Have you seen the alcohol ink tiles all over Pinterest? These make great coasters, but I wanted a permanent installation in my classroom so I had my students design a tile for the tile wall. 


The students used Adirondack Ranger Inks at a little art center I had set up in the corner of my classroom. (I purchased the inks one package at a time, for several weeks using up my Michaels and Hobby Lobby 40% and 50% off coupons). The inks can be a little pricy, but they are so colorful that they are worth it! I limited the kids to 3 colors because I was afraid of running out. 

After the ink dried, I sprayed the tiles with Krylon's Triple-Thick Crystal Clear Acrylic Glaze. 

During parent teacher conferences, I had a station set up to allow any parents who stopped by to visit my room to make a tile. Not very many stopped in, so I had plenty of time to install the tiles--it only took about an hour and a half to do this whole wall. We used liquid nails to adhere the tiles to the wall and placed the tiles very close together. We did not use grout, we thought that it looked really cool without grout, but you could definitely grout yours if you decide to try this. 

This colorful addition to my classroom will hide splatters of dirty water. It will be easier to wipe off. Best of all, this whole project was relatively inexpensive. If you decide to try this, it would be worth asking PTO to purchase the tiles and ink. 

Alcohol Ink Tile Backsplash Supplies Needed:
Adirondack Ranger Inks
Rubbing alcohol
Sponge brushes (to apply the alcohol evenly to the surface of the tiles)
White ceramic tile
Krylon's Triple-Thick Crystal Clear Acrylic Glaze
Liquid Nails
Dry tile cutter
(Grout: optional)

Step 1: Watch this video on how to make alcohol ink tiles. (It says to use a blending solution...I just used rubbing alcohol)
Step 2: Spray tiles with an acrylic glaze. Let dry for 4 or more hours.
Step 3: Install your tile wall using liquid nails. Just squirt it out on the back of the tiles and stick it on the wall. We also had a dry tile cutter to custom fit tiles around the wall and sink. 

Mindware has been sending me catalogs forever. My classroom had a few products for 'brainy kids' when I aquired it, but over the years, I have added to my collection of free-choice activities. 

Last year, I asked my PTO to buy several new products from Mindware, around $150 worth of new things.  The games I requested were a great investment, and will last many years. I am in the process of setting up art centers, at the end of last year I piloted it with one class and WOW! it changed my life. The additional games will help to keep the centers interesting and give a wide variety of options to students. Students were able to select an activity (after we completed one group project). These products are along side of traditional activities including play dough, crazy scissors, markers+coloring sheet, magazines+scissors, puzzles, bingo dobbers, beading and wire for necklaces, stencils, stamps, scrap paper with punches, and games like Connect 4 and Guess Who?. 

Pic Wits! WOW! What a fun game! Students have a caption and then have to find a picture that best matches it. One person judges the photos and selects one, it is just like Apples to Apples, except with a picture! This would be fun to play with the whole class and a document camera. 

Pattern Play is a colorful, math-building puzzle block set. One of my autistic students who is almost completely non-verbal has incredible success using the pattern cards to re-create the puzzles on the wooden board. REALLY GREAT for students with special needs. 

Block Buddies is a small set of colorful blocks with puzzle cards for students to re-create various images using the blocks. Since I have another big set of blocks in my room, this one gets a little lost among the other activities. I really like the puzzle cards and I plan to challenge my students to use this one more often this year. 

BlickBlock is a hit among the boys with its architecture-themed building cards. Students in my room have even put together their own 'marble' run with these blocks. Sometimes I forget how stimulating BLOCKS are to students...even older kids love to construct things with the block, not just kindergarten!

LED Rainbow Projector is a big hit whenever we paint watercolor rainbows. Be sure to buy batteries! I love this little lamp and the kids love it too! I don't let them play with it, but sometimes I pull it out as an 'extra' little something to WOW them at the beginning or the end of a lesson. 

The Zoob Challenge set is a favorite for boys. It allows them to build things. Its a big investment initially, but the pieces last for years!

The Straws and Connectors set is a wonderful activity for a group or individual students who love to build things. I allowed my older students to use my step ladder to make a tower all the way to the ceiling. Other groups stretched it all the way across the room. This was a great investment, I wish I would've gotten the biggest set possible though because the little connectors BREAK easily. Within the first week about a dozen of them had broken, it is frustrating because I have no way to replace those parts. 

The Imaginets are awesome for fine motor building. Great for younger students! I have a metal cabinet in my room. I hung the laminated cards on a hook and the kids can move the pieces around the cabinet.  The little magnet board is cool too, and I might move them back the board so that they can utilize them while seated. 

The Mosaic MagnaPictures are awesome for 3rd and 4th grade. Students enjoyed working in groups to put together a 'color-by-number' design. I have both sets: Pictures and Patterns. My only gripe is that the baggies rip open...making it hard to keep all the little pieces secure. I need to find a good way to store the little mosaic pieces....not sure if individual zip locks would be good or if I should throw all the pieces into one big bag...

Okay, I have a confession. I used to ALWAYS upload photos to flickr. Then I got busy. And I kinda forgot about my account. Then I got lazy and forgot to renew my pro account so a lot of my photos (hundreds!) were no longer visible. 

When I got an AppleTV device in my classroom, I realized that I either had to link my cell phone photo stream or my Flickr pictures to the screensaver if I wanted my own images floating across the sleeping television screen as a screensaver or a slideshow.

I realized that this was a great opportunity to use photos of my student's work as a scrolling gallery. Also, I REALLY did not want to use every image in my iphone photo stream....that could get weird, if my students saw all the things I randomly photograph on my phone (hello scrambled eggs, book titles, and my new shoes). 

I knew it was time to renew my Flickr account and start using it for REAL. And with the Flickr App on my phone, I can snap a picture, put it in an album and have it scrolling across the screen in just a few seconds flat. The screen saver and slideshow options on the Apple TV are in HD....and there are many different formats including a moving portrait gallery, sliding squares, and cascading tiles. 

Before, if I wanted to use a photo, I had to hook my phone or my DSLR camera up to my computer, upload every photo, organize them, and then upload them onto some sort of slide show. Now, it takes just a few seconds to do all that. This is handy if someone has a great idea in one class, I can snap a picture, upload it and show it off to the next class. 

Below, you can see two GIFs of the Flickr slideshow on the t.v. in my classroom. The t.v. is so new, the conduit hasn't been installed to cover the cords ;-) I used the app GifBOOM to make this GIF. 

Another thing I love about Flickr is that it has Creative Commons photos available for use in galleries. This is a great way to organize photos (that are not being used for anything else).....into a useable format.

Example. This summer, I am teaching a class about American History. I decided to focus on Abraham Lincoln. My plan is to show video clips, have a Lincoln photo booth, and my students will work in collaborative groups to make a large-scale painting of the famous president. We will look at examples from other artists who have made his image iconic. I am really excited about this project. Instead of 'stealing' a bunch of random photos from a google image search, downloading them to my computer, and spending time making a photo presentation, I just organized a few images of Lincoln into a gallery on Flickr. I can project that, along with any additional instructions in the classroom.  This will provide an opportunity for students to see a variety of images, compare and contrast various elements within the portraits, and use the gallery as inspiration for their own images. 

I will post images of the student work with more links later. 

Do you have an Apple TV in the classroom? Do you use Flickr in the classroom? 

Follow me on flicker at http://www.flickr.com/photos/nelliemaeii/

Here are a few ways I've tried to transform my space with lots of color and texture!

1. Paint. This may seem like an obvious way to transform a piece of furniture. Last summer, I painted my desk and my trashcan. It was a bold way to make-over something that was really plain. I also splatter painted another table (photo below), that I use for demonstrations. If something spills...it isn't a big deal. 



2. Paper mache. The lamp beside my desk is from Ikea. A few years ago my cat ripped a big whole in the side. It sat, torn and destroyed for a long time before I got the idea to paper mache the surface....which fixed the rip and created an amazing design. Everyone who enters my room marvels at the lamp. 
3. Fabric. I found an awesome cut of black and white material and I adhered a long strip of velcro along the top of the fabric and the top of one of my shelves. Now the material covers a really cluttered looking bookshelf. 
4. Mosaic. Below, you can see a dresser that I covered with mosaic tile. The drawers are a little heavy....but they are great for storage. The tile shards are actually from broken, glazed student-made pottery. Repurpose and reuse!

5. Tape. This white cabinet was a wonderful donation....its like having an extra counter-top that is the perfect height for student supplies, and the drawers are always a great addition to my ever-growing hoard of random materials. The front got a little dinged-up when I tried to move it....so I had fabric over it for a while, but it wouldn't stay in place so I thought I would try covering it with tape. This is a combination of electrical tape and colored art tape, I did put a coating of white glue over the top to help protect it. Below, you can see an installation that I did with electrical tape. I projected a line drawing on the wall and covered the lines with the tape. 

6. Decoupage. This particle board t.v. cabinet is awesome because it has wheels. I'm constantly changing its purpose in my classroom. I wanted to make it a little prettier, so I decoupaged a layer of wrapping paper on the surface.