Monday Made It:: name sticks

I spent all last week on vacation in southern Ohio with my entire family (18 of us).  We stayed at a cabin in the Hocking Hills area.  Who knew that Ohio was so beautiful??!?  Some of the places we saw were just breathtaking!  Caves and waterfalls and lakes...it was gorgeous and grand!  God is a masterful artist!

Between laundry and unpacking, I completed a fun little project for my classroom over the weekend, so I'm linking up with Tara for Monday Made It!

I have always kept my name sticks in this cup.  I use them to call on students and put together partners, groups, etc.  

A couple of years ago, I came across this photo on Pinterest.

Image: Kindertastic

I thought the idea of painting the sticks was so clever and would be a time-saver when I was needing to pull sticks for something.  I had a can of green spray paint already at home, and I decided that I could accomplish the same idea by painting just one end of the sticks.  I did this last year, and it worked great, so I knew that I wanted to do it again for this year's class.

I just set up a piece of plywood that we had in our garage (oh, who am I kidding???  I don't know what plywood is!  I think it's plywood???? Any sturdy surface where the sticks don't move around would work.), like so. 

Cover everything except the end of the stick that you want to paint.

Spray, spray, spray that pretty green (or whatever color makes you happy) onto your sticks!

Let the paint dry, flip them over, and paint the other side.

When you're finished, your husband will probably lecture you about how spray paint kills grass and you really should have been smarter about how you set up your little project so that you wouldn't get any paint on the lawn.  You will nod your head and apologize.  But secretly, you won't believe him and you will watch that area of grass like a hawk over the next few days so that you can prove to him that spray paint doesn't in fact kill grass. (Or does it???)

While my happy little green name sticks were drying, I decided to cut some vinyl to make my cup a little cuter.  Turns out that it made it waaaaay cuter!!  YAY!

(I have been waiting to use that adorable polka dot apple shape.  Love it!) 

Here is the finished product, ready for a new crew of kidlets!  A huge improvement over the boring cup I used last year for sure!

The names go on the opposite end of the stick.  The green ends show students that are waiting for a turn.  Once they have been called, their stick gets flipped.  Then, when I have gone through all of the sticks, I flip them over and start again.  Works great! 

My list for next year is at 24 right now, but I painted 30 just to be on the safe side!  Always smart to have a few extras ready to go just in case!

Head over to Tara's blog to check out what other teachers have been making!!