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The final bit of excitement...the winners! Labels: Giveaway, Social Studies, Teachers Pay Teachers

Project Binder-ize! A success! And some freebies for you!

**Edited to Add Customizable Binder Kit**

Today was my first day teaching in my new, Binder-ized classroom, and I have to say, I think I've got a little more pep in my step! Or, it could be that I know there are only 9 more weeks until summer, my baby girl took her first steps this week(holy cow!), and the weather is gorgeous! So, I've been in a good mood despite the fact that today was the kind of Monday that is usually pretty tough due to everyone's post-break blues.

As promised, I'm ready to share my photos and Freebies in case you are ready to add a little pep to your step as well!

The Before Pictures
(because an extreme file makeover just wouldn't be complete without them!):

These are my Theme and Holiday Files with books jammed in the file folders. I have two big drawers of these guys. Not working for me... Curriculum files. Organized and alphabetized, but jam-packed! Also, not working for me! I have three big drawers like this. The During Pictures:
Okay, here is a picture of the process in action. I started with my Theme and Holiday files. I made a binder for each month and placed the binder, all files, and empty book boxes on student desks.  Then, I sat on a rolling chair and wheeled my way around the table, recycling outdated materials (how can that be--I've only been teaching five years!?!) putting the keepers in sheet protecters in the binders and the related books in the book boxes. Easy, peasy!  I repeated this process with my Curriculum Files on day two. As I put things in sheet protectors, I put temporary sticky note tabs on the pages to separate major topics. When I had everything in binders, I went back and added some fancy schmancy adhesive tabs to the sheet protectors so I'd be able to find items easily within the binders.  These are alphabetized as I am apparently an alphabetical-type girl. I tried putting them in order of occurence throughout the month like my teammate suggested, but I started to freak out midway through and had to change them! The Afters: Ta-Da!

Here are my binders all nice and neat (and, they take up much, much less space)! I decided to make my monthly binders blue and curriculum binders red to help my brain out a bit. Apparently, I'm a color-coding kind of girl, too! Here are the book boxes that correspond with each binder. All I did to make the labels was print the binder covers four per sheet, laminate them, and attach them to the book boxes, which were super-cheap from IKEA. I like how they match the binders and I'm excited to finally have all of my read-alouds in one place! No more getting lost in files or mixed up in student library baskets! Yay!! Now that I'm done with my curriculum and theme files, I'm ready to move on to my teacher and school-specific files... And maybe I'll find some other uses for binders, too!

If you would like to Binder-ize your room, I will happily share my binder covers and spine inserts.  I only ask that you leave me a little love if they are useful for you or share an organizing tip of  your own(because a girl can never have too many organizing tips)! Click the pictures below to download them free from TPT! Happy organizing!

P.S. By request, I have updated the binder covers and matching spine inserts to include the months June and July! Ready to binder-ize your classroom, but want to personalize your binders with your own titles, graphics, name, fonts, and more? After many requests, you can now purchase a Customizable Binder-izing Kit!

It includes over 36 color-coded binder covers and graphics that you can use with the suggested titles or your own personalized text. In addition, there are matching binder spines and blank binder covers that you can add your own text and graphics to in order to complete your class binder set!

Personalizing your set is easy! All you do is open this file in Powerpoint 2010, select the textboxes that say "Edit Binder Title Here," and type in your own text! You can add your own images to the blank binder covers and even edit the font to your personal favorite!

Click below to check it out at my TPT store! Labels: Freebie, Organization

Project Binder-ize!

PS. Don't forget to enter my 100 followers giveaway here! Labels: Organization

Fun with Frog and Toad and a 100 Follower Giveaway! A Little Freebie, too!

Woah! The last few weeks have been crazy! I am very excited to be back to blogging because I've got some goodies to share and because it is so much easier to do on my fancy new laptop! (May my old one rest in peace:). A few weeks ago, I feared that with the loss of my laptop, I may have also lost my Frog and Toad unit that I'd been working so hard on for our Arnold Lobel week.  Luckily, I was able to scrape together some bits and pieces of my unit to do with my kiddos before our Spring Break, and even more luckily, my unit was recovered along with several other important files from my old computer!! Yay!

Anyways, we had a lot of fun reading all of Arnold Lobel's Frog and Toad stories, and my kids did really well with all of the activities. I am so proud of the wonderful readers and thinkers they have become! It is hard to believe that it is the end of March already!

Here are a couple of pics of our favorite activities. The first is of our Snip, Flip, and Fold 3-D Graphic Organizer. I let the kids choose any Frog and Toad story (of course, most picked The Kite, which is in our Treasures Basal), and they simply had to write and draw to tell what happened in the beginning, middle, and end of the story. They liked this activity because of the flippy aspect of the pages, and I liked it because it turned out way better than when I used to have students fold and cut the pages on their own.  Amen for dotted cutting lines and handwriting lines!  If you'd like to try this Snip, Flip, and Fold activity with your class, it can easily be used with any book that has a beginning, middle, and end format...You are welcome to download it for FREE from my TPT store. Just click here and then click, Download Preview. This next picture is of my personal favorite Pinterest-inspired activity! I think they turned out sooo cute! I let the students pick their favorite character to describe using at least one adjective.  They wrote things like, "Frog is excited to play outside with Toad" and "Toad is forgetful because he lost his button."  Haha! Okay, now the good stuff! I am so excited to have reached 100 followers--101 to be exact! I appreciate all of your kind words and the fact that you take the time to read my sometimes long, rambling posts!  In honor of this milestone, I will randomly select THREE lucky followers to win any one item from My Teachers Pay Teachers Store. You will get to choose from my new Fun with Frog and Toad Unit (which includes the patterns to make the cuties above and other goodies!), My Green Eggs and Contractions Unit, Writing Using Thinking Maps: A Year of Circle Maps and Tree Maps, and more! The Fine Print:)
You have three chances to win! To enter, post a comment after doing each of the following items:
1. Follow my blog.
2. Follow my TPT store.
3. Blog about my giveaway.

Thanks for reading and good luck! The giveaway will end Friday, March 30th at 9:00pm. Labels: Freebie, Frog and Toad, Giveaway

Teachers Helping Teachers

As a former Hoosier, my heart really went out to those teachers and families in Indiana and other places who recently lost much of their lives to severe storms and tornadoes. I cannot imagine what it must be like to face the idea of starting everything over from scratch. To do my part in helping those teachers and school families in need, I'm linking up with Crystal from Kreative in Kinder to send supplies and materials where they are needed. If you'd like to help out too, just click here! Labels: Conferences, Parent Involvement

Hooray to 100 followers and boo to some bad news!