Tutorial Tuesday #5

I am hoping that this posts correctly since I am still away on vacation and it has been scheduled to post. I have determined the fate of Tutorial Tuesday and am here to announce it while I am also providing my tutorial for the week.

Are you ready?

Okay; I have determined that I will continue Tutorial Tuesdays, but it will only be once a month (the third Tuesday of the month). I will be turning it in to a linky for anyone who would like to join in. Our first linky Tutorial Tuesday will be August 20th. I hope you can join me in sharing how to do things.

Here is my Tutorial Tuesday. I am showing you how to make a portable word wall.

This tutorial is a short one.

Supplies needed:
~Metal rings
~3"x5" notecards
~3"x5" cover pages
~Hole punch
~Command hooks

Step 1:
Create what you want the cover of your portable word wall to look like and print them out to be the size of your notecards (I used 3"x5")

Step 2:
Punch holes in a corner of all covers and notecards (I had a lot of notecards so I put 50 on each letter ring).

Step 3:
Attach the cover and notecards together using a metal ring.

Step 4:
Attach hooks to the wall.

Step 5:
Hang each bunch of cards on a hook.

And there you have it. Now you can make your own portable word wall.

It's That Time Again--Another Tutorial Tuesday! Plus a Gift to Celebrate My Followers!

I am here to bring you another edition of my Tutorial Tuesday, but before I do I have some questions for you. I am trying to decide the next step for my Tutorial Tuesdays. Next week is the last guaranteed one since I said I would try for the month of July. Now it's your turn to help determine what happens starting in August.

Here are my questions:
1) Would you like to see Tutorial Tuesdays continue?
2) If you would like it to continue, how often do you think it should take place?
3) If you would like it to continue, what would you like to see offered as a tutorial?
4) Would you like to participate? (I could always make it a linky)
5) If you want to participate how often should we do it during the school year?

Thanks for all of the help. I will consider your feedback before making my final decision.

So now I bring you this week's Tutorial Tuesday. Yesterday I posted on my Monday Made It post my new bulletin boards that I got the idea from Going Nutty With Miss Squirrels. Today I am going to show you how I made mine.

Step one:
Gather the following supplies:
~insulation boards (found for around $10 at home improvement store)
~flat bed sheets (or fabric)
~scissors
~stapler (and staples)
~Scotch 3M Extreme Mounting Tape (I recommend one roll per board; unlike my thinking of one roll per two boards)

Step two:

If you plan to make a smaller version you need to cut your insulation board to size. Do this by scoring it, folding it in half, and then scoring the other side. This will give you a pretty clean cut.

I cut one of mine in half; the rest remained full size.

Step three:

If you are using sheets you will need to rip the seam at the top of the sheet so that you have some extra length to work with. If you are using fabric make sure you get it long enough to cover the board (it is 4'x8', but needs extra length to wrap around the back.

This first picture shows the original seam and the second picture shows it after it has been ripped. I would recommend using a seam ripper. I did not have one at school so I used a push pin and scissors.

You will also need to cut it in half if you are doing a half size board.

Step four:

Lay the sheet (or fabric) flat on the ground and place the insulation on the sheet. Make sure that the printing is on the side that you can see. You do not want it against the fabric because it will show through.

Step five:

Staple the sheet/fabric to the back side of the insulation board. I recommend a lot of staples to insure the fabric stays as you pull from the other side. I do the shorter ends first and then the longer ends.

Step six:

Place strips of your mounting tape on the back. This is where I realized I did not buy enough mounting tape. I recommend that you make the strip cover more area on the board (mine still held, but I did later secure the top since it was leaning forward a little).

The red strips are the pieces of mounting tape.

Step seven:

Peel off the backing of the tape and carefully place on the wall. I was able to use the lines on my wall to try to place it as straight as possible. This would be much easier with another set of hands (my hubby was at work so I was on my own for this one)

Step eight:

I haven't completed this one yet so I don't have pictures, but it is to decorate. Add whatever you are putting on your boards and then you are finished!

Simple as that! I am loving my new boards and can't wait to decorate them!

Now I promised that I had an announcement today to thank my wonderful 200+ followers. You guys are all so wonderful! On top of my 20% off sale at my store, I am choosing one item every day to put on sale for the amazing price of, you guessed it, FREE!!!! When I drop the price it will remain that way until midnight CST each night. Today's item is my

Classroom Quotes Posters

Go get it now, while it's FREE!!!!

Enjoy!

Tutorial Tuesday #3 (Plus a Bonus Tutorial!)

Welcome to this week's edition of Tutorial Tuesdays. I had planned a great one for this week, but didn't get around to it due to the car issues. It will be for next week now. I plan on making this great item this weekend and taking pictures every step of the way. It is a good one!

This week I have TWO tutorials. They are a little short and if you read my Monday Made It, you know what they are.

Let's start with my magnets. These are the magnets to go along with my magnetic boards that I featured on Tutorial Tuesdays last week.

Here is what you need:
~A printout of what you want on your magnets
~Laminator and laminating sheets
~Scissors
~Magnetic paper

I used these (they are 5 in x 8 in):

I created my document using Powerpoint. I changed the page layout to be 5x8 and added a table with 5 columns and 4 rows. Then I added my details to the magnets. I made sure my table had a visible border.

After they were finished I printed them out.

I put each sheet in a laminating pouch and they were ready to be laminated; so I ran them through my laminator.

After they came out of the laminator I cut around the outside edge.

This left me with the perfect size for my magnetic paper.

Now it was time to attach them to the magnetic paper. Simply peel off the protective cover leaving the sticky side exposed. Carefully place your paper on the sticky side.

Now it is time to cut. First you need to trim the edges to get rid of all exposed magnetic paper. Then I cut mine all in strips first. 

After all of the strips were cut, I cut each individual magnet.

Here is what the final product looked like!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now for my second bonus tutorial. I bring to you the tutorial for how to make the "I Have a Bright Idea..." Post-It Holder:

Supplies needed:

~Dollar store stand-up plastic picture frame

~Scrapbook paper for background (I use lightbulbs)

~Lightbulb sticky notes (found at Dollar Spot at Target)

~Sharpie

~Scissors

~Tape

~Hot glue gun

Here are most of my supplies (I forgot about the scissors and tape):

First pull out the insert from the picture frame. Put it on the back side of your scrapbook paper.

Use your Sharpie to outline the edge of the insert. It will look like this:

Take your scissors and cut out this rectangle and you end up with this:

Slip your paper inside of the frame like this (I used a little bit of tape on the back to prevent it from slipping out):

Write the phrase "I have a bright idea..." on one side of the picture frame:

Use your hot glue gun to attach your lightbulb sticky notes:

And there you have it!

I hope you enjoyed your tutorials this week! Come back for more next week!

Tutorial Tuesdays #2

Those of you who read my blog probably saw in my post yesterday that my hubby's car is not in commission right now. Due to having to run him back and forth for work (half hour away), I haven't had much time to think about this week's tutorial.

It's crazy; I decided I would start doing this weekly posting and now the second week in, I don't know what to post about. I have a few ideas, but no pictures because things have been so crazy. And to top it off I will not be home all day tomorrow because I'm going with my momma to get a procedure done. She's going to be okay, but going with her just in case there are any complications that may keep her from driving home (and that's an hour and a half away). Good news is we get to go shopping for some good deals that we can't get around here. Bad news is I had to type this post Monday night and have it scheduled to post Tuesday morning since I won't be able to post.

So this weeks tutorial is lacking in the picture department. I found a few on the stores websites that I will use, but the rest you're just going to have to picture.

I promise next week's tutorial will have step by step pictures :)

Without further ado, here it is:

How to: Make a Magnetic Lunch Count Tracker

Supplies:
~Cookie sheet
~Wrapping paper
~Mod Podge
~Scissors
~Ribbon/embellishments
~Computer
~Printer
~Magnetic paper

Step 1: Make the Magnet Board
Spread Mod Podge onto the cookie sheet (I bought mine at Dollar Tree)

+

Step 2:
Carefully place wrapping paper onto cookie sheet; spread it out so there are no bubbles.

(Unfortunately I don't have a picture of the wrapping paper I used)

Step 3:
After it has dried, use and xacto knife to carefully cut along the edge to trim off the excess

Step 4:
Add a layer of Mod Podge on top; dry; repeat (do this several times)

Step 5:
Add ribbon and/or embellishments to make it pop

Step 6: Make the Magnets
On your computer design what you want your magnets to look like; add names if you want or numbers if you are a numbers teacher (unfortunately I don't have an example here since I am updating mine to my robots theme; I promise there will be one as part of my Monday Made It next week)

Step 7:
Print your design onto magnetic paper

Step 8:
Cute out your magnets

Step 9:
Add magnets to your board

Step 10:
Create a magnet header for each category you need (mine would be school lunch or lunch from home)


And there you have it! Magnetic lunch choice boards. I have my kiddos put there magnet up when they come in in the morning. This is also used for attendance; if their number isn't up I look to see if they are here and know real quickly.

Here is what my magnetic boards looked like last year. I will show updated ones when they are finished.

Of course these pictures were taken before the headers and magnets (I forgot to take a picture of them in my room)

I'll be back with more (and better) next week!

Tutorial Tuesdays

First of all I want to say thanks to all of my followers. I finally reached my goal of 100 followers last night. That means I am preparing for a giveaway. I am in the process of collecting donations. The giveaway will be posted Monday and run through Friday. So make sure to check back Monday for your chance to win some great prizes!

I was asked many questions about my Teacher Organizer and decided I would start up a weekly posting featuring tutorials. I am going to do this every Tuesday during the month of July. We'll see how that goes and then I may decide to keep it going.

My first Tutorial Tuesday is featuring my Robot Themed Ultimate Teacher Organizer found at my TPT store. Mine is a little more customized since I made it myself. The one on my store does not have the customization with name.

Anyways, I created this product, printed it out, and had it bound. Here is my step by step of putting this organizer together.

Step 1: The Cover

I printed this out on card stock (you can see the inside of this cover in the next section) two-sided

 and laminated it for durability. 

Step 2: Birthdays and Special Events

In this picture you can see the inside of my cover and the first tab 

(I will explain how I did my tabs a little later).

The two two-page spreads were printed on card stock to make them a little stronger. 

I will list student birthdays, holidays, and special events on these two forms.

Step 3: Monthly Calendars

 This is the cover page for my monthly calendars.

These two pictures show what each month looks like.

There is a two-page calendar spread and a two-page note spread for each month.

I printed each of the monthly calendar pages on card stock as well.

Step 4: Lesson Planning Pages (I use an online planner that will have all the details including standards; this will just be used to list what we are doing to refer back to quickly)

You can see my cover page and what each week of lesson plans looks like above.

Each day of the week is a different color.

These pages were also printed on card stock for durability.

Step 5: Gradebook

 My tab has the gradebook page on the front and the grading scale (seen in next picture) on the back.

Each quarter gets a separate tab and ten pages.

These were printed on regular computer paper.

Step 6: Student Data

The student data section includes a table where I record all of the assessments we take and each quarters grade. I also have a notes page. This will be used at Parent Conferences to go over the student's growth.

These are printed on regular computer paper as well.

Step 7: Parent Communication

In the parent communication section I will record all the communication 

made with the parents of each student.

These are also printed on computer paper.

Step 8: Notes Galore

I will use this section to take notes at meetings.

The notes pages are printed on computer paper.

Step 9: Back Cover/Tabs

I printed out the back cover on card stock and laminated it for durability.

I bought plastic tabs in a pack of 8. I slipped these in where appropriate and attached the tab pages to the front and back of each tab using double sided tape (after I had put the tabs in that I had printed).

Step 10: Get it bound!

The last step was to take it to my local office supply store (Office Max for me) to have it bound. For $4 and some change they put the spiral binding in for me. 

And my organizer was complete! I absolutely love it!

If you buy my organizer you will notice there are a few sections that I did not include in my organizer. There is a blog planning section (I decided I was going to make a separate blog planner instead) and a section for each subject's standards (I also decided I was making a separate book container my standard pages). Okay I think this whole making planners has gotten a little addictive because I have three more planners that I am in the process of making now. As I mentioned yesterday I am going to be making a home organizational planner too.

I hope this tutorial answered all of your questions about my planner.