A Peek at My Week {7-13-14}

Hi everyone, I'm linking up today with Mrs. Laffin's Laughings for her A Peek at My Week linky party. So, without further ado, here is what I have planned for this week:

Monday - We are getting new sliding glass doors installed at my house. We have two sliding glass doors (1 by our driveway and 1 by the backyard) and are replacing them with the Pella doors that have the blinds built inside the glass. So Lowe's will be at my house bright and early at 8am to work on taking out the old doors and putting in the new ones.

This is what my new doors will look like.

Tuesday - Religious Education Planning Meeting. Even though I teach 4th grade all week, I also teach Sunday School at my church. Last year I taught the Sacramental Prep class for 2nd graders who are getting reading to make their first Reconciliation and their First Communion. I'm hoping to get the same assignment again this year, and I'll find out at the planning meeting.

Wednesday - I've been getting a bunch of stuff together for my classroom theme this year, and now I have enough to make the trip to Lakeshore Learning and get everything I need laminated. I'll be meeting up with one of my teammates and we'll make a day of it...laminating and lunch anyone?

Here's a sample of my theme: Carson Dellosa's Seaside Splash.

Wednesday is also the 2 week mark for when I got my tattoo, so hopefully either Thursday or Friday I will get a chance to make it over to Wet n Wild and spend a few hours in the lazy river and the wave pool.

Friday - I'm going to try my hand at being a painter, and am going to a Design and Wine class. The whole point is that you pay $35 and learn how to do a painting over the course of a 3 hour class. They also have wine and appetizers available during the class. Lets all just cross our fingers and hope my painting doesn't turn out looking like a 3 year old did it.

This is the picture I will be learning how to paint. 

Saturday or Sunday - The Purge: Anarchy comes out on Friday, and I looooove scary/creepy/thriller/horror/suspense movies, so the plan is to meet up with my friend Tascha over the weekend to go and see it.

What are your plans for the week? Leave a comment and let me know and be sure to head over to Mrs. Laffin's Laughings to check out the other posts, and even link up yourself!

Back to School Goals 2014-2015

I'm linking up today with I {heart} Recess for her Back to School Goals link up. School (for the kiddos) doesn't start up until August 25th, and even though I don't have to report back until August 13, with all of the PD I'm taking part in this summer I'm already thinking about different goals I have for the upcoming year, so here are some of mine:

Personal: Last year, once the school year took off, I was so wrapped up in reading professional books/articles/etc or working on stuff for school or the kiddos, that I lost track of making sure I have enough time for me to just read for fun. I push that idea with my kiddos so much, I need to remember to give myself that same chance as well. This year, my goal is to give myself a little bit of time each day, even if its 10 minutes before bed to just read a (non-teacher/professional) book.

Organization: On the whole I was pretty organized last year...except for the piles of paper I inevitably always had on my table in my classroom. I would either get it graded but not enter the grades at the same time or get it graded but forget to hand it back to my kiddos, or there would be 50 million things my admins would need from me right then and there and I wouldn't get a chance to grade the work right away. My goal this year is to implement a "touch it once" grading method so I can get the papers back to the kiddos ASAP. One of my teammates and I are planning on doing "grading parties" on Friday evenings each week so we can get everything graded, entered into the grade book, and into our kiddos mailboxes so they can go home on Monday.

Planning: Now that I have a year of teaching under my belt, and I'm staying in the same grade level, I have some plans I can reference as I write my new plans for this year. Having last year's plans as a resource will be helpful in planning and hopefully I can plan at least 2-3 weeks ahead.

Professional: Nevada requires teachers to complete 6 credits of CEUs every 5 years for license renewal. Now even though my license is good through 2017, I was able to complete 3.5 of those credits during the 2013-2014 school year. I'd like to get the rest of the credits done this school year so that way I'm not stressing about them once it's time to submit my renewal application.

Students: We used technology in a whole bunch of different ways in my classroom last year, but I noticed alot of times when I would give my kiddos group research to do, they would always ask me to find things online for them, or just still to their textbooks and other resource books we had in our room. My goal this year is to get my kiddos to be more self-sufficient with completing research online and more familiar with using technology as part of their own presentations in my classroom.

Motto: "New school, new year...things will be better" I loved almost everything about teaching last year. But the admins at my building were ineffective, didn't support the teachers, heavily played favorites, and there was a severe lack of communication all around which led to the entire staff having a depressingly low morale. Working at a charter, we're able to put in transfer requests to our sister schools, and I was lucky enough to get a 4th grade position at our charter's brand new campus for the 2014-2015 school year. The admin team for the new school is amazing (we've already had staff team building days and their communication is quick, on time, and clear). I'm also lucky since two of my teammates from my other school are transferring with me so we'll all be together in 4th grade again. Which is why I keep telling myself that this year will be a better year than last year. 

What goals are you setting for yourself? Link up and share! Or...leave a comment below!

Five for Friday

I'm joining up with Doodle Bugs for the Five for Friday linky party. So....here are my 5....

1. Moving in to my classroom.

As of yesterday, we were all able to start moving in to our classrooms. Unfortunately, the rooms haven't all been completely painted/cleaned/etc yet, so not all of us (including me) are allowed to set up our desks or put stuff up on the walls yet. I did at least get alot of my stuff moved into my room...

Ignore the way the bins are set up...they are out of order and not yet properly labelled.

2. My sharp pencil dispenser.

I jumped on the bandwagon and surfed through Amazon and found one of those acrylic straw dispensers, added some of my alphabet stickers to it and turned it into my pencil dispenser. 

3. Target sales/dollar section

I went to Target the other day, and got 2 class sets of composition notebooks and 10 books for my classroom for $40. The notebooks were bundled in packages of 5 for $3 and the books were in the dollar section!!! They were good books too...junior adapted editions of classic stories!!! The dice in the picture I got at Dollar Tree..packages of 10 dice for $1 each. I plan on using one class set of the notebooks for interactive math notebooks, and I'm not 100% sure what I'll use the other ones for, but I'll come up with something...I'm actually thinking of using it as an interactive writer's notebook for grammar and such...we'll see how it all turns out though. 

4. Wet 'n Wild

Two words... Water. Park. When you live in Las Vegas it gets HOT during the summer (we had a slew of days that were between 117 and 120 a few weeks ago) and I was just thankful that I made the decision to get a season Gold Pass. I went earlier this week to the water park and am going again tomorrow (and as many times as I can before the school year starts and my summer is officially over).. I can already hear the lazy river and the wave pool calling my name...

5. Home Depot & Sound Board

For whatever reason, when my school was built (it's only 2 yrs old), they didn't think to put bulletin boards in the classrooms. The past two years, teachers made due with using colored butcher paper and bulletin border stapled/taped/pinned directly into the walls. I For this upcoming year, a coworker came up with the idea of using sound boards to create bulletin boards in the classroom (which is awesome when you keep in mind the fact that actual bulletin boards can cost upwards of $100 a piece). I decided to do the same as my coworker and today we both went to Home Depot to buy our boards. The boards are only $10.95 and the bonus is that for what should have cost me well over $500, I was able to only spend $43. I left 3 of my boards at the full 4ft by 8ft size, and had the 4th one cut at Home Depot so that I will also have 2 4ft by 4ft boards as well. My principal loves the idea because its affordable AND the boards help reduce noise! So once my room gets painted, I'll be allowed to install my boards (more pics to come once they are up on the walls).

So what are your 5 for the week? Head over to Doodle Bugs and link up and let us know!

When Do You Go Back Linky Party

It's that time of the summer where all of us teachers slowly but surely all start reporting back to school, so I thought I would join up with Jessica from Literacy Spark for her When Do You Go Back linky party.

At my school, we (teachers, TAs, secretaries, etc) officially report back on August 14. HOWEVER, with all the crazy that's been going on with the new campus opening and the old faculty from my school moving over to it (or at least waiting to as the building hasn't been fully completed yet), we (the new faculty) have not had the opportunity to go into the building or our rooms at all this summer. The faculty that is transferring over to the new campus should have all of their stuff in the multipurpose room at this point so that it can all get loaded up and moved over within the next few weeks. So, we have been told that we can finally access the building and our rooms starting on August 1, so most of us are treating that like an unofficial teacher report date and are all heading in to get to work on our rooms since that only leaves us 2 weeks before our Back to School meetings, PD, etc all begin and only 13 days before the Parents Meeting on the 13th (no word yet on if they will be coming and seeing the classrooms but alot of us are aiming to have them mostly set up by then just in case). Students report for a Back to School Orientation Day on the August 21 (it's really only an hour so the kids can meet the teacher and see their rooms) and then the first day of school is August 26. 

When do you all start back to school? Be sure to link up with everyone else and let us know!

Monday Made Its and an Erin Condren Update!

I can't believe it's already July 8th. I feel the time I have left to get ready for the school year slipping through my fingers...especially since I won't have time next week since I'm going to the National Conference on Differentiated Instruction. (I'll be blogging about my sessions each evening and am looking forward to sharing all the awesomeness with you guys). This week I have 3 MMI to share with you all...

Monday Made It #1: Attendance Board

A few weeks ago I did a blog post about my magnets that I made for my students. Each of my students will have a magnet with their assigned number on it and I plan on having them use these for attendance each day. I went to Walmart this week and found a magnetic white board that was the perfect size for my attendance board that I wanted to make. The board I found is 14x14. I Also stopped over at Michaels and got some black twill ribbon to use for this project. I already had the fabric and rick rack at home. Originally I was going to use scrapbook paper and a cardstock border for this project but then when I looked at the back of the board, I realized it would be easier/more efficient to use fabric (the back of the board has thick corrugated cardboard that I was able to staple into easily). The bonus to using the fabric is that in the future if/when I choose a new classroom theme, I can remove the fabric more easily than I would the paper and recover the board to match. All I had to do to make this board was cover the board with the fabric and attach it with staples in the back. Then I attached the black ribbon the same way (this whole project was made with staples practically), and then I attached the rick rack over the ribbon for an extra bit of cuteness. Then, all I did was grab two of the birds from my set of classroom theme materials and used some mod podge to attach them to the fabric. Now I have an attendance board all ready to go. 

Monday Made It#2: Braggin' Bird Clips

So last week I read the MMI that Miss Nelson did on her blog (read it here) about the brag tags that she had made. I instantly loved what she had made, especially since I was still trying to sort out my classroom reward system and decided these would be a great idea for my 4th graders. I bought the set that Miss Nelson was selling in her TpT store and I LOOOOOOOVE them. I got a set that came with 10 custom designed brag tags, and now I actually can't wait to see my kiddos start earning them. I needed to make something for my students to keep their tag chains in the classroom, and I decided to use clothes pins. I know you all have probably seen the awesome clips that many of my fellow bloggers have made by mod podging scrapbook paper onto them, and that is similar to what I've done...I just did it with a twist and used fabric instead of paper. Here's the steps to how I made them:

Step 1: Get your materials (mod podge, clothes pins, fabric, foam brush)

Step 2: Put a good coat of mod podge on the clothes pin

Step 3: Put the pin glue side down onto the fabric. (I found it helps after the pin is on the fabric to run your fingers over the fabric and make sure it's good and glued to the pin).

Step 4: Cut off all the excess fabric around the pin. (You could use an exacto knife, but I found a decent pair of scissors worked just fine)

Step 5: Put a coating of mod podge over the fabric to make sure it's good and secured to the pins.

Step 6: Attach the bird(or whatever image/item) to the pin. (This one has my mom's name on it...she saw what I was making, thought it was cute and asked for one with a magnet on the back so she could put it on her fridge)

Now, with these, you can either use a magnet on the back, or get some glue dots and thumb tacks depending on if you're putting them on a bulletin board or a magnetic surface. I'm not sure yet where in my room I'll be displaying mine, so I'm waiting on that part until I get into my classroom next month (I'll post pics once I finally decide where to put them).

Monday Made It #3: Copy/File/Grade Drawers

A while back, Fun In Room 4B did a MMI post about her Copy/File/Grade Drawer. I thought it was a nifty idea and decided to make one of my own. I had left over scrapbook paper from when I had made my teacher toolbox, and decided to use it so my Copy/File/Grade drawer and my toolbox would coordinate (matching/coordination makes my OCD happy). This is how my drawer turned out....

I hope you all enjoyed my MMIs. I had fun making them and still have a TON of other things to make and do before August begins and I have to start getting my classroom ready. Be sure to head over to 4th Grade Frolics and check out all the other blog posts for some great ideas!

Now for an update on my Erin Condren Lesson Planner... I posted last time how I had received the planner I ordered (Yay happy news) but that it had a severely dented coil so it couldn't even really open all the way, thus rendering it useless (Boo sad news). Let me just take a moment and say how amazing the people over at Erin Condren are. They were super helpful with taking care of the problem and ordered a reprint for me for the planner. They even put a rush on it so I would get it ASAP since I mentioned I needed it within the next few weeks to start getting ready for the school year AND they didn't even ask me to send back the damaged one, so I plan on attempting to hold on to it so I can make use of the stickers and labels and what not that came in it (waste not want not!). What's even better is that I got my shipping notification today that my reprinted planner has shipped, which for me, means that I should probably get it tomorrow at some point (I originally payed for 3 to 5 day shipping, plus I live in Vegas which is only 4 to 6 hours away from where Erin Condren is located so it doesn't take long for delivery anyway). I'll do a blog post with pics and whatnot once I get my new (and hopefully damage free) planner.

For now, I'm off to make another trip to Hobby Lobby to pick up the ball chain for my brag tags and possibly get some fabric for my bulletin boards too. 

Monday Made It!

I'm linking up again with 4th Grade Frolics for Monday Made It! I love this link up each week (even though I am super FAIL at doing my home made its...I think it's because I'm in super freak out mode over how much I still need to do for school)... I always get  so many great ideas from everyone who joins in, so make sure you check out the other blog posts!

Made It #1: Bathroom Passes:

So remember the Shh We're Testing door hangar I made last week? When I bought the door hangar to make it, I bought a bunch of them at once, especially since they only cost 0.79 each! This week I took two of them and used them to make my bathroom passes for my kiddos just by adding a little paint, some wood letters, and some rick rack (I LOVE rick rack...it's such an easy way to add a little cutsie-ness to a craft...plus I've used it in several of my projects for my classroom). Now, I'll be teaching 4th graders and my room is literally no more than 20 feet from the bathrooms, but I still want them to use the passes. I really don't like having a bunch of kids out of the room all at once, so my policy is only 1 boy and 1 girl out to the bathrooms at a time. (This policy comes from the experience of learning the hard way that 3 boys out to the bathroom at once results in wet wads of TP getting thrown all over the bathroom and hallways) The passes will be hanging on the wall near the door, so my students will know to check the passes first before asking about using the bathroom, because if the pass isn't on the wall, they'll know my answer will be no. Now, I plan on eventually making a second set of the passes for the bathroom since I know before the end of the year these will inevitably break or "grow legs and disappear". But for now, the one set will do just fine since my To Do list is still several feet long.

Made It #2: The Tweet Box

This idea came out of my classroom theme. I'm using the Carson Dellosa "Boho Birds" for my class theme this year. I also wanted to have something for the kids each week to tie into character education, and one of the bulletin board sets came with a resource guide that had this in it:

And that's when it it me! Tweets! I came up with the idea that the kids could use these little sheets as a way to compliment/say something nice about their classmates. I plan on focusing on different traits each month (friendship, honesty, respect, kindness, etc) and the kids can use the tweets as a way to point out when they see their fellow classmates following the traits, or if they want to give a general compliment as well. The class I student taught with did something similar to this with their character education program and it was amazing. The kids in the class all got along really well and there were hardly ever any fights or issues among them (granted there were still kids who would act up from time to time, but there was practically ZERO bullying/teasing in that class). 

So now that I had my Tweets the kids were going to write, I needed someplace they could put them. That's where my trip to Hobby Lobby came in handy. I was walking in the aisle with all the wood stuff (the aisle where I found my handy dandy multi-use door hangars), and saw unfinished wood tissue boxes. I thought that one of them would be perfect cause the kids could drop the Tweets in there and the bottom slides out so I can open the box each week and read the tweets that are in there. 

I plan on doing a Tweet read with my kids each Friday. I think it would be a nice way to wrap up each week  for the kids, and after the Tweets are read, I have a folder I plan on storing them in so I can use them as part of an end of the year gift for the kids... I plan on putting little memory books together for each kid and in it I'll include all the tweets from the year that their classmates wrote about them. 

So as for how I made the box... it was basically the same as the bathroom passes...some paint, wood letters/shapes, and of course... some rick rack for an extra fun little accent. 

So I hope you all enjoy my made its. I'm off to go check out the other Made Its everyone else posted about!

Currently... Optimum Organization.

Yesterday I think I posted like 3 times on my blog, so today I thought I would try condensing my posts and putting two linkies together.... I call it Linkception....I know, I'm a total nerd, lol.

Anywhoozle.. First up I'm linking with Oh Boy 4th Grade for my July Currently. 

Listening - Broadway music. I looooove Broadway. I grew up on Long Island and twice a year my mother would take me to NYC to see a play. It's one of the things I miss since moving to Vegas, but we have a good performing arts center out here now that is getting alot of the national tours, so I have plans for seeing a few shows there. 

Loving - Book. Nerd. That is me. It will never change. I don't think there's much more to say about that. As for my Old Navy purchases...gotta love a good sale! 

Thinking - I think we are all thinking this same thing about getting ready for next year. I feel like I have way too many things to do to get ready and no where near enough time to do it all. Someone needs to figure out how to clone me... or maybe I can just get in touch with Gru from Despicable Me and borrow some of his Minions for the rest of my life the summer. 

Wanting - I'm really impatient when I order things online. In my mind I know things take time to get packaged, shipped and delivered, but my inner child wants things right away. Plus, I'm super excited about my planner....I want it in my hands like yesterday...

Needing - I'm ignoring the clock right now and the fact that it is telling me I should have started getting ready twenty minutes ago. I'm excited for the movie though... we're going to go see The Heat. I love Sandra Bullock...she's my fave actress and Melissa McCarthy is just hilarious too.) Especially since I need to stop by Lakeshore Learning on my way to meeting up with my friend because I have a few things I wanted to pick up since I'll be near there...

Tips, Tricks, and Hints - I stumbled on my eraser tip by accident. Maybe you already have heard it before I mentioned it but yeah... I was trying to do the polka dots on my door hangar with a paint brush but it was aggravating my OCD since they didnt look uniform, so I tried using the eraser and it appeased my inner OCD demon worked just fine.

Now on to linky number two which is Optimum Organization with Fun in Room 4B....

I am going to be teaching 4th grade this year, and in my experience with fourthies in the past, sometimes they tend to forget homework and various other things. I also know how much we as teachers all have going on at any given moment of any given day in our rooms and I know for me it can be hard to keep track of who forgot what and who owes me what. 

I've tried a bunch of different ways of keeping track of it all, from post its to different symbols in my grade books, but I always seem to either lose the post it or forget to double check my grade book for the assignment that "Johnny" forgot to turn in 3 weeks ago. 

So I figured this year I would try something different... a Homework IOU. It's a big enough sheet of paper that I can keep them all together and I shouldn't end up losing them either (hopefully). Plus, I think it will help make my kiddos more responsible since on the IOU they have to give me a reason they don't have the assignment and tell me when they plan on turning it in to me. 

It'll also help me during parent conferences with parent who want to know why a student's grade might be a bit lower than they were expecting... I can just pull out the IOUs and explain how their child owed me work and never turned it in. 

Here's the design I came up with... If you like the IOU, I have it up in my TpT store and it's a freebie! 

What methods do you guys all use to keep track of which students owe what work? Let me know!

Also, don't forget to check out both the Currently and the Optimum Organization linkies!

Five For Friday

Okay, so I know I just posted a little while ago, BUT.... Doodle Bugs is doing Five for Friday and I completely forgot to link up with it earlier....I blame the heat...it was 114 degrees here today and is supposed to go up to 117 degrees by Sunday. I'm a bit tempted to move somewhere where I can live in an igloo until this heat goes away.  So... putting the scorching weather aside for now, lets get down to my 5 things.

My dogs Apollo (the brownish one) and Spencer (the white one). I think I need to send them to etiquette school... they are developing a nasty habit of stealing food off the table or in this case, right out of my hands. In their defense though, my mother encourages it and lets them eat from her plate despite me telling her not to do that AND it has been hot so I can see why they would want my fruit bar....I was just sitting on the couch watching TV while eating it and Spencer jumped up next to me and just started licking it. Apollo gave me the whole "well what about me" look so I just let the two of them have at it....it was peach flavored in case you were wondering...

Three words: YA Distopian Books. I love them. I can't get enough of them. These two are currently high up on my books I love list. I just finished reading The Way We Fall by Megan Crewe and am now about halfway through No Safety In Numbers by Dayna Lorentz. Both books also have sequels which I will need to go buy ASAP because I want to know what will happen next. 

This yummy yummy beverage... I got it while I had friends visiting and we went to Sugar (it's a candy bar with an actual bar in it too)...well technically we all got it. It's 36oz of yummy goodness and it also cost $36. We ordered one and split it between us. The drink was actually just fun to watch because it bubbled and smoked too... The drink actually came with two big lollipops in it and they were tied together with a candy necklace... I got one of the lollipops after we finished the drink and left my two friends to fight over who got the candy necklace. 

JABBAWOCKEEZ!!! My mother and I managed to snag free tickets to their show the other night and it was really really good. They have parts that include audience participation and I must say it was quite amusing seeing the almost 70 yr old grandma in the row ahead of me doing the harlem shake...yeah...I'll just leave you all with that image and see how long it takes you all to giggle. 

My classroom theme!!! Carson Dellossa finally stopped futzing around and sent me all the stuff I had ordered A MONTH AGO... they were "back ordered" on like half my stuff for my theme...which by the way is their Boho Birds collection. I absolutely love it and can't wait to put all of the stuff up in my classroom come August. Here's what some of the birds looks like... Aren't they cute?

Darn.. I tried to get this all typed and posted before the clock struck midnight, but alas I have failed and am late by 11 minutes. Anywhoo.. be sure to go and check out everyone else's Five for Friday too!

July Goals

It's almost July (where has this summer gone already?) so I thought I'd join in on the linky party fun that I {heart} Recess is hosting and post my July Goals.

Personal: Finish reading all the books I planned on reading this summer... Let me just say it... I am a book hoarder. I can't help it. I love them too dang much. ESPECIALLY YA books and even MORE especially... YA distopian books. They are my guilty pleasure. I've already had to get two extra book cases for my house because I have so many books. But yeah... my goal is to finish the book I'm reading now (it's No Safety in Numbers by Dayna Lorentz) and the other two books I bought back in May for my summer reading. 

Family: Mom's birthday gift... her birthday isn't until August 12th, but she is sooooooooooooo hard to shop for. She never wants anything and never tells me if she needs anything either...so I'm left pulling my hair out trying to find a nice gift for her. I'm tossing around a few options in my head right now, but I'm not 100% sure on a definite choice yet....

Health: I've been trying to make better choices when it comes to food (I've been somewhat successful but I could do better). I've been eating more fresh veggies and fruits and I've gotten myself down to only 1 can of soda a day. Now I want to cut down on stopping at fast food places which is what I hope to do this month. 

School: I've gotten some stuff done already for school, but I feel like I have eleventy-billion more and time is running out. Maybe it's just the fact that this will finally be my first year teaching on my own and having my own class (all my other experience has been where I was either a substitute or working with another teacher as their assistant). Add in the fact that I can't have any access to my school until August and I feel like I'm ready to explode. (The charter school that hired me is opening a new location and all the staff currently at the location I am going to be working at is being transferred over to there but since the building isn't finished yet, they are leaving ALL of their stuff in our building until August...which stinks for me and the other teachers at my location because we all want to get into our rooms and get things ready.) But anywhoozle... I need to revise my School To Do list. I also am going to the SDE National Conference onDifferentiated Instruction on July 16, 17, and 18th so I need to get ready for that. I'll definitely share how that conference goes afterwards. I'm excited about it because Harry and Rosemary Wong (the authors of The First Days of School) are presenting and I was able to score a space in their session!

Blog/TpT: I am pretty new to this whole blogging/TpT adventure. I just started this blog about a month ago and want to get all my buttons and apps linked into it. I also want to get in on more of the linky parties because they are super fun, and I'm having a blast getting to know all of you fabulous blogger too! As for TpT I literally just started my store there like 5 days ago, and while I have a few products up there, I want to get more up there, especially more curriculum related items.

Out of the Box: I live in Vegas and we just got a water park here this summer. It's called Wet n' Wild and it's great. I do like the slides and all of that, but there is one slide I have absolutely refused to go on cause it scares the bejeebus out of me.. .It's called the Canyon Cliffs water slide and it is literally 4 stories high and basically a vertical drop that lets the person on it sail on down at speeds of up to 33 MPH... yeah... I haven't had the guts to do it even though all my friends have multiple times and have had a blast. I am determined to attempt it at some point this month...

Well...those are my goals for July. What about yours? Head over to I {heart} Recess to link up and share them with us!

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!

Bloglovin' Blog Hop Linky Party!!!

We all know about Google Reader going away on July 1, and that just makes us all sad. Thankfully we can rely on Bloglovin' to still get all of our blog updates (you can follow me there, just click on the bloglovin' button on the right side of my blog). To help us along with all of this transition, Tori's Teacher Tips is hosting a linky party for a Bloglovin' blog hop. It's a great way to join in and make sure you're following the blogs you love, and an awesome way to find even more great blogs to follow too. Just click on the picture below to head over to Tori's blog and link up with the party!