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Kelly Bates

@buildingbrilliance

37.3K

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701

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Teacher turned homeschooler 👦🏼👧🏼🧒🏼👶🏼
Motherhood, teaching, books, and cute farm animals.
Co-Owner @hellowhimsyco

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Hey!! We’re looking for pup models to wear our gear! You’ll get posted to our main account which has over 740k+ followers!! Just message us “Hi” to @pawsofthepack now 🙂 Can’t wait to hear from you!!

Message us @pawsofthepack (not directly here) and Lillie, our rep, will get back to you ASAP! 🙂‎
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@offguardgirlspodcast @francisdela.cru @lkcrampton24 @carter_kaydenmommii @zena17639 @acs_usm @anniechapur @irazu_simon @heeyy_stinka

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New name, who dis?

The idea for a name change has been in the works for a looooooong time, and we are so excited to finally share it with everyone!

When I started Whimsy and Whiteboards 5 years ago, I was taking a leave of absence from teaching, and it was a way for me to still connect with teachers while making sassy teacher tees. Over the years, we’ve created tees, earrings, and headbands, but our store is no longer solely teacher merch.

And the best change of all is that two years ago, my amazing sister in law, @cecebladorn joined our Whimsy team and she is the face of the company these days!

In honor of our rebranding, we are throwing a MAJOR sale in our shop to make room for the new ideas and projects that we have in the works!

You can find all leather earrings and tees 50% off and all clay earrings 25% off (with the exception of last weeks Thanksgiving drop).

How long have you been hanging around here? Anyone an OG Whimsy fan?

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Not our usual WHIMSY content….

BUT! With our boys’ bdays only 17 days apart.. Kelly and I decided to do a combined bday party! We went with a DINO CONSTRUCTION theme to make both boys happy and we think it turned out so cute! 🚧🦖

These little besties had an amazing day 🤍 Also.. how lucky and amazing is it that my bestie and I get to work together AND raise our kids together?! Truly so special🤍🤍🤍

#celebration #birthday #dinosaur #construction #party #kids #motherhood #parenting #diy

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Never taking Sight for granted!
So grateful to be able to see all the details the world has to offer. My favorite way this is possible is through daily contact lenses.

Traveling with 2 week or monthly lenses used to be a pain. Often times they would dry out or tear, putting me out a full month of contact lenses. Not to mention carrying contact lens solution in my suitcase would be unpredictable. Often times my solution bottle would leak on to my clothes. Other times I would forget my contact lens case, leaving me to scramble in a foreign area for a case.
One of the many reasons why I love daily contact lenses ….they make traveling hassle free, convenient, and comfortable. Happy travels friend!

What type of contact lens are you in? Let me know below ⬇️
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#travel #reelitfeelit #love #instagood #happy #grateful

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Looking for a fun and engaging social emotional learning activity for the first week of school?
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This activity would be a great addition to your morning circle routine. I like to include a read aloud with an important message, and then have my students engage in an activity that involves meaningful conversations, collaboration, character building, and social emotional skills.

Last year, I read the book “Words And Your Heart” to my class. It’s about your words and how they effect our hearts. Our words have power, and we can choose to use them to make the world a better place. We discussed how the words we choose to use can affect how the other person feels, and what can we say to our friends or classmates to make them feel good about themselves.

Then, each student gets a slip that starts off with “You’re awesome because…,” and they finish it off with choosing a random classmate and express why they are amazing. (Swipe to see some examples). The class really enjoyed this activity, so I kept extras for our student table for students to feel free to grab a sheet to write something nice to a friend on any day!

What is your favorite read aloud for social emotional learning? A special shoutout to those who participated in my polls on Sunday and would like to see more book recs with activities. Hope this was helpful. More coming soon! 💕

🔗Clock the link in my bio for the read aloud and the activity! ✏️Save & share with a friend! Follow for more back to school ideas that I’ll be sharing this week!

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#mscraftyteacher #teachersofinstagram #teachersoninstagram #ctbloggerbabes #blogger #backtoschool #picturebooks #inclusion #teachersfollowteachers #classroomlibrary #diversityandinclusion #teachersfollowingteachers #iteachk #iteachfirst #iteach2 #diversebooks #teachwithflair #targetteachers #studentteacher #targetstyle #bookrecommendations #influencer #classroomdecorations #lifestyleblogger #discoverunder5k #liketoknowit #childrensbookstagram #explorepage #socialemotionallearning #raedunn

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We were out of the office this weekend enjoying time with the fam! There was a lot of jumping, paddling, and swimming! 💙☀️ excited to get back to creating (after we do all of this laundry first 😅)

#summer #lakelife #sunshine #family #whimsyweekend #kayak

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Me- It’s time to start taking pictures and getting stuff together for the launch on Saturday.

Me to Me- No.. keep making more things that you’ll have to put together and photograph 🥴😅

I CAN’T STOP! I’ve been so inspired by all of this green. All things green will be listed for you to snag on Saturday the 19th (just 2 more days! 🤗)

Which pair are you hoping to get your hands on?!

#polymerclayearrings #polymerclay #jewelry #teacherstyle #etsy #etsyshop #etsysellersofinstagram #stpatricksday #handmade

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It’s advised to go months between social media posts, right?! 🤦🏼‍♀️ my poor social media has been severely neglected, but not from a lack of amazing clients.

I’ve been loving some recent time spent in the @thegraylab.

I’m also loving the Bates family and their perfect Christmas attire!

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💜DIY Name Folder💜
This Christmas I wanted to give my nieces something that could use over and over! I created these name folders for them to practice name recognition, spelling, writing, and fine motor skills. What’s in each folder?
💜Covers created in PowerPoint
💜Alphabet Coloring pages from my TPT store
💜Alphabet Book pages from my TPT store
💜Alphabet Dotting pages from my TPT store
💜Name Writing Practice from @thekinderlife
💜Name Writing Freebie from @buildingbrilliance
I laminated some of the pages so they can re use them! I also included dry erase markers, crayons, & bingo dotters with their gifts!

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❗️GROWING YOUR LIBRARY! 📚

Something I truly value in my classroom is our class library. If I am going to get students to become lifelong readers I know that I have to have a wide variety of books for them to choose from! Starting out my first year there was maybe 25 chapter books in my room… and they were olddddd .. definitely hard to get kids engaged in reading with minimal book choices … I’m four years in now and am constantly adding to my book collection!

Every year I ask for recommendations for books that they want added to our library! Let’s face it, there’s always variation with students and new books are always being published! Here’s how I grew my library:

📕I had books lying around from when I was a kid! My mom had donated most of them but I still found some chapter book sets hidden away!

📗Scholastic bonus bucks! If you do book orders at your school I always take time to talk about the book orders and give students time to look through them. Any money I get in my bonus bank goes directly back into buying books my kids suggest!

📘Value village and Facebook marketplace are my go to’s for buying books! People are always amazing when they find out you’re a teacher too, I once had a man just give me 2 bags of books he just had and didn’t have time to put online yet!❤️

📙Use local stores that give teachers a discount! Here in NS, I frequently visit Tattletales. They do 20% everyday for teachers. I love that I am supporting local AND getting new books for my kiddos!

📓Ask family and friends! Let your family and friends know you are trying to collect. I’ve had some wonderful people who knew my mom had a teacher as a daughter just give her books to give for me.

Understand that this is not something you can grow overnight! I am literally always adding books to our library - both my read aloud collection AND my student library. I value books in my classroom and it’s something I want to spend a little money on to make it valuable for my kids. ❤️

#teachersfollowteachers #teachersofinstagram #iteachfourth #iteachfifth #teacher #classroomlibrary #classroomdecor #classroompinspirations #teachersofig #teachersofinsta #teachergram #teacherorganisation

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We love a good recap! Still not over this past weekend…

#bendbeerchase #bendbeer #bendoregon #oregon #relayrace #runningmotivation #ilovebeer

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