Old School: Open House Bunting

This year I am going with apples, pencils, school buses, and chalkboard decor. After 27 years of teaching and many different themes, I call this one "Old School."  I love bunting and these clipart freebies from Creative Clips were perfect for back-to-school!  I printed and laminated these and will use dry erase markers to write student names on them. I am going to connect them with cute green ribbon and hang them in the hallway for open house.  Click here to download this file.  There are blank flags for adding your own grade level.  It's going to be a great year...I'm just saying!

Target Dollar Bin + Pinterest + Freebie = Cute Goodie Bags!

So I found myself back at Target today. I wasn't going to stop at the dollar bins, but they are located at the front of the store and I just couldn't look away. I found goodie bags that look like notebook paper and snatched them up right away.  Earlier, I found a back-to-school freebie on Pinterest and knew that the kraft tags would be perfect for the cute button clip art included in this download.  As soon as I got home, I started printing and cutting and glueing and this is what happened!

 I am going to use these tags with the "notebook paper" goodie bags to hold these cute apple pretzels that I also discovered on Pinterest.  

These will be a fun treat at open house...

I'm just saying!

I'm Baaaaaaack!!!

      It's been a while, almost two years, since I have posted regularly on this blog.  Many things, this blog being one of them, came to a screeching halt when I began graduate school.  But now I am happy and proud to say that I have completed graduate school and have earned a masters in reading from Appalachian State University, Boone, NC.  It was an amazing journey!  I am excited to implement all of the amazing strategies and that I learned and collected in graduate school.  I am also excited to share all of these things with you.

     My first graders finished school on June 12 and this is my first week of summer vacation which means it's time to hit the dollar bins at Target!  I went early this morning and was not disappointed.

     I love the clips!  (top left) I plan on gluing magnets to the back of each clip and use them on my white board for displaying anchor charts.  And what about this mini-school house chalk board?!? (top right)  I will definitely use this for open house, stations, word or math problem of the day...the possibilities are endless!! I like the simple black and white design of these name plates. (bottom left)  The labels are dry-erase! I bought lots of these.  I will be using them all over my room.

     As you can see, it was a successful shopping trip and only the beginning of back to school shopping...I'm just saying!