Monday, July 29, 2013

Monday I Made it!

I am linking up with Tara from Fourth Grade Frolics for my first Monday I Made it Linky Party!


So I had seen these pockets on Pinterest and I wanted to make something like them for all the materials my kiddos have from our Everyday Math program.

Purple Folder: Find original post here; Multi-Colored Folders: Dead post :(

Before the photo bomb...I will confess:  This post should be titled Monday My Mama Made it.  She is the most awesome mama ever and my classroom wouldn't be half as cool without her.  We make a good team: I come up with the ideas and she makes it happen!  So she is my hand model in these pictures:


I know in the original pin the pocket from both sides of the folder were used to make more of a wallet, but I wanted only one pocket, so we were able to get two out of each folder.

One tip though, if you go that route, you will need to double stick tape the side that was part of inside of the folder.

Then I added a Velcro dot for a closure (Velcro that I had to go out and buy a separate day because what I had wasn't enough).


And there you have it:  A math envelope for their dollar bills, fact triangles, etc.  I made a little label for them  and I got to reuse some of the messed up folders from years before!



Any other ideas what you could make these pockets and use them for?




Saturday, July 27, 2013

Saturday Snapshots - Shopping Edition

I am linking up with Michele from Run! Miss Nelson's Got the Camera for another Saturday Snapshots.  This time, it's the shopping edition (for me)!



So I was reading my Facebook feed when I came across this picture from Mrs. Stanford's Class and I thought, I must.get.to.Michael's.now!

So I went...and our Scentos were 30 cents each and another 15% off for teachers.  I am itching to go back to get more...

Do you see those cute bird and superhero awards and stickers?  I love them!!  Okay, so then I found this cute owl box:  I don't know what I am going to do with it, but for $2, I had to buy it!


I feel like I give out pencils for everything and I was looking at my stash the other day and it is slim pickin's for "boy" pencils, so I had to buy a bunch for a $1 a piece.


These are what I consider my deal (even with the Scentos being so cheap).  These packs of erasers and pencil toppers were 75 cents each (there are 100 in a bag).  My kids were crazy about mini-erasers last year (they named them, made little houses for them...), so I jumped at buying these!  Then the paper and bookmarks: more birds and superheroes!  I should explain here.  I did a superhero theme last year and there was nothing out there for superheroes and now they are everywhere, so I am snatching it up for when I repeat the theme.  Then the birds, even though I haven't made the official announcement, my theme is birdy chevron this year (aka, birds mixed with chevron).


So that's it for my Saturday Snapshots -- I will be at Staples tomorrow morning for one cent folders - I need them for the kiddos, but I am also making a project with them!!!

Have you found any good back to school deals?

Thursday, July 25, 2013

My name is Bobbi and I have a die-cut problem...


So this was the scene of my classroom last night at midnight.  I am moving classrooms so I am trying to organize everything before I put it in my cabinets and closet.  These are my die-cuts.  I have a problem -- that's the first step, right, I just admitted it.  I had four baskets overflowing of these die-cuts from the Dollar Tree and Target Dollar Spot and was kind of overwhelmed...especially when I finally stood up to take a picture.  Wow.


So I got to work and started sorting...I only put a few things to the side for the kids art box (something I have for inside recess), but the rest I kept.


Isn't this pretty?  Or am I the only one who finds organization beautiful?



After bagging and labeling everything, I tucked everything away in a drawer in my teacher's closet.


This is the most organized that it will look like all year.  I have a picture to prove that it looked this way at one point!

So!  What do I do with all these die-cuts?  I will leave that for another day....Ooh!  A cliffhanger!

Tell me, what are you obsessed with?  What do you have too much in your classroom, but will still keep on buying?  I ask this because I will keep on buying die-cuts...I can't help it!


Wednesday, July 17, 2013

I have been busy...and I found a cute owl!

This week has been very crazy (and it is only Wednesday!).  I have had some family stuff going on, I had class for my masters, and I finished summer school!  The last one is definitely something to celebrate!!

I also have been busy making products for my teaching store...


I had a superhero themed classroom last year and I had these CAFE posters up, but I decided to revamp them and add them to my TpT store.  I think they're pretty cool (am I a bit biased?):  I made the chalkboard ones and the colorful ones available in one pack.  They are available here in Spanish and here in English.



THEN!  I made this Encuentra la letra page for every letter of the alphabet.  It could be cool as a independent worksheet or a center, but I was thinking it would be cool to do it on an interactive board and have the kiddos come up and circle the letter.  Of course, I had to do it in both languages!


I will have to post all the goodies I have been making for my classroom at a later date...I think I {might} have found my theme!

One last thing before I go...my owl.

So I went to Target this afternoon to get cat food, $101.57 later I walked out.  I found this little guy in the dollar spot.  I got one for Grace's playroom, one for Grace's bedroom, and one for my classroom. Hey!  They were a $1 each!


Sunday, July 14, 2013

Sunday Smorgasbord

Hey everyone!  I am going to try another linky party today from Michelle at Fab-u-lous in First:

{One}
Did my weekly Sunday Back-to-School shopping trip today.  It started off at Office Max:  poor Gracie got buried by the 25 cent packs of glue sticks (20 of them: teacher limit!).  She loved it actually!


{two}
Then we headed over to Target to get pencil boxes for my kids behavior tickets (I need to do a post on that soon!) and Grace had to try a chair.  Then her baby needed a chair.  Then she needed to get a bucket, went back to sit down and realized baby didn't have a bucket and had to get her one, too.  #shopping with toddlers (That is the first time I have ever done a hashtag!)


{three}
I need to get an order into Creative Teaching Press ASAP.  I need want this border so badly -- it would go perfectly in my classroom.  Also, I think I am leaning towards birds, trees, and nature type of classroom this year and they have a lot of cute stuff there!

{four}
I saw these at Target today and I just got giddy.  Why do I love smelly markers so much?  I need (no, I am not crossing that out -- because it is a need) new ones badly.  I will be getting them on my next trip there!

{five}
Three more days left of summer school.  I love teaching summer school, but I am ready for a break and ready to start really planning for the upcoming school year.  I do have a pretty awesome group of kids this summer though...

And that is it for my Sunday Smorgasbord!  Hope everyone enjoyed it!


Saturday Snapshots

I am so excited to be joining Run! Mrs. Nelson's Got the Camera's Saturday's Snapshots Linky Party!  This is my first linky party!


So this post is being written at 12:22 am Sunday morning, but I still haven't gone to bed (so it is still Saturday to me) and these pictures are from our Saturday, so it works, right?

We finally got around to doing pictures in the big yellow chair!  This is from a garden shop we pass by all the time: we always say we're going to stop and we never do!  This chair was huge!

Running around at the garden shop!

This old cool car was filled with flowers - pretty cool!

Some lunch at Chipotle!  Nummy!

Playing around at the bookstore!

Throwing pennies in the water fountain.

We have a summer bucket list to complete and we are well on our way!

Friday, July 12, 2013

Chevron Finds & Rewards Bracelets Freebie

I have all these ideas in my head of what I want to write about and I let it get so overwhelming, that I don't even post!  Ugh!

Well, today's post is dedicated to my chevron finds (I think I could do a whole blog on it!).  I went to another Target last weekend and I found not only the gray and pink desktop calendar, but a thin monthly calendar that matches!  So I had to get them both!



It would have been better if it was gray and yellow (like my awesome school bag that my hubby got my last Christmas - it's yellow inside!), but I can't have everything in those colors (or can I?) 

Follow the link to look around this Etsy shop!
THEN!  I was at Wal-Mart with my mama and Gracie the other day and I saw all these notebooks.  Yes, if you know me, I did freak {a little}!



The chevron and the dots were a dollar each and weirdly enough, the little half notebooks were two dollars (eh, half the size and double the price?).  I still brought one because it was cute!

That's about it for my shopping lately...I did finally find the teal pocket charts at Target and got those, but nothing else too exciting.  Now, if you made it this far in the post, it is time for a freebie!  Now in my Teachers Pay Teachers store I have Reward Bracelets for Super Students (in Spanish or English)!



Each of these packs have 13 reward bracelets that you can download, print, and tape, glue or staple your students' wrists to tell them how awesome they are.  There are bracelets for doing homework all week, being a good friend, being a good helper, being an awesome writer, mathematician, and reader.  There are even ones for birthdays! Click on the picture or here for English and here for Spanish to get them for FREE (have I mentioned that?) at my TpT store!

I think that is it for now!  Off to play with Gracie for a bit before bed time!


Sunday, July 7, 2013

Target Dollar Spot and Calendar Love

We're back from St. Louis and we had such a great time!  Those little capsules that you ride up to the top of the Arch were probably the scariest thing ever, but I loved all of it!

So the weekend after the fourth of July is the unofficial start of back-to-school shopping.  The Staples penny sales have started and everyone is marking their Crayola markers down to 99 cents.  This all makes me giddy!!!  A few of the blogs I follow started posting all of the cool things they have gotten at the Target Dollar Spot, so I dragged asked my mama nicely to go to Target with me!

So, at my local Target, they haven't started to put the teacher stuff the Dollar Spot, but everything is 70% off, so I went a little crazy (and when I say crazy, I got all of this for $13!)

First off, I need some blogger picture taking 101.  I took these with my phone, so they aren't the best...but I promise, I will learn!


Lots of 30 cent prizes for the prize box!


I found these readers (for 30 cents!  Can I say that enough?)  I am super excited because they go along with some of our thematic units in second grade.  Yes, they are in English, but I think they will be good to read when we bridge the units to English.  Then there is this Brilliant Reader book and it is a journal that kids record and write about the books they read.  If I taught an English general ed class, I would easily pick up a class set of these (for 30 cents each!), but I think I am going to look at it for ideas for a Spanish one!

These guys...I have some ideas for centers from them.  A lot of my ideas come from here and I have some of my own Spanish centers up my sleeve, too.  The baskets in the back are strawberry baskets...Hmmm, what can I do?

Then my calendar dilemma:  These pictures are from Target because I didn't buy yet:
Look at all this chevron, stripes love at Target.  I can't decide which one I want for my personal planner, but my desk planner will definitely be this one...


This is seriously my most favorite time of year.