Awesome Owls

So, I'm changing my theme to Awesome Owls next year and I'm so excited. My room is going to be green and white polka dot throughout and have owls as the focus. So far I've got the curtains, bulletin boards, my emergency bag and apron completed. Once I get in week after next I'll get everything set up and post lots of pics. I can't wait to get it all together. Here is a sneak peek of the colors:

Emergency bag I made

Cute box I made. Don't know what I'll use it for.

Fabric covered pail.

The owl fabric is from Hobby Lobby and is called "Sittin' in a Tree". It's just so cute that I couldn't resist using it. As if that's not cute enough, I found these adorable owls at the Dollar Tree this afternoon. They're kind of Halloween-ish but they are still adorable. What do you think?

Dollar Aisle Deals

I love me some Target, especially the dollar aisle. I mean, it's like a mecca for teachers, you know? If you haven't been lately (within the last week) you really need to go check it out. I found some great things for my classroom. I found small 4x9 lined dry erase boards to use for whole group phonics/writing, 4 to a pack for $1. Class set=$7. Then today I found two sided dry erase boards with the holes down the left to look like notebook paper but with the handwriting lines. Wow. That was a pretty good find. I got 7 of them and plan to use during my small group writing time to help students with visual/spatial aspects of writing on paper. Then, as if that wasn't good enough, I found OWL shaped chalkboards. Amazing, and so adorable. I got 2 of them. I'm not exactly sure how I'll use them, but at least they go with my owl theme.  Seemed like a good enough reason to buy them if you ask me! They also had boxes of dice and playing cards to use in your math centers.Then there's the Dollar Tree. They have some great things right now. I got foam puzzles with upper case, lower case and numbers 0-9 to use in my sensory tub. I also found 3 sets of dolch sight word cards written on the lined cards.

UPDATE!
I found this calendar at the Dollar Tree. It is a student calendar from August to July. It is inside a thick plastic sleeve that is pre-punched to go in a binder. I plan on using this in my data notebooks to graph behavior. I'll either use as is OR I'll hole punch the calendars and use the sleeve for morning work with dry erase markers. Either way it's a win win situation. I don't know about your school but we are on copy shortage so I'm always looking for thrifty ways to save copies. I figured this was $30 for a class set of calendars to use all year long. That will save me about 240 copies for the year. Not too bad! Thriftiness counts in these times!

Gettin' Artsy and Craftsy (and Thrifty!)

So, this week I came up with an awesome idea for paint smocks for my kinders. I love to sew, so I thought I'd just make some. Well, I wanted them to be easily cleaned up, wiped down, etc...so vinyl seemed like the way to go. Um, have you priced sewable vinyl? Ridiculous! $12+ a yard. Crazy! So, being the thrifty crafter I am (thanks to Pinterest), I found a solution...

VINYL TABLECLOTHS!!!!! Really, it's so logical. They are fused on the inside with cotton and the vinyl is the right weight to make it comfortable. I got this one for $2 at Wal-Mart but you can get them anywhere. This one is 60x84 so I can get at least 5 or 6 out of this one piece. I found a simple pattern in the craft department for children's vests (because, after all, a smock is just a vest turned around backwards) and got to work. Since this fabric is already lined the sewing took about 5 minutes. Basically, you cut out the back piece on the fold and then 2 pieces for the front. Stitch the shoulders, then the sides and you're done.

Here is a picture of the front (which is actually the back because you turn it around. Make sense?).

Then, I added a velcro tab piece on the back to keep it in place.

And there you have it. A perfect paint smock for about 50 cents! I'll be making a set of these for my art center for sure!! Enjoy!

Getting Started

So today is the day I begin blogging. I've tried a few times, but nothing I had to say before was really profound or interesting, so it didn't last. However, teaching is my passion and my love and I have LOTS of things to say about what goes on in kindergarten. I will admit that I am addicted to three things that go along with teaching: Pinterest, the Target dollar aisle and my iPad so I'm pretty sure those things will take up a good portion of my blog. So, that being said, here goes nothing!