Classroom Christmas Tour, 2025

 Hello! This is a really random post to share in January, but here is a quick tour of my classroom decorated for Christmas last year. 

Maybe it can provide some future inspiration for Christmas 2026. The lights came from both thrift stores and Amazon (specifically the star LED lights came from Amazon). The brown ribbon was bought in a huge bulk roll from Amazon. It was around $10, decorated my whole bedroom, classroom, was used to embellish gifts, used for hair bows, and I still have tons left! The bells came from Dollar Tree but I painted them to look vintage. The garlands and pine cones came from thrift stores. I probably paid a total of $5 or less for them. I did run out of those and buy one strand from Walmart, which is unreasonably expensive, as it turns out. The other decorations I had on hand from thrift stores or they were given to me as gifts in years past.  

I hope you enjoyed! Thank you for visiting! 

Blessings,

Lauryn 

Custom Keychain Gift Idea for Students

 Hello! Tonight I'd also like to share a gift idea I did for my students last Christmas as both an end of the semester and Christmas gift in one (also because I literally did not have any time to celebrate those two occasions with separate gifts). I have no regrets about this and liked the result, but disclaimer: these take an insane amount of time. Like they took me at least fifteen minutes each to put together, decide on the designs, tie, and hot glue. I multiplied that by thirty-eight students which I should have done before starting this project since I have almost zero time management skills and no sense of time passing. The number I came up with is approximately a minimum of nine and a half hours. I am pretty certain it took hours over that. 

That said, it is very time consuming. That is just for the keychain part, too, not counting the packaging part. I think I made the labels on Canva but could not find the printable to add in below. I bought the ribbon in a bulk roll from Amazon and still have plenty to spare months later. The beads came from a variety of kits I bought off of Amazon and then stole from my brother because the kits I bought ran out, so for thirty-eight students I should have bought three or four kits instead of two. Each keychain featured the student's name, and two large beads I thought they would like (such as a smiley face, bow, star, and so on) or three or four smaller ones (I tried very hard to make them all equal). 

The pros are that these are both pretty and practical, and they are very personalized. These could really be given to any age and any group of people, too. 

Thank you for stopping by, I hope you find this idea helpful! 

Blessings,

Lauryn

Character Mindmap Book Review Project (& "When Stars Are Scattered" Activity)

This amazing lesson came from a book given to me by a co-worker called "100% Engagement" (Grades 6-12) by Brian Sztabnik and Susan Barber. This project is called a "character mindmap", where students chose a character from our class book ("When Stars Are Scattered" by Victoria Jamieson and Omar Mohamed), draw them, then identify and label the following to show they truly read the book and understood the character: 

-A thought bubble. What would this character be thinking about?

-A belief under their feet. What beliefs do they hold?

-Something in their hands to represent what they give, their responsibilities, and/or burdens they carry. 

-A challenge they overcame or way they grew in the story written by their leg to represent the difficulties they walked through. 

-A heart labeled with their deepest desires. What do they most want?

Below is a checklist I used as the rubric from the book mentioned above. This assignment aligns with the high school ESOL WIDA standards, though I did not include the standards it meets. 

I loved the result of this assignment. I was so proud of my students' creativity and hard work! I hope if you are an educator you find this helpful to implement in some form in your classroom. I also highly recommend both of those books. Thank you for visiting! 

Blessings,

Lauryn

Riley's Ocean Dreams Birthday Party, 2025

 Hello, tonight I'd like to share another birthday party from last year, this one for my cousin Riley's 12th birthday. I wanted to do the most grand party I'd ever done, but she asked for something beach-themed, and I struggled to come up with original ideas for it. I ended up doing neutral colors and going for a dreamy, ethereal but natural look that was (unintendedly) simple (and rather last-minute). 

I made the giant seashell from recycled cardboard painted with metallic white acrylic paint. The giant white sign that read "Riley is 12" was a foam posterboard that I cut and wrote on with a marker. I plucked some branches to add to the balloon arch from my grandparent's yard. I cut lines into snickerdoodle cookies from Dollar General to make sand dollars. The sun glasses were from Dollar General or Walmart, and I honestly forget what the other favors were. I had all of the rest of the decorations on hand already. 

Thank you for visiting, I hope you enjoyed! 

Blessings,

Lauryn