My Many "Modes" & Check out my bargains!

I've noticed that my "teacher brain" works in cycles.  It goes something like this:


May: (after school get out of course):  Shut Down Mode Teacher brains shuts off (lots of time spent reading, relaxing and mentally reviving)


June:  Organization mode!  I scour blogs & pinterest for the "best" way to organize for next year and I SHOP!  Mostly I shop for containers and other organizing "stuff."


July:  Fun mode! Start putting all those fun organizing containers in my classroom and decorating!


August:  "Oh Crap" Mode b/c now I am starting to wonder...what am I going to teach them for the 1st two weeks, when will I get my finalized list so I can actually label everything and praying that I have a good class!


September: Time Warp Mode  Seriously is October, routine and normalcy ever going to get here?  Let's speed this month up!


October/November/December:  Seasonal Love Mode  These are my FAVORITE 3 months b/c routine is in place, we're rockin' right along learning lots and the seasons are so much fun!


January/February/March:  Slow Motion Mode  Oh..Em..Gee the LONGEST 3 months of the year!   


April/May:  Emotional Mode  I can do this, 6 more weeks!  :)   These kids need to go to first grade...I am exhausted!  : (   Oh, look how much they've learned, bless their hearts.  : )   Really?  We're still doing THAT?  Didn't we learn not to do THAT the first week of school?  : (  Oh...I am going to miss them soooo much next year. : )   


I am in Organization Mode now but throughout it all I ALWAYS in cheap mode!  See the bags at the top of my post?  That's my haul so far.  My hubby just roles his eyes as the bags pile up!  So...here's what I've found so far (it's been raining a lot this week...shopping is keeping my girls and I sane!!)

5 small containers from Hobby Lobby for all those items that are too small to put in big tubs like q-tips, button, etc.  Or...kids could use them for sorting.  5 container for $3.00 (60 cents a piece) not bad...so of course I bought 3.

Sorting trays from Wal-Mart.  $1.00 (bought 4...one of each color they had)

Traveling soap containers to organize my playing cards.  2 for $1.00 at the dollar store

Love this idea:  my genius coworker Jill puts a bucket and small dust pan at each table for cleaning up scraps.  LoVe!  Buckets were 2 for $1.00 at dollar store and small dust pan/broom was $1.00 at same store.

Duct tape to recover my old worn out clipboards.  $3.00 (I think) from Target.  I usually get my tape from HyVee when they have it on sale but I loved this polda dot design!  Couldn't pass it up!

Crayon buckets to sort crayons by color so kids "missing" colors can easily grab a new one.   Stealing this idea from Jill also.  I've seen it on pinterest also but they actually spray painted cans.  I am not that artistic...pretty sure I'd make a giant mess of that!  So, Target dollar isle had red, green, blue and yellow ($1.00 each) Hobby lobby had orange, purple, pink and the zebra (for black and white crayons!) for $1.99. I figured I'd spend more than that on spray paint.   Only missing color is brown...I might just put those in the orange bucket???

This was my most expensive purchase...$5.00 from Wal-Mart.  It has up to 28 compartments.  If you saw my earlier post about my alphabet stamps you will know my love/hate relationship with these stamps.  I am hoping to organize the stamps so that all 26 letters and a stamp pad will fit in this case.  Haven't attempted it yet but I will let you know once I give it a try!  Wish me luck!


I am 100%   70%    50% sure that will be my purchasing for this summer.


Thanks for making it to the end of this long post. . .you must have a really good attention span!  


Have a great weekend!