Crayon Wreath Tutorial

Hey yall! I'm Natalie and I blog over at Teachery Tidbits. I am sooo excited to be a guest blogger for April today! Thanks so much, girl!

I'm not sure about you guys, but I am officially on summer break...yahoo! My goal for this summer is to create some of those awesome crafts I've been 'pinning.' It's going to be a crafty kind of summer, for sure!

How many of you have pinned the crayon wreaths?

It was one of the first things I pinned, and I desparately wanted to make one! So....I did!

It was really easy. Here are the materials needed:

*Crayons (I used a 64 pack of Crayolas)

*Hot glue

*2 different sized embroidery hoops. I can't remember the exact sizes I bought, but it doesn't really matter. You just need 2 different sized hoops, where one can fit inside the other.

*Ribbon

*Scissors
*White acrylic paint
*Paintbrush
*Wood letters
*Assorted colors acrylic paint

Ready for these easy steps???

1. Put the smaller hoop inside the larger hoop. Keep the spacing the same all the way around the hoop. I painted both of my hoops white, but you could definitely keep it the natural wood color.

2. Arrange the crayons on the hoop...have fun with it! I put mine all with the label facing up and did all the colors, but you could totally just pick your favorite colors or do some type of pattern.

3. Start gluing! Glue one crayon at a time, so that you can keep your spacing somewhat even. Also, don't use too much glue, or it will just melt the wax.

4. Wrap the ribbon around a couple of crayons at the top and glue.

5. Paint the wooden letters however you like, and glue them on.

Simple, right? I made these as gifts for a couple of teachers, and I love the way they turned out!

I used letters to represent their last names, and I found those little wooden apple cutouts at Hobby Lobby. I just painted them, then wrote their names inside with a sharpie.

Hope you guys are inspired to go make your own! I probably spent less than $20 on the materials for all 3 wreaths, so it was pretty inexpensive to make!

April-thanks so much for letting me be your guest today! Isn't she awesome, yall?

When you get a second, come on over and check out my blog :)

Technology Conference, Crayon Wreath Tutorial

Technology Conference and Crayon Wreath Tutorial

Every holiday my kindergarten team exchanges names and gives little gifts to their secret person the week of the holiday.  This adds a little more excitement to the week.  For Valentine's Day, my secret person wrote that they wanted decorations.  So, with the help of Pinterest, I have been busy.  I decided to make a crayon wreath for my person for one of the days.  Here is what I started with.  

 Micheal's had the felt peace sign for $2 so I thought I could use it as the bottom of my wreath.

 I cut out the middle of the peace sign.

Next I started gluing the crayons around the wreath.  I figured out that the top end of the crayon (flat side) has to be touching the crayon beside it.  The crayons do have a little space in between each crayon closer to the pointed end.  If you do not allow this space, the crayons won't make a circle.

 

Here is how the crayon wreath looks after gluing the crayons all the way around the wreath.

 Next, I added the name of the teacher getting the wreath and a ribbon so she can hang it up. 

FETC

(Florida Education Technology Conference)

Last week I attended the FETC in Orlando.  I love going to this conference and seeing what new technology is out there for me to use in my classroom.  I found out about this new website.  It is called Qtopia.

Qtopia

Qtopia offers thousands of activities, homework, games, and customizable learning.  I haven't had a chance to check out the sight completely, but when I saw a presentation with this, it seemed like students would love playing it.  Go check it out.

Learning A-Z

I have used Learning A-Z in the past and I LOVE it!  Learning A-Z has leveled books and worksheets with the books.  They also added RAZ-Kids which is online reading leveled books that keep track of students progress and new this year is their Science A-Z.  If you need more books to help your students learn to read, this is the website for you!

I also got to see Smartboards in action and Clickers.  My school already uses Smartboards and Clickers so I am very familiar with them.  Another thing that was new this year was the use of iPads in the classroom.  Lots of companies are making books for the iPads.  I absolutely love attending this conference.  It makes me want to go back to class and add even more technology into my classroom.