1-2-3 Come Get Organized With Me!
Well it's already the middle of June and the days are flying by me. I wish summer would slow down to the pace of those too-long winter days that seem to drag on. Some of my friends still have a few more days of school, and others have been out a week or more.
Summer doesn't officially start til June 21st, so there's plenty of time left for relaxing, before our brains begin gearing up for back-to-school and we have to undo the cruise-control mode.
For lack of something else to blog about, I decided to start designing new things for the fall. This is the first of many articles featuring a back to school FREEBIE.
My husband thinks I'm a bit crazy, but by the looks of what teachers have been pinning and downloading this past week, I am certainly NOT alone. I truly believe that if you have a passion for education, your "teacher hat" never really comes off, and all it takes to get us excited all over again, is to see a school supply display, smell a box of brand new crayons, or find some books and classroom treasures at a garage sale.
I was always reinventing the wheel trying to make my classroom decor more inviting, organized and just plain cool! After all, this is our home-away-from home! I absolutely love looking at photographs of teacher's rooms. If you do too, click on the link to come visit mine.
I think teachers look forward to decorating their classrooms, like children start planning their next Halloween costume on November 1st! Any hoo, even if you have banned yourself from working on "school stuff" for an appropriate amount of down-time, you can still catch up later on all of the great FREEBIES I will be making and posting through out the summer.
The little ditty I put together today, while a warm summer breeze wafted through my office window, is a cute boo-boo book basket. (Try saying that 3 times!)
Easy, simple and quick; it will help you on the road to getting organized and hopefully make life a bit easier. The Dollar Store sells a variety of these plastic baskets in all sorts of colors. So that things looked less cluttered, I used a primary color theme and tried to have all of my basket styles look the same.
Print off my signage; mount on construction paper; laminate and you're good to go. Place the basket in your reading area or classroom library section.
When students are reading one of your books and discover that it needs some repair work to avoid further damage, have them fill out an Rx form of what's wrong with the book and how you can fix it. They tuck the note on the page that needs repair, so that the end sticks out and then drop the book in the "hospital" basket.
I made up the notes, so that students can get in some extra writing practice, as well as a time saver for me. No need to figure out what's wrong and where the book needs to be repaired. If you teach preschool, where children aren't able to write, they simply use the slip of paper as a bookmark for each page that needs fixing.
Run off a bunch of copies, trim and keep in an envelope. I taped a Popsicle stick to the back of the envelope and then taped it to the back of the basket, so that it would stick up over the top of the books. Repairing books is a great job to delegate to a room helper.
There are two signs on a page for easy printing, so why not make one for a fellow teacher or your librarian, as a "Hope you have a great year!" surprise. If they happen to be your BFF, get them a basket and make up the whole thing for them. This is also a sweet and inexpensive gift, along with a book, if you're planning on having a student teacher.
Click on the link to view/download the book hospital basket packet. Feel free to PIN away.
I'm off to put on some suntan lotion and play in my garden. Blessings to you and yours, from me and mine. :-)
"A life without love, is like a year without summer." -Unknown
