Teacher Tip Tuesday

Welcome to “Teacher Tip Tuesday” at Our Amore Blog!

One of my passions in life, besides my family, is education! I am an elementary school teacher and could not imagine any other job. Seriously y'all, I simply love my job. Of course there are days when I feel a little… umm STRESSED, but that’s usually because I bring that on myself! I tend to be a perfectionist and I like my days well planned out. I also like organization and for lack of better words, I am a “NEAT FREAK!”

This past week, my oldest child Angelica, graduated from Longwood University with honors. I could not be any prouder of how my sweet little girl has grown into this beautiful young lady. She too is going to be an elementary school teacher. This fall she will begin her first teaching job here in Stafford County. GULP! I honestly do not know where time has gone. I feel like it was just yesterday that she was starting kindergarten.

We thought it would be fun to post cute classroom ideas and things that “work” in our classrooms. Please remember we are HUGE Pinterest fans and most of our ideas start with things we have seen on this incredible site. However, we like to add our own little “twist” to things and enjoy letting our creative side come out. Our goal is to post a “tip” every Tuesday, but let’s face it, there will be some days that life will get in the way and we might need to post a day or two later.

We have decided to start with what I call my “Camper of the Week” bulletin board. This board is very special to me because my mother helped me plan it just weeks before she passed away. It’s the first thing people see when they enter my classroom and each morning as I walk in and flip on the lights, my heart smiles thinking of my incredible mom! I hope you enjoy it and that it brings inspiration for you to create a board of your own!

The “Camper of the Week” is my student of the week. It is where I highlight all the favorites of one student. Students can bring in photos of themselves as well. However, I have removed them from these pictures. Students love sharing what they like and it is a great way to find something in common between classmates.

I like to use fabric as a background on my bulletin boards. Paper does work, but fabric tends to look neater and it doesn’t wrinkle as much. The fabric on this board is flannel because I could not find this print in cotton. I was hesitant to use flannel, but I am very pleased with how well it has held up and how it has resisted fading. I purchased it at Joann Fabric.  NOTE: There is no need to wash fabric before using, but I usually iron it to get out the fold lines.

For the trim, I used two types of solid borders. One is corrugated and one is flat. They can be found here on Amazon. The ribbon trim was purchased at the Dollar Tree.  The yellow frames are wood frames that I purchased at Michaels and painted myself. I tied small pieces of ribbon around the frames just to add a little something and glued the wooden apple and tree to add dimension. I then stapled the fabric behind the frames several times before I hot glued the frames to the board. This prevented the frames from pulling forward. The wood disks are pieces of real tree branches that my sweet father cut. I painted the black circles to give them a chalk board look and used a white paint pen to look like chalk to write, “Camper of the Week.” My husband drilled holes in them and I strung them on a piece of jute. I used the extra wood disks to make push tacks by simply gluing a thumb tack to the back of each wood piece.