diy: duck tape clipboard

Duck Tape has come out with a whole bunch of really fun designs - it's not only gray tape anymore. I was at Walmart the other day and bought a roll of mustache Duck Tape. I bought a clipboard from Target (Walmart was sold out! It was only about 50 cents more at Target though) and then wrapped the board with the tape. I started right below the clip at the top and wrapped it completely around, letting it overlap just a bit where the ends met. And that's it! It was super easy and I'm really excited at how it turned out! Duck Tape also has a polka dot pattern that I have my eye on next :)

power of fruit snacks

Fruit snacks are a powerful food. Seriously :) Last year I would give a small treat to my kiddos who were on blue for the day (we used a color-coded behavior system). Sometimes it was fruit snacks, or a pencil or a sticker - they never knew what it would be. But fruit snacks seemed to be the favorite. And so throughout the day I would remind them of what the treat would be, knowing some needed the constant reminder of what they were trying to earn. It's amazing what a fruit snack can do !

poster freebies

I am all about free stuff! So I get pretty excited when I find posters or worksheets or lesson idea freebies. Which brings me to these great poster freebies! 

color words

1-10 number cards

phonics posters (my favorite of the three!)

to go cups :)

There's a really great restaurant called Newk's and one of the things I like is that they have these great cups! These aren't they're to-go cups; these are what they give you even when you eat there. The first time I went, I think I spent about five minutes being excited about the cup :) So then I got to thinking. I'm using some chalkboard labels in my classroom and how great would these work with that theme? They're about eight inches tall - great for storing markers, rulers, pointers or pencils. I'm learning a big part of setting up a classroom and planning activities  is all about taking inspiration from just about anything - even unofficial "to-go" cups!

center games

I was at Marshall's earlier this week and found these great activities! The best part? They were $5 bucks each! I thought these would be great to put in a center and they're differentiated so there's something for everyone! 

what i'm reading

I want to always strive to grow as a professional and here are two books that I heard about through another blog. I finished The First Six Weeks of School this weekend - it's a great back-to-school read. It talks about the importance of using those first six weeks to practice routines and set your expectations for your classroom. You basically practice EVERYTHING (just like you model EVERYTHING) so your kiddos know exactly what to do. The authors say it's a bit tedious to spend so much time on this but that it pays off. As a first year teacher last year, I didn't go into great detail with this but now I know better :) The other book, The Morning Meeting Book I'm going to start next. It's hinted at in the other book but it's the process of taking time in the mornings to go over the daily morning message and just give your kiddos a "run down" of the day. At the beginning of the year, it's a time to practice greetings and showing students how to interact with each other. I'm excited to read it and be able to incorporate this into my classroom! You can click on both titles to find them on Amazon. 

back to school read alouds

I was at Target the other day and they have display with back to school books! There was more than just these titles but these are the ones I picked up. First Day Jitters is one of my favorites! It's super cute and I love the "twist" of it being the teacher who's nervous (spoiler alert). I think I might have read this to my kiddos last year since it was my first day of school too :)

Target never ceases to amaze me with their school supplies :) I always go to the dollar section first and picked up all these goodies...for $1 each! The crayons are sticker books - I thought that would be a great way to introduce those color words (bad thing is green, red, yellow and blue were the only colors they had). I bought a copy of Peter Pan and Pinocchio (for those read aloud moments) and some great flash cards! I grabbed one set of each: addition, subtraction, abc's, sight words, animals, jobs and a phonics set. They also had some division ones and ones about the United States. Happy shopping!