Great Giveaway!

As a newbie to the world of blogging, I have been finding amazing blogs with incredible materials and clipart! I found this wonderful giveaway over at Collaboration Cuties! This is definitely something I wanna check out, and I suggest you do too!

Throwback Thursday!

Today I am linking up with The First Grade Parade for a Throwback Thursday!

Since this is a new blog, I decided to choose something from my Student Teaching Blog last year. The post I am sharing is a post about the setup of the 3rd grade classroom I student taught in. As I prepare to get into my first classroom this fall, looking back on this post helps me a lot. I HATED the setup of the classroom, and always found myself daydreaming of ways I would change it. Obviously as a student teacher I had no say in the arrangement or decor. The classroom was very cluttered and not at all organized, and I will definitely use this as a reminder of how I want my own classroom to be.

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Monday, March 5, 2012

Room 320

I finally got a chance to take a few pictures of the classroom without the students being in the room. The classroom is on the small side, but we make the best of it.

The front white board. There is a smart board being put up in the middle sometime in the next week.

23 desks for 23 lovely students :)

 Ms. M's desk.

 The students' cubbies, with their pictures on them! I thought this was so cute when I first saw it!

Computer station that needs some, um, organizing.

The way we do the lunch count. So cute!

 The back table. This is where we do one on one work, or students can sit back here if they want some space.

The job chart.

The white board in the back of the classroom. It doesn't get much use for writing on.

 Vocabulary words from Story Town. If a student finds a vocab word in something they're reading, they get to put their name on a sticky, and put the sticky next to the word.

The view from the back of the classroom. Again, not the biggest, but it works.

First Linky! Favorite Pins Friday!

I have decided to do my first Linky Party! I'm linking up with The First Grade Parade for her Favorite Pins Friday Linky! I absolutely love Pinterest and find myself pinning all day everyday! Here are some of my favorites this week!

1. DIY Puffy Paint!! As a new teacher, I'm obviously trying my best to save money yet still provide enough resources and materials for my classroom. I found this great pin from Delaware County Moms on how to make homemade puffy paint! All of the materials can be purchased at the Dollar Tree which is the best part! I will definitely be making loads of this throughout the year as I love art projects and can't wait to incorporate it into my classroom!

2.  Table covers as bulletin board paper. What a genius idea!! They are cheap and come in a variety of colors! I just worry about how durable they will be, thickness wise. But hey for a couple bucks it's worth a try! I found this pin through Scholastic.

3.  RIT Dyed Clothespins. So the plan was to sit and paint over 30 clothespins to display art work around the classroom. Luckily I stumbled upon this great pin! Just get some RIT dye from the fabric store and soak your clothespins in! Modern Kindergarten says she only used half the pack of dye, so I'm pretty excited to try this out! It will be such a time saver! (I can't believe I was going to sit there and paint each one!)

4. Chevron Maxi. I NEED THIS DRESS! I absolutely love it! I love chevron, I love maxis, and I love these colors. This would be the perfect first day of school dress since it matches my future classroom colors and chevron theme so well! Too bad it's sold out at The Dandy Lion Boutique :(

5. Before & After Bachelorette Party. One of my best friends is getting married next September, and I have been brainstorming all types of ideas for the bachelorette party! I found this awesome before/after picture idea for the night of! I can only imagine what we will look like! ( Do I even wanna know? And will I even remember?) Thanks Breezy Joy!

Follow me on Pinterest HERE.

Target & Walmart!

So this weekend I decided to do a little shopping! There are still lots of things I need for my new classroom, but I wanted to check out Walmart and Target after the 4th to see if back to school items were on sale yet. Well I found some great stuff!

First my favorite item was at walmart! I found magnetic letters and numbers, for one dollar!!!! I can never find these anywhere except Beckers or Oriental Trading, and they're so expensive there. Needless to say, I cleared the shelf, getting 4 packs of numbers and 4 packs of letters!

The target dollar bin was still pretty bare, I guess they haven't put up anything since the 4th. I did go to a different target than usual, and all of their dollar bin items were 50 percent off!! This target still had some great bins, so I stocked up! The square blue and pink containers were only 50 cents each, and the orange tubs were 1.50! I also got the green crates for 3.99! I plan on putting a seat on them eventually. I also found these keg tubs at Pathmark! They were 5.99 each. I plan on putting big toys in them and storing them in the closet since I will not have much room to keep toy centers out all the time.

I must say that I am very excited about my purchases! Along with all the bins I have previously purchased ( I raided the dollar tree for great green bins for supplies and books!), I feel that I have enough storage for my new classroom. Of course I have no idea what is going in what yet, but that will be the fun part when I finally get to move in!

I also have been busy working on my shapes and colors wall. I bought some great graphics from Ashley Hughes over at The School Supply Addict and created these cute posters! I plan on laminating and cutting out the flowers and possibly making stems out of tissue paper!