Monday, August 16, 2010

The top 10 things I am excited to see again in 2010...

I love my classroom. It is in a way, my happy place. However, due to budget constraints, the district felt they would save money by enforcing a hard lock down this summer and I have not been in at all! The school is unlocking its doors for the teachers to start preparing this WEDNESDAY. Of course I am excited to see my students come September 1st, but there are a few of my favorite things I can't wait to lay my eyes on once again...

1. My Busy Bee Chart and little bees. This has been my "Welcome to Mrs. B's Class" sign for a few years and it still makes me happy inside when I see it. Little bees you have been missed.


2. I inherited this little beauty from a teacher that was moving up a grade and didn't need it any more. I have wanted a carpet like this for YEARS. Now I get to use one. Love it.


3. This little thing makes me happy too. Actually two little things. I have two of these pocket charts for differentiation purposes. One I use as a "pocket book" holder where I keep their leveled fluency reader for the week. The other one is used as a "wip" pocket {work in progress} so that I can keep track of unfinished and needs corrected work and it has helped with messy desks by 100%.









4. Velcro. Weird right? I love velcro. It is partially because the walls in my room are half covered in carpet and I HATE wasted wall space. What is a girl to do? Not tape or push pins. VELCRO! I laminate name tags and use them for a variety of games and procedures and stick this lovely stuff on the back to use it all year. I even have a working velcro word wall so I don't have to mess with sticky tac or staples every year. 







5. This old friend is used weekly if not daily, especially at the beginning of the school year. I love my purple cow laminator because it has a 13 inch opening instead of the usual 9 inch and is less likely to bunch up on the sides.






6. My big splurge for the year. At the end of every year I usually take advantage of the end of the year discounts and free shipping from certain catalog companies. I have wanted these little carpet squares forever and I finally broke down and bought them. They fit in the squares on my lots o' dots rug and I am thinking some really fun kinesthetic phonemic awareness/ word building activities. I am so excited to use these!





7. When I head back to work I get to send in my butterfly order card for my butterfly pavillion! My caterpillars really won't end up coming until spring when we do our unit on butterflies but I send it at the beginning of the school year so I don't forget. This is one of the things that my students remember the most about 1st grade-- watching the caterpillars turn to butterflies! 




8. Construction paper crayons are super fun and I use them a ton. They show up great on dark paper and I use them for making signs and charts, as well as let the students use them for various projects. I have the big box and when I see it on my shelf it seriously calls out my name and says "Use me!"






9. My Cricut and I are besties. This is one thing that I COULD NOT live without in my classroom. Yes I could probably go buy class sets of little things here and there, but you can make so much more with this little guy. Having Cricut design studio makes things fast and even easier. When I bought this I thought I would use it more for scrapbooking and crafting at home, but Cricut is a huge life saver at work.





10. Last but not least, the thing I am most excited to see on Wednesday is my brand new SMART BOARD! Our whole district is getting them and I can not wait to play with this new wonderful piece of learning magic! 


Only 2 more days until I see my happy place once again! 








2 comments:

  1. Yes you are right can not agree more!
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  2. Thanks for sharing, I like them very much! They are so lovely! laundry supplies

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