My school supply adventures & thoughts

Sorry I haven't posted lately. I've been kind of busy using my last free days to actually go shopping for my classroom. Last night around 10:30pm, I finally had the motivation to get up and see if I could catch some of those Tax Free deals. Yes, I know I didn't have much time but when I tried to go earlier in the day I would find something more relaxing to do. So I ventured into the Walmart with a mission in mind. I was going to look for my folders and I would not pay 75 cents a piece for them! Luckily, Wal-Mart had folders for $.50 but I had to search for colors because there was some slim pickings.

This is a picture of what they sort of look like... check out the green one in the back but they have the prongs on it. Yes! I got a lime green color folder. I am going to use these for my kinders chart folders. The chart folders idea I learned from Teacher Tipster I think. But it is a folder that has charts in it that students review on their free time or when they are finished early. I also combined and had my students keep unfinished work from the morning and the afternoon in there. However, my kids never remembered to complete the work and would only do it if I had something fun going on and I said check your chart folder to make sure your work was done. Of course I always had those kids who was always finished and had no work in their folders... I have a solution for them this year.

I am going to try to incorporate Fun Friday and Gold Tags into my classroom. I learned about the gold tags from A Teeny Tiny Teacher and she uses them instead of a clip chart like I use. But I did figure out a way to incorporate both. Anywho, her students collect gold tags (strips of yellow paper laminated) when they have good behavior, etc.

And the end of the week her students count up their tags in a tally mark format and the order of choosing their Fun Friday activity is based on who has the most to the least. So my hope is to have my students earning gold tags depending on where their clothespin is on the clip chart at the end of the day, turning in folders daily and especially on Fridays, turning in homework, receiving a compliment, etc. So on Friday they will get to count their tags and have Fun Friday at the last 30 minutes of the day.

Post about it here and here

 She has Fun Friday labels {here}. I am determined to do something fun with my kids as I know they do a lot of work, work, work all week. I just don't know how to fit the treasure box in too. I might have a mini solution to it, below...

  But the main reason I started talking about my folder choices was because I want to also put a pencil pocket into my kids folders and start the Pencil Management System. If you haven't checked it out yet, it is a FREEBIE on TPT.

  But it basically is a system in which you give your students 4-8 pencils, 4 for me because I use those big beginner pencils, at the beginning of each week. It is their job to keep track of their pencils and keep up with them. If at the end of the week, they return their pencils (or in my case, their folders) with all 4 of them and none of the erasers are bitten off, they can receive a treat put into their pocket for the next week say erasers, pencil toppers, candy or something else pretty cool. I just need to make sure that their pockets are replenished with pencils and their prize for the next week. There is also a "sorry, maybe next time" note in the packet too. Last year I had this one kid who liked to bite/chew on the pencils and stick it back in their friends' table bucket. Needless to say the kids refused to use the pencils and I had to throw them out... because I couldn't pin point which kid it was as I had TWO! So I had to find folders in which I could put my pencil pockets in... I thought if they were left out of the chart folder then my kinder would not be able to keep up with it. This way if the pencil pockets are in the folder, before selecting what they want for Fun Friday, they need to check their chart folder to make sure they have nothing to finish (Ketchup)--because they can't participate in Fun Friday if their work isn't finished. If all of that is done then they can turn in their folder. I know it sounds like a lot but I think I can train my kinders to do it... or am I lofty?

 Today I was trying to feel like I was accomplished and thought I would get one thing complete off of my long school list. I took my composition notebooks to OfficeMax  to see if they would cut them in half.

 And they did!! Woohoo, I got 10 notebooks cut in half for $2.20 ($2.29 with tax). That was awesome! Anyone have any ideas of what to use them for? I found one idea here from The Schroeder Page, but I just have to dig through my pins and figure out which idea I really wanted to do. I did find a pin about using them for math from Living, Laughing & Loving.  I was able (and lucky) to buy Mrs. Wills Kindergarten's Daily Math Journal bundle so I do have that... and since I didn't quite stick to that last year I could use them this year. I wish someone bound a blank paged notebook that way when we cut them in half it could be used for drawing practice. You can hardly see their drawing on lined paper.
*Update: I found one of the reasons behind me wanting to cut the notebooks in half. Science notebooks! And they are fitting right with the STEM training I will be attending this week. Check it out!

Anywho... my long post would not be complete without a few giveaways and goodies to share:
-Where you able to stop by Mrs. Russell's blog and adventure on their FL Bloggers Facebook Freebie Hop?
-Or did you stop by and check out the Virginia is for Lovers Bloggers' hop? Lots of great freebies for different grade levels.
- Don't forget about The Polished Teacher's huge alphapolooza giveaway. You still have time to go back and check out the past letters and enter the giveaways. Today we are on letter J!

 This one is a HUGE giveaway!

-- PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE don't forget about The Teaching Tribune. Even though their HUGE giveaways are over, they are still offering up some great tips. This month all the bloggers will post about ORGANIZATION!! Oh boy, I so need to read those. So if you know of a new teacher, a seasoned teacher, or if you just want some tips from other bloggers, make sure to keep refreshing daily The Teaching Tribune page for more ideas. Here is today's link for organizational tip #1, on numbering your students... which I love. I love that I can just go down the list of numbers in my head and match it with my student's faces... it saved me on a field trip one time!

**Don't forget to get your blog updates through Feedly or Bloglovin' so you don't miss the goodies. Plus I've been on Facebook more this summer than I have ever been clicking on notifications. So many of the bloggers that I have LIKED keep posting Flash Freebies, some good ones too, I catch some but I miss a lot. I will be at S.T.E.M. training all day. So have fun!! Enjoy!