowmen

This one's looking up and has a mustache!

When I found this idea on Pinterest, I loved it! Before lunch, we drew snowflakes and swirls in white crayon and then used blue watercolors to paint over our drawings. Even though they knew that the crayon would resist the paint, they were still in awe as they saw their snowflakes appear! After, we traced various objects around the classroom to make the pieces of our snowmen. Yes, I could have made stencils, but the base of our globe, the top of our pencil bins, and the bottom and top of our skinny-marker container worked just fine and there was never a single problem with sharing! After tracing the shapes onto white paper, we used blue oil pastels to outline the pencil marks and used our fingers to smudge the blue in. This made it look like a shadow and gave each piece of the snowmen dimension. Eyes were drawn in using sharpies, scarves colored with markers, and carrot noses and stick arms cut from construction paper. After our backgrounds dried, we glued the pieces together. They came out so adorable!

This little guy doesn't speak English and usually is very eager to head out for his ELL time each day, but lately (today included!) he's been asking if he can stay in class instead! :) 

 Golden Snitch Ornaments 

 I run Harry Potter Club as an after-school activity, and when my class saw what we'd done last week in Harry Potter Club, they were so jealous that I decided to do it with my class as well! We made golden snitch ornaments with glitter, ribbon, and small gold ornaments and they turned out beautiful. It's really easy- I found 2" ribbon with gold embellishments and wire edges to use for the wings. We cut pieces about 3-4" long and cut them in half, rounding out the edges a little on both pieces. Then we cut small slits all along the ribbon, stopping right before the wire to make them fluttery. Next, we glittered the ornaments (my carpet was absolutely COVERED in glitter by the end of the day!). One of my very responsible students, who is also in Harry Potter Club, helped me man one of the glue guns and we used that to attach the wings. They are so simple to make, but are a truly beautiful decoration! A few students who hadn't fallen in love with Harry Potter (yet!) just made glitter ornaments.

When a few finished early, they made them for our librarian, principal, director, and office assistant. They're so sparkly!!

It was such a magical day! No, we didn't get much academic time in, but we finished our math unit two days earlier than expected, and took some time to share our stories. My intention was reading, math games, and story-sharing during craft down-time, but they were just being so sweet! They wanted to make cards for absolutely everyone; their families, me and the other two fourth-grade teachers, the principal and director of the school, their different Italian teachers, everyone! At one point, a few of my boys barricaded off our classroom library with a white-board they thought I couldn't see over. When they emerged a little while later they had made me a life-size Nimbus 2000! It was the most wonderful, special day and such a fabulous way to end 2014 together. I'm excited to see them all again in January, and know they left school that day happy. Yay!

The three things each student brought home at the end of the day :)