Well we have officially
started school and needless to say life has been C-R-A-Z-Y crazy! However, in between unpacking and setting up
a classroom, teaching at our county’s New Teacher Institute, packing my son up
for college, and squeezing in a few lunch dates with friends, I managed to make
my teammates a little something to hang outside their classroom door. I must admit that this was not an original
idea. Last year, I had the most
wonderful parent make me a pencil sign for my classroom and I decided to make
them this year for my teammates. I think
they came out cute and they were all so appreciative of this back to school
gift.
I started with a ¼ inch piece of plywood. The original one was ½ inch, but my father said ¼ inch would work as well. He actually did the cutting for me. I offered to help, but he had them all cut
and sanded before I even got to his house.
He is such a sweetie…gotta love that man!
I bought the
paint at Michael’s craft store. I had
the black paint, but they sell that at Michael’s along with the foam brushes. I am not sure what happened to the color I
had picked for the wood tip of the pencil.
When I got home it was not in my bag. However, I used a color I had
called “maple syrup” and it looked fine.
I try and stock up on the brushes when they are 10 for $1.00. The blue tape is just your typical painters
tape.
I started with
taping off the eraser and painting that pink first.
Once that was done, I taped
off the “metal” part where the eraser goes and painted that.
Next, I used a
pencil and marked where I wanted the led and “wood” part to go. It took me a few times to get this part done,
so using a pencil allowed me to simply erase my mistakes.
After that, I
painted the rest of the pencils yellow. I used a black paint pen to touch up the led part of each pencil. One of my teammates has a USA themed classroom, so I painted her pencil
red and blue.
Here are a few of
them all done. Don’t they look
adorable? To hang them my hubby drilled
holes in them and I strung a heavy gage wire through them. I used a paint pen to write their names on
them.
Here is a picture
of my daughter and I wearing our school spirit shirts. This is her first year teaching. We teach at different elementary schools, but attended a back to school
welcome together. Her shirt is so awesome. On the front it says be… and on the back it
has the words, amazing, passionate, relentless, inspiring, brave, unstoppable,
significant, attentional, curious, extraordinary, fearless, grateful, and the
difference.
