Wednesday, June 26, 2013

What You Can Do with an Overhead Projector

It's the summer! And I don't know about you but I love to do home projects while I have all this extra time. Throughout the year our house gets a little neglected as the list of to do's gets longer and longer. As I have been working on my house I wanted to share with you what my husband and I have done using an overhead projector, and give you some ideas about what you can do with an overhead projector.

It is no mystery that I am not an artist. I can barely draw a straight line and I definitely cannot cut one. Sad, just sad. But with the use of my overhead projector, I was able to create this mural for my baby boy's nursery.
 
 


And this for our living room.


forgive me for the horrible quality of this picture!

No decals, all freehand paint.

For the Nemo nursery I bought a coloring book and made transparencies from pages that I liked. Then we used the overhead to project it on the wall and trace the outline. Next we headed to Michaels and bought some small acrylic paints in the colors that we needed and created our mural.

I did the same thing for the tree. Except I found the tree online. Easy, inexpensive and fun.

 I researched some ways to use an overhead in your classroom too. First of all you could paint a fun mural in your classroom if your school will let you. But here are some other fun ideas:


Use this fun idea with the book, Who Will See their Shadows this Year?

  
Love the student silhouettes.

 
A great way for students to practice drawing their shapes.

How do you use your overhead? I would love more great ideas. Also, have you painted anything using an overhead? Send me a link if you have!

Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Our variety show performance...you don't want to miss this!

This is our first grade team variety show performance! I teach at a very fun school. We are constantly thinking on fun ways to act silly and bond with our students. During the last few week before summer break the teachers of my school choose a day to perform our annual variety show. Each grade level comes up with an act/performance. This year my team decided to spice things up a bit and do a synchronized swimming act.

Oh wait, the last week of school? Report cards are due, field day, award ceremonies, crazy kids....how did you find time to practice? (you might be thinking) Well...that was the tricky part. My dear friend Allison came over to my house on a Sunday afternoon while little man was napping and we choreographed the dance on my front porch in front of a window so we could see our reflection. We were shocked that no cars honked at us...they probably wanted to! Then we had 2 days to teach it to our team...4 teachers and 4 teacher assistants. And this was no easy routine either. They were amazing sports, even though I was at times a drill sergeant  and I leave you with.....

The Mills River Swim Team  (Our act name)
(I'm the one 5th from the right)









I'm still trying to figure out uploading videos so if you missed our school's teacher End of Grade Test motivational video, click here.


Keep your eye out, I'm getting a blog face lift very very soon. It's in the works right now, and I couldn't be more excited!