I like to match!

Last school year I had a different color caddy for each table that would hold enough pencils,crayons and colored pencils for those at that table. It made it easy to refer to that table, "blue table please line up". I was out shopping with Ms.K (check out her blog!) and found these matching shovel and pails at Michaels! They were a steal on clearance for $1 but with your teacher discount you save an additional 15% off of that! I love a great bargain!
I plan on using these pails as "scrap buckets" for each table to make cleaning up a whole lot easier when we're cutting things. I got that idea from a pin I came across on www.pinterest.com

www.michaels.com

Shopping!

I ventured out shopping this week with a couple good friends and made stops at The Dollar Tree, Target, Wal-Mart and Office Max and Party City. I was so excited to find some really cute items for my OCEAN themed classroom. I created a new behavior plan based off of one I found on a great blog (will post later) so I had to come up with cute names for it. last year I had 2 lily pads and a puddle of mud and each student had their own "frog" and it acted very similar to the stop light that many other teachers use. This year I will have all my students start out on "Right on Rainbow Fish" and to go along with that, I found a cute TY Beanie buddy (slightly larger than a beanie baby)in a picture below.
I also found cute borders for my bulletin boards at The Dollar Tree and Wal-Mart.
At Party City, I found cute shovel and pale decorations that I will use to keep track of my centers. I found the cute purple whales that will have each student's name on it and a dot of velcro on the back to put on the shovel and pale that corresponds to the center they choose (I have a limit of 3 students per center) I will need to create new center logos to fit but that's no big deal.
The last good find was from Target and it's a bulletin board backdrop that looks like the ocean. I love it! Not sure what to use it as yet...suggestions are welcome!

*As I have mentioned before, this is my first blog hence the pictures are out of order, not sure how to fix that yet

Jumping right in!

This is my first blog and I am very excited. I am a teacher and with my first real summer off I have decided to make the most of it and "get the ball rolling" on next year. I was offered this job 10 days before school started last year so I did not have much prep time needless to say.
Last year I just "dove" right in and went along with the curriculum and the calendar and planned as I went. This year I have much more time and know what works well and what needs to be changed. I have decided to go with an OCEAN theme. I have already gone out shopping and got some cute things...pictures will follow! I have been busy looking on Pinterest and have found many other blogs from other teachers with similar themes. The one thing I love about being a teacher is I get to be as creative as I want to be along with finding other great ideas from other teachers online because one of my professors in college used to always say, "Why Re-invent the wheel?".