Fabulous Find Friday & a Great Workshop for Okie Teachers

Yesterday, I went up to school to sit in with my principal on interviews for the other first grade teacher. I'm so glad I'm not having to look for a job. I agonized with each candidate as they were asked "those" questions. One candidate was on her 4th interview of the day and it was only 11:00. I'm so thankful to already have a job!

I'm linking up with Elizabeth @ Fun in Room 4B for her Fabulous Find Friday.
http://funin4b.blogspot.com/2012/07/fabulous-findweek-4.html
Have you seen these? I happened upon them one day at Big Lots. They were $2.00 for 5. They are folders that are open at the top and on the right side except for about 2" at the bottom. The top has a little colored tab at the top to keep the papers from sliding out. I bought them hoping they would work with a dry erase marker and they worked great. They don't need duct tape or anything, they are ready to go.

I bought some of the ones from Target, but they were too big for my purposes. A couple of years ago the librarian was trashing some plastic boxes that looked like they would be great to store a center. When I saw a sight word tic tac toe on TpT last year I thought that would be the perfect center for the boxes. 

I'm in the process of making tic tac toe games to go with our reading series. I'll make a cover page for each game and put it on the front of the box. The box has a small plastic envelope that will be just the right size for the dry erase markers and eraser. I plan to put at least 3 or 4 different games in each box so there will be different levels to suit different learners.

I went to Big Lots the other day to find more of the locking folders. while looking for them, I ended up in the Back to School area. I was very happy to find some more of the folders, but that was not my best find. Last year Big Lots sold 12 glue sticks for $2.00, during the year the pkg was reduced to 9. I still bought them because they were still the cheapest. I was soo excited to see pkgs of 15 for $2! I immediately sent Delaney to get me a cart! Next to the 15 for $2.00 was pkgs of 3 for $.24. I did some quick calculations...that is 15 for $1.22. I bought 48 pkgs, I know it is a little excessive, but you can't imagine how many glue sticks we go through. They also had composition notebooks for $.39  each so I got 30 of those.

I went to a workshop today from the OERB (Oklahoma Energy Resource Board). If you live in Oklahoma, you should get on their website to see when the next workshop is. They pay you $50.00 for coming to the workshop, they provided a lunch and snacks and they send you home with a tub of supplies worth more than $200.00. The other really cool thing is after you have presented the lessons your class gets a free field trip to a museum (including transportation fees). In OKC our choices are the Science Museum, Cowboy Hall of Fame/Western Heritage Museum, and Sam Noble Museum of Natural History. Below is a picture of all of the supplies I received. They give you enough for 20 students, but if you have more students all you do is email them and they send more to you.

I received 20 pair of scissors, 20 glue sticks, 3 jump ropes, 3 nice hardback books, pencils, buttons, certificates, etc...  After you have attended the workshop one year, you can request more materials and continue to get a free field trip for your class.