Tried it Tuesday {Glitter Stenciling}

Hi everyone! It's Time for Tried It Tuesday!
What have you tried at school or home?
If you've never linked up with Tried It Tuesday, just link up any idea school or home related and what worked or didn't work. Grab the button below. Simple!

My Tried It:

Glitter Stenciling

I am still trying to knock items off my to-do list before summer draws to a close. Many of you are back at school but we start officially after Labor Day. Maybe I can even get in a Monday Made It before the end of summer. I will be working on updating classroom curtains this week and making a curtain for under my daughter's loft bed. That brings me to this week's Tried It. My daughter is now 8 years old and her room needed an update. She wanted a more "mature" color on her walls. Sniff sniff. :( This is her room before.

So, I sanded the old stencils before repainting and patched some things.

I painted the walls in Glidden "Mushroom Cap" matte. Then, I bought a pint of Glidden "Bonjour Beige" in satin for the stenciling. It is just a shade darker than the wall color. I knew I wanted a glitter effect in the stenciling and bought this extra fine glitter at Walmart. 

 At first, I wasn't going to add the glitter directly to the paint but was going to try a put a glitter glaze over top of the stencil. However, I decided to try it. What was the worst that could happen? I poured a small amount of paint in a 1 cup measuring cup and started adding glitter.

I used about half of the bottle of glitter for about 1/3 cup paint. I had a lot of paint left over too from the measuring cup when I was done stenciling.

 Glitter mixed in paint:

 Stencils I bought. I only used the large one but may add small flowers later.

 My daughter helped out too! Here she is stenciling a flower with a stencil brush.
You don't need much paint on the brush.

 Here is a picture of her room. I am sewing a new curtain for under the loft bed. I will post pictures when that is done. :)

 Another view...

 Stencil up close with glitter

 Bedding is Paige Quilted bedding from Pottery Barn Kids.

 Rug is also from Pottery Barn Kids and has flecks of gold sparkle!

If my maintenance staff allows it, I would like to try some paint with glitter stenciling in the classroom! It was so easy and I love how it turned out! 

An InLinkz Link-up

Tried It Tuesday {No Reply Blogger and Spam Comments}

Hi everyone! It's Time for Tried It Tuesday!
What have you tried at school or home?
If you've never linked up with Tried It Tuesday, just link up any idea school or home related and what worked or didn't work. Grab the button below. Simple!

My Tried It:

No Reply Blogger and Spam Comments

When I first started blogging, I had no idea what that a "no reply blogger" existed.
What is a "No Reply Blogger"?

A "No Reply Blogger" means that when you leave a comment on someone's blog and the comment goes to their email, the person who receives the comment cannot reply to you through email. Your email is hidden. Most of us would agree that it is nice to reply to comments through email rather than reply back on the blog. Who remembers to go back to every post they comment on and see if they blog owner replies there? Not me!
In the email, no reply bloggers look like this and in Gmail are found under the "Social" tab.

See the "<noreply-commnet@blogger.com> next to the sender's name? That means you can't reply to this email. 

Here are wonderful directions that I always use to help fellow bloggers fix this problem like I once did. Also, even if you have fixed it once doesn't mean it stays fixed. That happened to me too and it had to do with Google plus. Click the image below to see how to fix it even in Google Plus.

This leads me to another problem I have been experiencing. Everyday I have been getting spam comments. See?

My BBB Diane at Fifth in the Middle suggested this fix and it is working to at least keep the comments off the blog. You can go to settings and under "Posts and Comments" select comment moderation "sometimes". I selected it for posts under 30 days.

Then when I open Blogger, I can see if I have any comments awaiting approval.

I hope this post helps someone else that might be having these problems! :) Have a great week!

An InLinkz Link-up

Classroom Decor and More Linky!

I am linking up today for Week 3 of a fun Back to School linky party! This week's topic is Classroom Decor and More. Thank you to the wonderful blogging friends at Fancy Free in 4th, Ramona Recommends, and Diary of a Not So Wimpy Teacher for hosting!

I haven't been in my classroom yet much since we start back with students in September but I can still participate! I am focusing on pictures that show how I try to keep my classroom organized. This first picture is a view of the farthest end of my room away from the door. Here I have my math meeting on the chalkboard and the classroom library in the corner. You can't see it in this picture, but there is a built in bookcase (not movable) on the wall to the left. 

There is really no other place to put my library. I used to have the rug there when I taught ELA but when I switched to teaching math, (we are departmentalized) the rug was in an awkward spot compared to the board where the math meeting questions were. So, this year I switched the rug and table.

This is a picture of the space last year before Open House and you can see the rug was in the library area and the table to the left. This year it will be switched. 

This is a picture of how I organize many of my supplies. There is another table here for student to work during centers (the teacher table is more towards the door). I have bins of labeled supplies behind the student work table and then all the math book boxes for 50 students (three sections of math taught during the day) in the tall bookcase. The boxes are labeled with my editable labels and numbers #1-18 followed by A, B, or C for the three blocks. This way, I can use the same number sticks for all three blocks.

This is a picture of how I organize my math workshop board for three sections of students. You can read more about that here.

 I love my blue pocket organizer for schedule cards. Our specials change daily and I keep the extra cards in the last pocket. My student helper changes the cards out at the end of each day and it stays nice and neat!

I posted this picture on Instagram last year and it had a lot of interest. I just took this old metal paper sorter and used it to store six iPads. To the right of all the storage from the picture #2 is a long counter with four laptops that stretches to the other corner of the room so this area is not changeable either. I like how the counter has holes for the power cords and all my chargers for the iPads go down the hole behind this organizer to the plugs below the counter. I would like to cutesy up my headphone storage though.

Even if you haven't started back to school yet like me, you can still link up! I'm looking forward to browsing through pictures for inspiration when I get in to set up my room more. Just grab the button below!

An InLinkz Link-up

Tried It Tuesday {Compress PDF's}

Hi everyone! It's Time for Tried It Tuesday!
What have you tried at school or home?

If you've never linked up with Tried It Tuesday, just link up any idea school or home related and what worked or didn't work. Grab the button below. Simple!

My Tried It:

Compress PDF's (Free!)

Since I learned this trick, it has come in super handy! My PDF's always seem to be huge and TpT requires previews to be 5MB or less. I like to make displays in Power Point with pictures from the product and my previews were always so large. I had to limit the pages and pictures to keep it under 5MB. No more! I tried a couple different sites, and smallpdf was the easiest one I found that was successful with my large preview files. It's super easy to use!

This one was compressed from 30.89MB to 1.51MB!

This one was compressed from 11.95MB to 1007.69KB! That IS awesome and now my previews are a few pages filled with pictures. Love it! 

Don't forget about the Back to School sale at TpT that ends today! My store is 20% off and with the code BTS15, you can get an additional 8% off!

Also, check out my post from yesterday. There are links to THREE amazing giveaways happening right now! Click here!

An InLinkz Link-up

iTeach Back to School MEGA Giveaway!! 8/2 to 8/8

Here is another giveaway happening right now that you won't want to miss! The teachers at iTeach K-5 are teaming up for some awesome prizes! Click Here to take you to the iTeach 4th entry. Up for grabs is an iPad Air 2 Case, Stylus pen, and $15 iTunes gift card!

Check out the TpT that is also today and tomorrow! 

My store is 20% off along with 10% off using the code BTS15 equals 28% off!

In case you missed it, here are two other giveaways happening right now! Click on the pictures below.

See you tomorrow for another Tried It Tuesday! What have you tried recently?

Curriculum Must Have B2S Linky!

I am linking up today for Week 2 of a fun Back to School linky party! This week's topic is Curriculum Must Haves. Thank you to the wonderful blogging friends at Fancy Free in 4th, Ramona Recommends, and Diary of a Not So Wimpy Teacher for hosting!

The first product to link up in this linky is one that you yourself have created. I have been working on these nonfiction text practices with claims and details for awhile now but I have been in a slow creating slump. Things are picking up though and I have three done! When I created the winter themed nonfiction text practice using claims and details, my followers wanted me to create more. I just didn't have the energy then, but they are on the top of my to-do list now. After three years of ELA tests aligned to CCSS now in New York and after grading these tests regionally, I can see that students are still struggling with responding to questions stating a claim and then supporting their responses with TWO text details. The winter (all about snow) and recently added spring (plant reproduction) packs have passages written at two Lexile ranges for differentiation.

I will start the summer themed one this week and my goal is to list it by Friday. I was thinking of a nonfiction text about the environmental effects of man made beaches. Do you have any suggestions for future topics for these nonfiction articles? I would love to hear them! 

Click on any picture below to take you to that product. They are each $2.75 and you know what is coming tomorrow (if not, keep reading below)!

The second product in this linky is one that you use every year. Since I started teaching math on my departmentalized team last year, I loved the addition of Math Moves by Elizabeth in Fun Room 4B for spiral review! I could use this for independent seat work during math workshop or as homework. Every domain is covered each week and there are also weekly assessments. Love this product!

On my wish list is this Thinker Tasks Math Project Bundle by Meg at Teacher Studio. I need to 

incorporate more tasks like this into my daily math curriculum. This set is complete with differentiated tasks, "Math by the Numbers" cards, practice activities, math talk prompts, and enrichment opportunities. Also, as Meg completes more, they will be added to this bundle. What a steal. I'm scooping this one up! 

Speaking of Back to School, have you heard about the site-wide TpT sale? My store will be 20% off and with the code BTS15, TpT offers 10% off, for a total of 28% off these two days! What a perfect time to stock up on these Must Haves! What is on your list? I know I will be filling up my cart these next two days!

Now for the GIVEAWAY! The gals from iTeachFourth are giving away $10 to each of their stores!

That is almost $100 worth of fabulous Fourth Grade items! Enter below for your chance to win!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

An InLinkz Link-up

Did you stop by yesterday and see the blog hop with all the Back to School book ideas? Also, enter to win a Kindle Fire and $25 gift card to Creative Teaching Press. Click here to see that post!