Black and Bright Back to School Resources

Happy Tuesday!

I don't know about you, but I am soaking in every last minute of the summer before we head back to school.  However, I couldn't help but get a jump start on things for my classroom.

This year I'm planning to use black and brights as my classroom theme.  What do I mean?  Well, check out these ideas below and the links!

As with all projects, with every theme comes my own modifications.  My old alphabet and number line have seen a few classroom moves and needed to be ditched.  Instead of going with the typical number line from a teacher store, I decided to design my own to match my theme for this year.  Check them out below! :)  If you like them, the links to my Teacher's Pay Teachers Store are included.

Colorful Number Line and Cursive Alphabet Bundle

Colorful Number Line    Colorful Cursive Alphabet Line

Black and Brights Classroom Ideas

1. Objective Headers from Learning in Wonderland

2. Colorful Baskets: 2nd Grade Stuff

Supply Organization: Tunstall's Teaching Tidbits

Discounts and Perks EVERY Teacher Should Know

So, you're like most teachers out there...broke and the availability of supplies, read alouds and technology never seems to be sufficient.  Times are tough, but you're dedicated and YOU want to make sure that your students have what they need to succeed, which is why you're willing to sacrifice what little money you have to ensure that your classroom is an inviting, engaging place.  

Thankfully, there are many stores out there that also appreciate your willingness to serve in the classroom and with a little questioning you'll find that many places provide a discount or a perk to teachers.  Here is a list of stores that I've run across within the last few years that offer discounts or rewards to teachers.  I've already listed some retail stores that offer teacher discounts in an earlier post. Check these out, along with the discounts at retail clothing stores, and enjoy saving a little green along the way.  Please note that I was in no way asked to advertise these stores.  These are stores I've personally found to provide teacher discounts. :)

JoAnn Fabric and Craft Store - 15% off every day purchases and 25% off on educator appreciation days. 

Barnes and Noble- 20% off of your in-store purchases.  The only downside is that it doesn't work for coffee. :(

Staples- 5% back in rewards, along with free online shipping and special offers.  

Office Max- Office Max offers the Max Perks program, which gives you $10 for every $75 you spend. 

Michael's - 15% off in the store with your Teacher I.D. Sometimes stores will take any document that proves you work at a school if you forget your I.D. 

A.C. Moore- 15% off in store if you have your ID.  They don't have anything advertising a discount on their website, but the stores I've been to usually offer a discount. 

Apple Store- The Apple Education Store offers a variety of discounts for schools and teachers when you find your school on their website and order through the website.  

Adobe- Software discounts are available for teachers.  The software discounts vary, depending on the product.  They are currently offering the Creative Cloud to Teachers for $20 a month.  (Photoshop, Elements, Illustrator and more...)

Scholastic- Now called the Reading Club, Scholastic offers teacher bonus points on parent orders using your access code.  Teachers can use their bonus points to purchase books from Scholastic's website.  They do a GREAT job of providing special offers to help you rack up those points!

The Container Store- They offer the "Organized Teacher Discount" which advertises discounts to be shared with teachers throughout the year.  

Finally- be sure to ASK EVERY STORE if they offer teacher discounts.  Many places will be happy to throw in a discount if you have your I.D.  There is absolutely no harm in asking! 

Happy Saving,

Katie

FREEBIES on Teachers Pay Teachers

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Happy Monday!  :)

I have to start off by stating that this Monday was FAR better than last Monday.  Last week someone stole my "teacher bag" which also had some very important documents in it and it was a headache notifying all of the necessary agencies.  I mean, who takes a teacher bag full of student work, a wedding planning binder and a children's book?!?!  Needless to say the bag has not turned up. :(

In order to celebrate this Monday being much better than last week, I thought I'd share some work that I put on Teachers Pay Teachers last week.  At my school we implement Project-Based Learning and my second graders are in the middle of doing a life cycles project.  We launched the project by taking a visit to the Durham Museum of Life and Science to visit their Butterfly Conservatory.  Talk about neat!  We saw lots of butterflies, did an entire workshop on butterfly life cycles and had the chance to see some butterfly eggs.  Check out the pictures below from our trip inside the butterfly conservatory.

Now that we've launched our project we are off and away with working on learning about life cycles.  Our main focus is butterflies, while envisioning that our final product will be an entire Life Cycles Museum that we put together as a class.  They came back with some GREAT ideas after our visit to the museum and noticed details that I had glanced over that would be wonderful additions to our final product, which will unveil itself sometime in October.

Seeing as we're focused on butterflies and the fact that they are due to arrive in our room any day now, I've put together a free download on Teachers Pay Teachers that is a life cycle observation journal.  We spent today talking about how to make good observations, so we're ready to use our journals when the caterpillars arrive. There are two journal pages, a black and white cover page and a color cover page, which is shown below!

Also, to keep your week a bit more organized, I have a quick download for those of you who like to stay on top of your daily "To-Do" items.  To download you can click here or you can click on the picture.

Have a Joyful Week!
Katie

Organizing our Classroom Library

As the end of the school year starts to wrap up, I’ve been thinking more about how excited I am about summer break, but also the ways that I would like to change my room to make next year even more efficient than this past year. 

One of the areas that could use quite a bit of revamping is my classroom library.  Last year and this year I used Beth Newingham’s genre labels to organize my classroom library.  However, last year I taught fourth grade and genre labels were more appropriate.  This year I taught second grade and well, let’s just say that genre labels are nice but we need something that is a bit more practical and something that will keep my hair from producing any more stray grays…at the lovely age of below 25. 

I needed a solution that would keep my students aware of the genres that they were choosing, but would keep my library organized and my books more accessible to students because I was running into the following problems:

1.    Students were leaving the library a mess (even after I taught procedures.)

2.    Students were shuffling through genre baskets and couldn’t find the right level.

3.    Students were wasting reading time searching through baskets to find books on their level.

4.    Genre baskets were getting mixed together, despite the attempt at organization and clear labeling at the beginning of the year.

Hoping to keep my kids in tune with the genres that they are choosing, I am planning to keep my current sticker system, which gives each book a sticker color on the corner of the cover that corresponds with the genre label.  The sticker also has the Guided Reading level written on it to guide students towards choosing a “just right book.”  But, I would like to organize my books by their reading level, instead of their genre. 

Needing everything to be bright and cute, I used Microsoft Publisher to create some cute labels that I would be ecstatic to display anywhere in our rom.  You can get a free download of these labels at Teacher's Pay Teachers.  

You'll also find that I have created a set of Guided Reading Labels that I plan to use in my library to label baskets.  The set includes letters A-Z and some miscellaneous labels you can use for your baskets/bins.  I hope that you enjoy them! :)

I am also planning to stick an insert into each child’s reading folder in the fall with a genre sticker correlation chart.  I will attempt to post that on here, as well, once I have it made!

Happy Reading,

Katie