TWEET!, New Project and Giveaway Winner!

Good morning!

I hope everyone is enjoying their summer vacation.

I know I am!

But although I am truly loving every second of my time off, I've gotta say, I can't not think about school. 

Oh well! I guess that's a teacher thing, right?

Before I show you what's been on my teacher mind lately, it's time to announce the winner of the Classroom Friendly Supplies Sharpener Giveaway!

Congratulations to Kathy S!

I hope you love your new sharpener!

Thank you to everyone who has entered! 

Don't forget that Troy is offering a 5% discount to all of you guys 

with code WK9KD (valid until Sept. 6th, 2014).

Don't miss this great opportunity to snag this gem!

**********

I'm currently in full on planning mode for my 2014-2015 classroom. In an attempt to cut down on purchases (oh my the amount of money I've spent on my classroom over the past 5 years is not even funny! haha!) I will be reusing the bird borders I had 3 years ago. I can't find them online.... I believe they are the old bird collection Carson Dellosa had before releasing the Boho Birds.

Anyways, they still look perfect and I still love birds, so win win.

With that in mind, I started working on a new decor collection.

May I present to you TWEET!

TWEET! Bird Themed Word Wall Letters

For now, I've only made some word wall letters, but more items will be coming soon!

I love the bright colors! This will brighten up any decor for sure :)

I've also purchased some fabric to create a pennant banner to hang over my classroom window.

I've been wanting to make one for such a long time but just never got around to doing it. 

Don't you just love that triangle print?

Hopefully, I will get this done over the next few weeks in order to share with you the final product, sooner rather than later!

Well that's it for me today!

Have a great day everyone!!

Until next time,

Busy busy days!

I had major plans of making today Lamino City Day.

You know, the day when you become a citizen of laminating city and go crazy and print, print, print and then laminate away followed by many hours of cutting your finished products.

I was fully prepared.

I went to Costco a few days ago to fill up my ink cartridges and had some left over laminating pouches. I woke up all excited today (please tell me I'm not the only one who gets beyond excited to laminate stuff?? Thanks.) only to print my first sheet and see this come out of the printer:

Uh?! Where's the rest of the ink?! And what's up with that blue smear?

So apparently my cartridges are not properly filled? Am I missing something here?

I now have to go back to Costco tomorrow to fix this whole situation.

Needless to say I was bummed :(

I'm going back to work in last than 3 weeks (say what?!) which means I have no time to waste!!

Anyways.

My printing and laminating of Hope King's Classroom Decor will just have to wait...

Since I couldn't go to Lamino City, I decided to work on something else. I will be meeting my kiddos next Friday for the first time, right before their Spring Break. Just to break the ice before I'm their real teacher the week after that! I'm going to spend an entire period with them and I was trying to come up with a fun little activity I could do with them. I finally decided to do a little mystery box type of thing. I used to do mystery boxes a lot when I taught English as a Second Language and it was always a lot of fun. Inside, I'll be putting an object that describes me (which has yet to be determined...) and students will have to guess what the object is.

Here's what my box looks like:

I used an old Christmas box and covered it with construction paper and tape. It's nothing too fancy but I still like the way it looks. It's not completely finished but I wanted to share :) I also want to prepare a little handout to go with it.... I think.... anyways we'll see!

I figured I could use the box in my teaching in the future so it was a win-win!

Hopefully we have a whole lotta fun with this activity and it will make all of our jitters go away! Because yes, major jitters over here about going back to work in the middle of the school year!

My teaching contracts have always started in August so I've never known what it was like to be the second teacher. But I'm really positive so that must count for something right? ;)

That's it for me today!

I've got a baby (who's looking more like a toddler these days....YIKES! Please stay little forever for a little while longer....) who needs to eat supper, The Bachelor to watch, lesson planning to do, a dinner to eat, hair to be washed.... holly molly! 

And because you've only seen pictures of Sophia as a newborn, I felt like it was time to share a more recent one :)

Oh yes! Before I forget, you can now follow me on Instagram (@misselementaryblog)! See you there!

Until next time,

A small DIY and recent purchases

Good evening everyone!

I thought I'd share some of my recent school purchases and a fun little DIY!

First, let's look at the DIY. Inspired by A Cupcake for the Teacher (because no, I did not come up with this idea), I decided to make my clothespins look pretty. I had a huge bag left over from when I used this classroom management system and they were just sitting in an ugly bag in my basement. I came across Teri's idea and decided to give it a go! I used some tape I had from a few years ago which therefore cost me nada. Now that's my kind of crafting!

I'm going to use these to hang student work and also glue some magnets on the back of some of them to use on my chalkboard.

Here are my new clothespins! They now look super cute (although they are still in that ugly bag ;)

I'm pretty happy about how these turned out and I can't wait to use them!

Next, I recently found a few goodies in the Dollar Spot at Target. Can I just take a moment to say how happy I am that we finally have Targets in Canada?! Amen.

I got two packs of erasers and some puffy heart stickers that I plan on using for my new reward system.  I also picked up a cute Valentine mailbox which I'm not sure what I will use for just yet. But I'm sure I'll find something! It was just too cute not to get. Plus, for a dollar, you can't go wrong.

Next, I got some classroom goodies for my new theme. I love me a fun classroom theme and I've done one every year. I'm cheesy like that. I've done frogs, birds, owls (twice) and now I'm moving on to Moose and Friends!

At the very top, those are tattoos! I might use them for my reward system or maybe as part of a gift... we'll see! I also purchased (not shown here) a bulletin board set and some borders to complete the theme.

Finally, I bought a bunch of stickers (but for some reason can only find these two sets... I guess the others are already packed in some boxes for my return in a few weeks...) and some library pockets. Last year, I used similar pockets to display my classroom jobs. I don't plan on doing the same with these... I'm not sure what they will be for!

How cute are those zoo stickers! 

This past week has been spent reading many first grade blogs in order to get my creative juices flowing. I must say that I've been particularly smitten with The Inspired Apple though. I've been going through all of her archives and I'm so beyond amazed at all of her ideas! I can not get enough of them! Please, please, please, if you haven't already, do yourself a favor and go through Abby's archives. You will thank me. And so will your kiddos!

That's all for me tonight!

Tomorrow is Friday! I hope you all a great evening and a great last day of the week.

Until next time,

Classroom Organization and 2 Giveaways (including a flash one so hurry up! :)

Hi everyone!

I hope you are all enjoying your summer! I know for some of you, summer (or at least summer vacation) is already over! So happy back to school!! :)

I'm very excited to announce that I recently learned that..... TARGET is coming to Canada!!!! Oh my gosh!!!! Joy!!! No Target is no fun :( Not only can I never participate in any Target gift card giveaways but I can never actually shop there! I hear about all the great deals and fun teacher stuff and there's nothing I can do about it! But these days are soon over! Yay!! Hopefully I have a few Canadian readers so we can be happy together!!! :)

Back to school is coming our way pretty soon! I'm going back end of August but I haven't done much to prepare yet... As you know, I'm keeping my owl theme (love!). I've decided to create some labels to organize my classroom. I want everything to be labeled and in their own specific place. I'm pretty much organized (but I do need to buy a few cute bins or boxes) but having my supplies labeled will be easier.... and let's face it... SO much prettier!!! Here the labels I came up with (141 of them!):

and I also made word wall letters to match:

Both products are available in my TPT Store. But! I'm feeling generous today (I mean, come on, I did learn so great news recently ;) so I will be giving away both products to one lucky reader!!! All you have to do is leave a comment telling me if you have a theme for your classroom and if so, what it is! I'd love to have an idea of what your classroom looks like! :) I will use random number generator to choose a winner tonight!

The winner is Emily! Congrats! Look for an email from me :)

If you do purchase the labels and feel there are some labels that are missing, please let me know and I will gladly add them!

Also, my bloggy buddy Sara over at Miss V's Busy Bees is having an amazing 200 follower giveaway! 

You have a chance to win my Rockin' Back to School Pack!!

So head on over to enter!! Good Luck!

Finally, I have a little question for you. Does anyone know how to add the reply to comments button on my blog? Not the one to reply by email but the one where you can actually reply directly on the blog.I know a few blogs have it but I can't seem to figure out where I have to go to add it! So if anyone can help, thanks a bunch!

Until next time,

Classroom Decor Ideas

Good evening everyone!

I am currently sitting in my living room (with the AC on thank you very much.... what a HOT day we've had!)  enjoying my new obsession: Greek Coconut Yogurt! WOW! What a great discovery I've made! This thing is a real treat, perfect for summer....and hey! It's yogurt so it is pretty healthy :) I've been eating iit daily (several times a day) for the past week. Just thought I'd share this ;)

And I am also watching DC Cupcakes reruns on TV. I love this show!! I want to open a bake shop everytime I watch an episode! But then I remember I'm not that good of a baker and the ridiculous idea slowly goes away ;)

As the school year is coming to an end (7 1/2 days left!)  I'm already in classroom decor planning for next year. I usually choose a different team every year but I haven't gotten tired of owls yet! They are so cute and I feel like they have gone up in popularity and so there are owl things everywhere!! Decorating will be so much fun because I will have lots of ideas to choose from :)

Look at this owl theme made by School Girl Style

Loving everything! and those banners!!! :)

And this border:

(Ok, sorry about the huge white border around it....?!)

Isn't it cute?? This one is new and did not exist when I decorated for this year. I find it super adorable!

And look at these owls :) I love them!!

I've seen some pretty cute stuff on TPT too!

Do you usually do themes in your classroom? If so, do you already know what your theme will be for next year?

And I'm at 76 followers!! YAY!! I'm slowly getting to 100 :) And to a giveaway ;) Thanks to all of my followers :) It's really excited to know people are acutally reading what I post!

I'm gonna go enjoy the rest of my cupcake show now and put my yogurt away or else I won't have any more left for breakfast ;)

Until next time,

Cute ideas for organizing!

Hello blogger friends!

Am I the only one or does any one else out there have what I like to call Teacher-Goggles Syndrome?
Let me explain... ;)
Every shop I walk in to, I walk in wth my teacher goggles! I'm always looking at items and thinking... ''How could I use this cute (insert name of the product here) in my classroom?'' It happens at grocery stores, clothing stores, cosmetics stores...everywhere! These are not stores where we would think to buy supplies for the classroom.... but oh! the treasures we'll find! :)

One store that seems to offer many items that can double as classroom stuff is the amazing Bath and Body Works! They have the cutest gift bags and gift 'buckets' ever! I use them for organizing things in my classroom which is great... but mostly... I love them because they just look so cute!
Here an example of two gift bags I bought last year. They don't have it at the store anymore but this gives you an idea of what they could look like.

This size is great for storing pens and pencils or even your toothbrush/toothpaste!

This other one is a little bucket which I bought a few weeks ago so I'm sure it's still available. Isn't it the cutest bucket ever?

Now you're probably wondering why I have clothes pins in there...!
This is a system I use with my students to get them to speak only in English. As you may have read in an earlier post, I am an ESL teacher so my students' first language is French. Every day, they receive 2 pins, for a total of 10 each week. Every time a student hears another student speak French, the first student can steal a pin from the one who spoke French and keep it. On Fridays, I do a draw and each pin is worth one coupon. It works really well! (Thank you Jasmine for this great idea!) This could easily be adapted for behavior  :) As for the draw, the prizes vary. (candies, no homework pass, no quiz pass --- a fan favourite!)

Also, I have created my blog button!! Take a look :)

Until next time,