Five for Friday & Freebies

Today was my last workday. I feel like a horrible blogger b/c I have not blogged and/or stalked (ahem..excuse me...checked out others posts!). But I have been swamped and you'll see why in a some of the pictures.

Plus...trying to finish my capstone project. Presentation is complete, final paper is turned into the professor for final tweaking and just a couple of other things left and the big part of my final class will be finished.


The least I could do is participate in Doodle Bugs Teaching Five for Friday and offer up some freebies at the end! I hope you read all the way through!



 

1.  Well this week has been crazy busy at work. We had one designated work day (which means you can't take off...pretty much everyone has to be there) so that was our final luncheon and goodbyes to those who are leaving. My dear teacher friend next door to me is moving to TN so that's been kinda hard but she'll be teaching K when she gets there and we already decided to Skype!

2.  Organization!!! Whew...I had two big tasks in my head to do when I was packing up and I did it!  First one---I took all of my own personal books out of these bins. I needed a better way to organize my work stations (math, literacy, and writing) that my students use monthly. Sometimes (or all of the time) I have stuff and can't find it, or it's been put somewhere else, or it doesn't have a "place". I decided to do this for my sanity as well as anyone else that might need to use something. 

You can see that the April/March/May bin has quite a few things in it. I just combined it all b/c 1. I didn't have as much of this stuff & 2. I didn't want to go buy another bin!

        November is combined as well. I can always go pick up another one later on. The labels are clear taped down so it'll be easy to change up.

 Here are some finished ones by my sink. 

 

 The inside of the November bucket. I have labels on each activity, some are in ziploc bags, some are in pencil pouches and other stuff is stored in index card boxes (the thin ones you can get for like $.50 at the beginning of the school year).


3. So now what do I do with all of my books. Ugh. I have had the same file cabinet for the past 9 years and I think I used it my first two. I finally said to myself that it just has to be cleaned out (this is one task I do not like!). 

So I organized my books by theme or author depending on what I had. 

 This was what was left AFTER organizing one drawer already!

And I LOVE it!!!

I saw this on Fun and Fearless in First (click on the link to see her post about organizing her file cabinet!). She talks about this awesome Book App that you can scan all your books in. I haven't finished that b/c it takes awhile but now that they are all organized it'll go so much smoother!

4. I changed up my word wall. Less to do at the beginning of the year. It was this....

 But after 9 years...I'm popped out. 

So here's the new one....

 

 It's sooo much brighter. You can get the owl alphabet cards here by Lauren .  I made the big owl to match.

This summer I'll find some word cards or just make a set. I passed the popcorn wall on to another teacher.

5. Here are some freebies for you!!!!

These are my binders that I organized when I had a student teacher. They just don't have these cute side labels!! Maybe that'll be another workday project. Hmmm.

Just click on the picture to take you there! You can download it as a PPT file and add your own text!!

 

Here are the labels for the buckets. I just printed mine on bright colored cardstock. Again, click on the picture. It's a ppt file so download and add your own text!

 

All packed up. Time to go home for the summer.

 

I linked up over at Ladybug's Teacher Files & Fun in Room 4B's awesome organization linky party!!!