Five for Friday! 8-21-15

Hi there!  I am linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching again for some random Friday fun.  I am in the thick of back to school right now.  My first day back is Wednesday August 26th.  Only five more days, YIKES!

1.  So, I was happy to get these notes out to my new little students.  I keep it simple because it is one thing on a very long list of things to do this week.  You know how it is.  I was so glad to find these fun stamps at the post office to go on them.

They say from ME to YOU.  

2.  Yea!  My last supply order arrived!  Woo hoo!  OK, a girl can never have too many sharpies, can she?  The Velcro dots are sooooooooo handy.  I love the big post it notes with lines.  LOVE THEM!!!
Did you notice the fancy pencils?  Noir  by Ticonderoga.  LOVE!!!  Shimmery silver outside.  Black wood inside.  The most perfect no. 2 lead.  Need I say more?  Pure pencil LOVE.  Those are my special teacher pencils, btw.  The kiddos use the yellow ones.

3.  When I got home on Wednesday, I found the dishwasher  'clean' light on and I looked inside to see all the classroom stuff that I had brought home on Monday inside.  Guess who ran the load for me?  My sweet husband, Duane!   OMGoodness!  He is so darn good to me!  (I think he is feeling sorry for me that summer is over.)

Those are all my magnetic trays, scissors, and my classroom bowl.  The magnetic letters were on the top rack along with all my plastic clothes pins.  Now my tray for literacy intervention in the afternoons is ready.  I keep the other trays stacked without letters and prep the letters as needed for activities.

4.  My new printer came!!!  I ordered this specifically so that I could sign up for hp Instant Ink.  I like this printer pretty well so far.  But, the jury is out.  There were a few little glitches with the paper feed and a few pages had to be printed again.   Hopefully it will work well for me.  I printed some stuff...

... like my new cards for my Kinesthetic Alphabet.  I just put this on TpT and will be doing a more in depth post on it soon.  I am happy with how the cards turned out and I think the kiddos will enjoy learning our alphabet chant with them this year.

I printed my new Classroom Character Posters too!  I think they came out looking great.  The printer doesn't really do perfect photo quality, but they are good enough for me.  I got this printer because I think it will be a work horse and that is what I really need.  But, mostly I am really excited about the instant ink program from hp.

5.  This is my new teacher plan and prep tub.  It's where I keep my current thematic unit files along with all my prep for each day.  There are two full weeks worth of big folder envelopes where I put materials and papers that are prepped ahead.  I try to stay planned out a week ahead and prep the following week each day throughout the current week.   It works pretty well and keeps me a lot less stressed.  I know some people who prep for the next day each afternoon.  That is just a little too crazy for me and I also think it makes it harder to do more prep intense projects.  OK, just one more thing about my sweet hubby... he painted the tub for me because we couldn't find anything this size in colors, so we just bought a cheap clear one and he painted it blue for me.  Doesn't it look cute with the birdies on it?

Hope you are having productive and happy days back at school!
Go check out all the other great blogs over at Doodle Bugs Teaching.
Thanks for stopping by.  
Happy teaching!