Mr. Giso's Room to Read Bright Idea #13

Make a Classroom Tree

This weekend I came across a really neat idea of making a Book Recommendation Tree thanks to a fellow blogger from Lessons With Laughter.  Click HERE to be inspired by her.  You see, this clever fourth grade teacher places this tree in her classroom and has her students recommend books to each other by filling out a tag and placing it on her tree.  I, being inspired, set out to replicate this fantastic idea.  The only thing is, I'm not sure if I want to use it for the same purpose.  For now, I have an empty tree.  Here is Molly's tree.  I love it.

Here are some pictures that show how I put together my tree.  First, I set out in my forrest, aka my backyard, to find the perfect branch.  As you can see, I had my choice.  Feel free to stop on by to get a branch for yourself--it will save us on the landscaping bill.

Next, I took off the leaves from the branch and decided to use electrical tape to add on a few more small branches to make my tree a little fuller.  I knew I would spray paint over the tape anyways.

After my branch was ready to go, I placed it in an old pot of dirt and covered the pot in a plastic bag in order to prep it for spray painting.   Orange was an easy choice, since it's my classroom theme this year.  I am painting some frames too for my personal desk pictures.

While this was drying in the sun, I painted a clay pot a blue color--also a part of my classroom colors.  I used a plastic carton that had mushrooms in it to hold the paint.  It's easy to throw out afterwards with no mess.

The tree was stabilized with colored glass beads.  I made a colorful bow and attached it to the tree.  Looks fun, right?

Using my Fiskars flower punch, I punched out a series of flowers on colored paper and laminated them.  I added some fancy ribbon and my tree was complete.  Well, it is almost complete...

The only problem I have now is that I need some clever ideas to use this tree with my first and second graders.  I'd like to use it for different purposes throughout the year by using dry erase markers. Let me know any ideas you may have, please.

Happy creating.