Road Tape

I saw this adorable tape on Pinterest today and was intrigued.  My kids would LOVE to make their own roads, highways and neighborhoods to drive around on.  It was also be super fun to map out our own community and have the kids add local landmarks and their homes.  "I HAVE to have this!" I thought to myself.

{source}

THEN I clicked on the picture to find out how to buy it.  And people, it costs OVER 40 DOLLARS FOR ONE ROLL OF TAPE!  Are you kidding me?  11 British pounds, plus $29.99 for shipping.  ARE THEY OUT OF THEIR EVER LOVING MINDS?  I don't know, but I could think of about 1,000 better ways to spend $40 (like on that adorable dress that has been calling my name at Loft). 

So, being a crafty teacher who lives and dies by a good bargain, I started researching road tape that doesn't cost an arm and a leg.  Here is what I found for less than $6!

{source}

It is a little thinner than the other tape... 15 mm (or .6 inches for those of you who can't automatically do metric conversions in your head... not that I had to look it up or anything :).

I am so pumped to put this baby in my block area.  I think it's going to make things a whole lot more interesting!

A Few Great Freebies!

I have been spending WAY too much time on Pinterest looking for great ideas for this week.  We are wrapping up Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and Brown Bear Brown Bear.  Check these out:

A Counting Coconuts book from Little Warriors

A Color Chart and Brown Bear vocabulary from Flying into First

And my own personal favorites...

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom virtual book

Also be sure to check out the Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Song (my class is OBSESSED with the acoustic version) and Ray Charles reading the book.  Love!

Fun for Fall {and a freebie!}

I have finally stopped being on the verge of tears about the end of summer, and am getting in the fall spirit.  I am putting all of my fall themed items on sale for 20% off all this week!  Hurry, though... the sale ends on Friday. 

 Autumn Math Fun

Looking for a fun way to spice up your math centers?  Check out my Autumn Math Fun unit.  It includes 20 pages of learning fun for only $3.20.

Items in this unit include:
* Autumn Leaf Patterning (coloring a pattern)

 * Fall patterning (cutting and gluing a pattern)
* Story Problems
* Acorn Addition
* Squirrel Subtraction
* Number Practice
* Trace the Numbers
* Fall Roll and Record
* Help the Squirrel Find the Acorn Maze
 

Here's a freebie!  You can use this number tracing page as center work, homework or for fast finishers.  You can even laminate it or put it in a binder sleeve and use with a dry erase marker to make it green!

Autumn Math Fun Preview

Fire Safety

October is Fire Safety Month.  I have three great options to make learning about fire safety super fun in your classroom!

1. Fire Safety Math and Literacy Fun (picture on the left)

$8.00

 

2. Fire Safety Word Walls (picture on the right}

$2.80

 

3. Fire Safety BUNDLE (unit AND word wall)

$9.60

I am throwing my Family Word Walls and Color Word Walls into the sale too, because why not?!?

PS.  ALL of the word walls are in English and Spanish

*all prices reflect the 20% sale discount

Open House Puzzle Poem

Open house season is upon us once again. I decided to do the same super cute handprint puzzle that I did last year.  I LOVE it, because it gives parents and kids something to do while they are waiting to talk to you.

All you have to do is order 5.5 by 8" puzzles, write their names and the year with a sharpie (or have them do it!) and have your little ones do their hand prints. Print up the poem, have them sign it and take apart the puzzle.  Pop it all in a ziploc sandwich bag and voila... fast, fun and super cute keepsake.

This is last year's poem.  Sorry for the horrible photo quality!

The poem I had was from 2011, so I jazzed it up and personalized it for 2012 (and two more years, to boot).  You can download it for free at my TPT store {HERE}.  All I ask is that you follow my store in return.

The cheapest puzzles I could find were $6.75 for 12 on Amazon.

Enjoy, and happy open house!

*I got this idea from the amazing Mrs. Jump*

Books for the Beginning of School

Here are some of the books I love to read for the first two weeks of school.  For this time of year, I try to find books that are quick reads, engaging, repetitive and fun!  Of course, I want the children to be able to relate to the story lines as well.

What are your favorite back to school books?  Am I missing any good ones?

Evolution of Writing

It is the third day of kindergarten and I am half dead by the time I get home every night, so please excuse the super short post!  I have been seeing this all over Pinterest but every time I clicked on it couldn't find it anywhere.  I LOVE to show this to parents at conferences (especially the ones who freak out because their child is "just scribbling" or "just writing random letters").  It is such a great visual to show them what the end result will be! 

For the record, I found this copy {HERE}

Great Deal on Pictures

I am starting school tomorrow... YIKES!  Even though I slaved away every day last week and a few days the week before, I still wish I had more time in my classroom.  If school was open on the weekends I would be in big trouble!

I don't know about you, but at the beginning of the year I develop TONS of pictures.  I put each child's photo on their cubby, on our Chicka Chicka Boom Boom tree (which functions as a name world wall) and on our Good Morning song.  

I make passport sized mini pictures to use with our Center Board.

                                            Source: howdoesshe.com via Mary on Pinterest

This year I want to take their picture with a First Day of Kindergarten sign too.  I am sure I can whip up something cute with that for Open House. 

Anyway, all of this picture developing leads to lots of money spending for me.  I was so excited when I got an email from Snapfish offering 99 prints for 99 cents!  WHAT?!?  That is practically free.  Just enter code PRINTSFOR99 at checkout through September 12th.  

*I am not getting any perks or anything for posting this... I just love me a good deal!

Quick and Easy Way to Sanitize Toys & Manipulatives

Last year my amazing para and I spent days (days, people!) washing all of our math manipulatives and other toys in soapy water and letting them dry.  It was a ridiculously long process, and the whole time I kept thinking to myself "There HAS to be a better way to do this!"  Well, thanks to blogland, there is! 

  Just zip up whatever little items were in your kids mouths/hands/pants in some heavy duty lingerie bags (mine were $1.99 each at Target) and wash away!

 After the first run through I got a little more creative by using colanders, a steamer basket and the silverware basket, too!  I ran a light cycle with heated dry, then let them air dry overnight.  I left them right in the bags to dry when possible, which made transporting them back to school super easy. 

 All nice and clean!

Fire Safety Word Walls in English and Spanish!

I am SO excited about my new Fire Safety Word Cards and Word Walls unit.  I LOVE using word cards and mini-word walls in my classroom.  The word cards can be used on a word wall, in a pocket chart or on a word ring.  I usually laminate & hole punch them and keep them on a binder ring in my writing center.  We also use them for spelling the words with magnet letters, on a white board or magna doodle.  

I put the mini word walls in an 8 x 10 inch plastic frame like these and display that in the writing center.  The kids LOVE it.  I have seen huge gains in my students writing and vocabularies since I started using these.  I promise to post more pictures as soon as I get my classroom set up :)

This unit includes:

• 3 pages of word cards {English}
• 3 pages of word cards {Spanish}
• 1 page of blank word cards
• 2 Mini Word Wall pages {English}
• 2 Mini Word Wall pages {Spanish}
• 3 BONUS coloring pages {English}
• 3 BONUS coloring pages {Spanish}

This Words unit is the perfect compliment to my Fire Safety Unit.  I bundled them both together for only $12!  That's 102 pages of amazing fire safety literacy, math, art and word wall activities at a super sweet price. 

Here's the breakdown:
Fire Safety Word Walls: $3.50
Fire Safety Unit: $10
Fire Safety BUNDLE (word walls & unit): $12

Whelmed

"I know you can be overwhelmed, and I know you can be underwhelmed, but can you ever just be whelmed?" - 10 Things I Hate About You

Okay I'll be honest.  I am not whelmed, or underwhelmed.  I am completely overwhelmed.  I took this extremely dorky video to show you why.  Keep in mind that when I took this I had already started cleaning!

So far I have only been able to spend a few hours in my classroom because of crazy building hours.  Thank God my amazing para came in to help!  Now all of the furniture is in the right area, but we still have tons to do.  The "Closet of Doom" aka library is still mostly full of junk quality learning materials.  Good thing my little ones don't come until the 10th!  I would love to see other peoples classrooms for inspiration... leave some links in the comments!

Also I still have giveaways happening on my Facebook page.  Click {HERE} to check them out.