Thursday, July 19, 2012

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.
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9 comments:

  1. I keep meaning to attend one of these! I love the free field trip incentive! I'm going to go check out when the next workshop close to me is! Thanks for reminding me :)

    Jennifer @ Herding Kats In Kindergarten

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    1. We just went throught the materials that were in our box. The activities are easy to implement and as I was sitting there I was thinking of all kinds of tie ins to reading, math, etc... I think we were finished by 1:30

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  2. Ugh! So jealous! I signed up for one a while back, and waking up at 4am and driving 3 hrs by myself wasn't in the cards that morning!

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    1. Kaci, the one I went to was in Yukon. I live in Midwest City, you'd be more than welcome to come up the night before and stay at my house. We could have a mini blogger meet up! lol

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    2. Come meet us in OKC tomorrow!! We are having an Okie blog meetup, and eating at Penn Square's Cheesecake factory at 2!

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  3. I have went to several different OERB workshops! Definitely worth every minute! It is amazing how much stuff they give you and will replenish if you need it!

    imgoingfirst@gmail.com

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  4. I love going to workshops and getting great usable ideas and items! I'm giving you an award, stop by and grab it!

    Mary
    Teaching Special Kids

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  5. My husband is from OK and I was supposed to go there this summer. This looks like a great little program :)
    Thanks so much for linking up!!!
    Elizabeth

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  6. I love Big Lots! I got an area rug there as well as some Scentos markers, but they weren't as cheap as some other places. Big Lots is the only place around here that I've seen that has the Scentos. About the interviews, I wish I could get ONE interview (I'm looking for a full-time job rather than part-time)-and the girl had 4! Your state's teacher/school situation must be better than ours. Here, there can be over 300 applicants for one job!

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