Classroom Theme (freebie) and Back to School Sale!

Back in July, I posted pictures of my class for last year and said I was going to decorate in a Blue/Green theme.  You can check those pics out here and see one the Blue and Green Alphabet Cards I made by clicking here.

Well the more I've thought about it, the more I've decided I wanted to do a different color scheme.  I don't really want to be stuck with just blue and green, so I've made some new stuff in a new Bright Colors theme.

First, I've redone the Alphabet Cards in Bright Colors.  Click on the picture to check them out.

Then I decided that my Touch Point Number Posters were boring!  So I redid them and you can click on the pic to check them out.

And after I got done with that, I decided I needed new name tags for desks.  The last 2 years, I've name tags that had a lot of "stuff" on them.  I've felt like my students just didn't utilize them the way that I hoped.  They really only utilized them to help remember which way to write the letters 'b' and 'd'.  So for this year, I'm just going to have their names and the alphabet line.  Maybe next year, I'll do something else.  I'm giving these away as a FREEBIE to you guys!  Click on the picture to get your freebie name tags!

Finally, Teachers Pay Teachers is having a HUGE Back-to-School sale on August 12th & 13th!!!  Everything on TPT will be 10% off if you use the Promo Code BTS12, and I'm offering an additional 20% off for a total savings of 28% off!  So use this weekend to fill up your wish lists with all the great things you need to start your year off right!  Click on the picture to check out my store.  A lot of other TPT sellers are giving 5%, 10%, 15%, 20% off as well so shop around!

Currently!

For the life of me, I can never seem to catch Oh Boy' 4th Grade's Currently when she first posts it!

Oh well, better late than never!

This is my last Monday off before teachers go back to school next week.  I can't believe summer has come to an end!  I'm not as enthusiastic to go back to school this year as in the past.  I really need to drum up some motivation before Monday!  Maybe once I get in there and start getting my classroom ready I'll feel a little better!

The Magical Product Swap!

I joined up with Mrs. Standford's Class to do a blog and product review for another blogger.

I'm super excited to introduce you guys to Cindy from Primary Reading Party!  

Cindy has been teaching several years but just moved to New York from Florida.  She's back on the job hunt. I have a lot of empathy for her, because I'm about to be back on the job hunt once we move to Hawaii this December.  For those of us that will be looking for jobs, I recommend you check out Cindy's great post (with pictures for us visual learners!) about her teaching portfolio.  I definitely need to start thinking of something like this for when I'm interviewing.  You'll want to click here to check it out.

I was also lucky enough to review her Super Sight Words Games from her TPT store.

There are 7 different game boards in her pack that use different Dolch Sight Word Lists.  There's a couple different ways you could use the games.  If you were working with a small group who were all working on the same Dolch list, you could print enough boards out for all students to have a board and they all play together.  The best part though is if you have students working on different lists (which I often do in my resource room) each student can have a board that uses the list they are working on.  That way if you have students working on the PrePrimer and 1st grade lists they could play the game together but work on their target skills.  I LOVE games that can differentiated!

So when I set out to print and laminate the games, I had a helper.

That would be Harley, our 8-month-old Great Dane "puppy".  She is protector of this house.  Yesterday, we had an hour long barking fiasco in the back yard.  I thought she was all upset over the neighbor's dog.  She kept barking and coming in and out and wouldn't stop.  Finally, we realized there was an intruder in the yard...........a TURTLE!  Thanks to Harley she saved us all from the vicious turtle!

Well, she was having no part of this laminating business.  The laminator really messed up her day.  Obviously, I haven't been doing nearly enough work preparing for the upcoming school year that starts in just a few weeks since she freaked out over the laminator! 

She kept a close eye on it.

 She growled some, barked some, and then gave the YAWN.  This lets you know she means business. It also means let me out of my kennel, so I can go potty.  You have to be able to decipher the yawn!

When it was said and done, Harley decided that it wasn't so bad after all and gave her seal of approval.

So if you're interested in Cindy's game, stop by her TPT store {here} and check it out!  After all, how many games do you know get approved by a dog as cute as Harley?  Cindy's also reviewing one of my games so make sure you check her blog out {here} to see what she thought.

There's a bunch of other great bloggers who are also doing a product swap.  Make sure you check out Mrs. Stanford's Class blog {here} to see some other fabulous reviews!