“Hi Ho Hi Ho... Back to School We Go!”

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.