Teacher Dollar Days and a Teacher Planner Bummer

Lets start my post with the happy, positive stuff... It's Wednesday which means it's time for a Teacher Dollar Days link up with A Teacher Without A Class.

The first exciting bit of news with this is that one of my TpT products is featured in the post this week over on A Teacher Without A Class. It's my Welcome Banner and seeing it as part of her post makes me all sorts of giddy and excited. This week my find that I picked up cost me $1.99 each and I got them from Carson Dellosa. They are these cute little "A Little Birdie Told Me" note pads (well, they call them certificates, but I'm using them as special notepads). 

There are 24 sheets per note pad, so I decided to splurge and order 10 of them (only so I don't have to reorder them too quickly since I plan on using them every week). My classroom theme this year is going to be the Boho Birds collection that Carson Dellosa makes, and when I saw these little notes from the collection I was super happy because I knew I could use them. My plan with these ties into my Tweet Box that I'll have in my classroom. Here's a pic of it and if you'd like, you can read about it in my blog post here.

My kids will be using the Tweet Box to leave positive notes/compliments to each other every week as a part of my character education portion of my curriculum, so I thought I would use the "A Little Birdie Told Me..." notes in a similar way and use them as a way for me to send home positive notes to the parents of my student's about something their child did well during the week. I'm all about the positive in my classroom, and  in the past when I've done positive notes homes the kids loved it (even the one kid I had who refused to cooperate 9 out of 10 times a day), and the parents appreciated getting good feedback from the teacher about their children.  Now for my second Dollar Day Item...it's another item in my store that is only $1.00, and it ties into the whole Tweet Box/Positive Note thing...just on the opposite end of the spectrum. As positive as I like to keep my classroom, I am also a realist about the fact that sometimes we do get those kiddos who like to test boundaries and push buttons. In my classroom, I put a lot of emphasis on helping my students become responsible for themselves and their actions/choices. This includes teaching/reminding them that they control the choices they make, and that those choices can have consequences. That's where my Behavior Reflection Sheet comes into play. 

It's part of my Behavior Management System that I use (I plan on doing a whole blog post on this in the near future). Basically, This sheet is the third step in my System. Once the kids get to this step, I send them to a quiet area of the classroom to take a break and fill out one of these sheets. It gets them thinking about the choices they make and what they can do to make better choices. It also requires them to list what they think a fair consequence would be if they keep acting up. The other perk to this sheet... I make them have their parents sign it and return it to school (I usually photocopy the filled out sheet before sending it home since we all know that kids sometimes "forget" or "lose" things they were supposed to give to their parents). That helps me on my end because then parents can't say they weren't aware of what was going on in the classroom, and I can hold on to the sheet in my Student Info binder as documentation if things ever progress to a point where the child needs a referral.  So those are my items for this week's Teacher Dollar Days. I hope you guys like them, and don't forget to head on over to A Teacher Without A Class and check out the other posts too. Now for the bit of not so happy news. I got my Erin Condren Lesson Plan book today. I was all sorts of happy and excited when I saw it on my doorstep this morning (seriously...I was really excited to the point that I was waiting for little elves to appear singing a cheery tune while throwing glitter and confetti everywhere as I opened the box). So I brought my package inside...opened up the box and the pretty paper the book was wrapped in...and that's when I saw it... My book...my beautiful, absolutely adorable book was basically useless. There is a HUGE dent in the coiling that binds the book together. I can't even open it all the way without having to fight with it to turn pages without tearing them.

BIG dent!!

All misshapen to the point the planner doesn't open all the way.

So I called the Erin Condren people. The lady was very nice (and apologetic) and asked me to send them pictures of the damage so they can see what they can do to fix the issue...they didn't even ask me to return the planner I have yet. Now it's a waiting game to hear back from them about what, if anything they can do to make my pretty pretty planner a pretty AND functional one. I'll keep you all updated as I hear back from them. 

Teacher Dollar Days!

Today I'm linking up with A Teacher Without A Class for the Teacher Dollar Days linky party. Unfortunately  I've been super crazy busy so far this summer and haven't had the chance to hit the dollar store yet (I really want to because a new one opened up 10 minutes from my house), but I do have one dollar find (technically its a 79 cent find) to share, AND a product from my TpT store to share too!

My dollar find was at Hobby Lobby and it was this wooden door hangar that they are selling for 0.79 each!

This got me super excited because I have several uses for these in my classroom. I'm going to use 4 of them for bathroom passes (one set for use and the other for backup since we all know how easily those passes grow legs and disappear  mysteriously get lost. I also already made a sign for my door with one of them for when my kiddos are testing. Here is how it turned out...

I already posted about this testing sign in a previous post for a Monday Made It, so you can check that out here. I'm sure there are other uses I will find for these door hangars in my room, so I'm probably going to go back to Hobby Lobby and pick up a few more to have on hand.


Now for my TpT Store item... I'm pretty new as far as being a seller on TpT (my store has a whole 3 items, lol), but I thought I would share one with you that I am selling for $1.00. It's a Welcome banner, and I actually had alot of fun making it. Here's the cover sheet for the download if you want to get an idea of what the banner looks like....

I looove blues and greens, hence the color palate I went with, but I am planning to make a few more in different color schemes in the near future. You can check out this banner and my other items in my TpT store by clicking here, or by clicking the button on the right side of my blog.

Well...that's about all I have for this week's Dollar Days. I'm sure I'll have a new find for next time. Until then, be sure to head over to A Teacher Without A Class and check out all the other posts!

Monday Made It

I finally got to Hobby Lobby this week and did a bunch of shopping for projects for my classroom this upcoming year, so now I can finally join in on Tara's Monday Made Its.

$95 and 2 hours later, I came home with this haul from Hobby Lobby.

Now, my first Monday Made It isn't actually any of the things I bought at Hobby Lobby, it's my first product I've made for my TpT Store. I was working on some things in Photoshop for my Where Are We sign (that will be another Made It for another Monday) and I just fell in love with the graphics I had found, so I decided to put the Where Are We sign on hold and worked on creating a set of class schedule cards instead. Here's a screencap of what some of them look like:

2 of the 18 cards in the set I made

If you're interested in the rest of them, I have the whole set up on my TpT store and they're free (yay for free stuff)!


My second Monday Made It is my numbered magnets that I'll be using for attendance with my students. I first saw this idea in a fourth grade class I was a substitute for and then I've also seen it a bunch of places in Pinterest although I can't find the links right now. Basically, I'll be putting these on a small magnetic dry erase board that I'll have up near my classroom door so that when my kiddos come in every day they can move their magnet from the "home" side of the magnet to the "school" side. I still have to get the actual dry erase board and make it pretty, but that will also become another Monday Made It for another week. I love using the magnets for the attendance because it makes it easier to see who is or isn't in class instead of having to try to wrangle all the kids to sit down and stop moving while you do an old-fashioned roll call.

So to make these what do we need? Not much really... just some scrapbook paper, Mod Podge, craft glue, glass gems, a sharpie and some magnets.

All together I think I maybe spent $5 to make 25 magnets!

Now, while I don't know my kiddos names for next year yet, I do know I will have 25 of them (I work at a charter school and our school was filled to capacity during our lottery for the 2013-2014 year, which is 25 kids per class), so I made 25 magnets. I think I might make more of these so when I need to put up anchor charts and stuff I can just put them up on the whiteboards in the room.

My 25 completed magnets. 

My last made it for this week has to do with testing. We all know how frustrating it can be when our kiddos are taking tests and someone knocks on our door or causes a loud ruckus outside our room and distracts our kids. I decided to make myself a door sign that I can use throughout the year.

The before look... 

I really liked these door hangers that Hobby Lobby had (might have had to do with them only being 79 cents a piece) and I bought a few of them since I have several ideas for what to use them for. Now, I know these generally go on the door knobs, but I plan on putting a small 3M hook on my classroom door at eye level so that this will be more easily seen by anyone who comes a-knockin'. All it took to make my finished sign was a few wood letters, some paint, some stickers, and then some Mod Podge at the end because it did look a little dull without a sealer on it. Oh...and a little trick I found to make relatively uniform looking polka dots... I used the eraser of a pencil...worked like a charm!

My finished sign.

Well.. thats it for my first Monday Made It post. I hope you guys liked what I had to share. Now I'm off to go check out the rest of the awesomeness that everyone is posting for this linky. Make sure you check out all the other posts as well!

Teachers Pay Teachers

Okay, it's official... I finally did it. I've been waivering back and forth for a while about starting up a shop on TpT, and I finally posted my first product there today. It's a set of schedule cards that you can use in your classroom for your daily schedule, and it's free (YAY! We all love free stuff!!). So, I hope you'll all go and check out/follow my store over on TpT (I have a link to it on the right hand side of my blog under the About Me section, or you can just click here). I should hopefully get more things made and posted to the store within the next few weeks.