Pinterest

How many of you are on Pinterest? I'm totally addicted! I have boards for all the school units and then some. Oh and of course, boards for things around the home and for my own children. There are so many awesome ideas floating around on there. I LOVE IT! I would love to follow you, so if you wouldn't mind posting your link in the comments, so I become a follower of your. Click here if you would like to check out my Pinterest boards.

I've been a bad blogger!

I've taken a long break from blogging! After school kicked off, life got insane. I'm getting back in the swing of blogging so be on the look out for more posts to come!

WAHOO! The furniture has been delivered!

This afternoon 22 boxes of furniture arrive in my classroom.I'm still missing a ton of stuff but atleast I have some tables and chairs. Right now I only have 6 chairs, but hey, it's a start. Now everything just needs to be assembled. What are the chances it will be all put together when I go in tomorrow morning? I'm guess slim, but a girl can dream, right?

Oh the craziness that is my classroom!

I found out my room assignment yesterday and was told that I could start moving in and setting up, so I went to scope it out between training sessions. OMG!!! It is a mess and right now I have NO furniture! Oh and they have been using my room as a storage unit for anything that has been shipped to the school all summer so I have tons of boxes stacked in there of random stuff that doesn't belong in to my classroom. I'm totally freaking out! Meet the teacher is on 8/17 and I have to move all of my stuff in, clean, setup, learn a whole new curriculum, and hope and pray I get furniture soon. I have no idea how I'm going to be be ready for meet the teacher. I'm a nervous wreck!

This afternoon after my training was over my husband came and helped me move some of my stuff out of storage and into my classroom while I started cleaning. I found open containers of food in the cabinets. It was so gross! The few manipulatives that are in the classroom are colored all over and have gunk all over them. I have a ton of cleaning ahead of me. Hopefully I can get the cleaning done this week and next week I will work on unpacking and setting up. Fortunately, my husband is home watching our three kids this week since I have training every day, but next week I'm alone with the kids, so hopefully my oldest two enjoy playing with all the new toys as I start unpacking my stuff.

Why had I never tried this helpful little tool before now?

Last week, I picked up a Fiskars circle punch like the one below to cut out some iron on tags I had made for my son's clothes for daycare. Well I haven't gotten around to printing those out yet, but today I made some positive reinforcement coins for my classroom using the punch. I'm in love! I think I need to get more of these in all different shapes! I cut out over 300 little circles in no time. This handy little punch saved me sooooo much time! I laminated all the coins, but the punch doesn't like to cut through the thick laminating so I'm having to cut all of the coins out of the laminating, which is taking forever, but I can't imagine how long this project would have taken if I didn't have this handy dandy punch.

Here are the coins I made. I plan on handing them out to the students for following directions and making good choices in class. After they earn 20, they will earn a trip to the treasure box. If you would like a copy of these, check out my Teachers Pay Teachers shop for a free copy. I printed these on cardstock, punched them out and laminated them.

Cutting Machines

Do any of you have a cutting machine, such as a Cricut, that you use for making things for your classroom? What type do you have and what kind of classroom things do you make with it? How do you like you cutting machine?

I'm debating taking the plunge and getting one (not sure what brand as there are several on the market), but not sure how much I would actually use it. I have lots of ideas for using it, but not sure if it's worth spending the money.

WAHOO!!!

For my new teaching position that I will be starting in the fall, I needed to add on Exceptional Student Education to my current Early Childhood Certification. This morning I took the certification test and passed! WAHOO! One more thing to check off my list and a big weight off my shoulders.