Back To School Find!

Here is something I just found, literally 45 minutes ago. I could not wait to share it, except for the moments between getting home and now where I had to make some homemade peach ice cream real fast :)

Anyway...

I am joining up with Teaching with Moxie's Back to School Linky. Click the picture above to see what others have found. Here is the awesomeness I found.

Shaped stickies. Leaves, speech bubbles, thumbs up, and (my fav) iPhones. They are $0.97 at Wal-Mart for a pack of 100, and they are Wal-Mart brand. I bought 300 of each, so two sets worth of each for my group of 115. Think of the uses. Exit tickets...thought trees...anchor charts...class discussions...the list goes on and on.

I can see the iPhones used for descriptions or paragraphs. They are lined and have more space than the other shapes. The leaves could be on a bulletin board where each student gets to write something about leaves changing color and light energy (we will be doing light energy about the time the leaves start to fall in this part of Texas). The thumbs up can be used for voting or agreeing or disagreeing with a statement. They just turn the thumb the way they want when they write on it. I absolutely LOVE these, and they are so much cheaper than the $3 Post-It brands. As soon as we actually get to use these, I will post pictures of how it turned out. 

How do you see using them!

That time is here...

I went to Walmart to get groceries, like I do every Sunday morning before everyone in this small town is there, and they were busily stocking school supplies. Back to School shopping is here! It took all that I had in me not to buy 20 boxes of crayons and markers and glue and scissors and cute sticky notes and zebra striped pencil bags and everything else on the aisles! They have these 8 pack crayon packs that already have the colors sorted out for you. $.78 for all the shades of red in a pack or blues or greens. They were so cute and organized, but I thought isn't this just what I did when I was a kid with my 96 crayon pack, just reorganize the colors? I didn't get any, but that doesn't mean I won't be back for some :)

I did, however, manage to get two composition books with neon plastic covers in purple and blue. That I could not help.

There was also filler paper, 100 sheets I think, for $5 because it was reinforced with neon strips. Waaaay to expensive, but super cute.

Does anyone else get sucked in every time you see school supplies?

Back to School A+ Shopping Finds Linky Party

This is my first linky party, so let's hope I get it right!

You know you said at the start of June you weren't going to do any school stuff this summer, just enjoy it. Well, for so many of us, getting ready for the next school year is enjoyable. I, personally, love it! I am changing my classroom decor from safari to STEM robots. I have been looking everywhere for things to match my Riveting Robots decor from Creative Teaching Press.

There is tons of the robot set and I LOVE it! Click on the picture above to see all that Creative Teaching press has for this set.

Well, if I change the class decor, I have to change all of my organization stuff, too. The colors from my safari stuff just doesn't match, and let's face it, if you know me, I have to have it match!

I have found all sorts of things for my room to go with this, but what I really needed was folders in bright colors that seemed sturdy enough to handle daily use. My favorite are the plastic durable folders, but those are hard to find around here and the colors don't match perfectly. While I was in Dollar Tree looking for 4th of July necklaces for the kids, I just happened to wander into the teaching isle. I found these cute, bright folders! They are sturdy, have 2 inside pockets (no brads), and come in 6 great matching colors (well, 5 of the colors match, but I will ALWAYS make an exception for pink!).

They have this cute swirl texture design, and a thin layer of plastic around the outside. They even have holes to put in binders if needed. They were $1 at Dollar Tree in the DFW Texas area. Did you know that at DollarTree.com you can buy mass quantities, like 24, 36, and such? So if you needed a class set or something, you may try that instead of trying to go to a couple of Dollar Tree stores.

These will be great in my think tank tubs!

Have you found a great teacher find? Link up and share it!

Couldn't help it

Living in the country is nice for so many reasons, but its keeps me far from specialty stores :( I just happened to be in town near a great teacher supply store and thought I could quickly go in and grab some gears for my bulletin board. Ha! Over an hour later, I had spent way more than I needed to, but every isle inspired an idea! Anyone else have that problem? My classroom will be the coolest robot/STEM classroom! Kids won't want to stay away!