Five For Friday: DonorsChoose.org Project

Happy Friday Fans! I hope you all had a wonderful week of teaching. I am fortunate enough to work in a county that receives a Fall Break!!! We had a 3 day work week this week and a teacher work day next Monday. It's amazing how much you can get done with an extra two days added to your weekend. I've done so much yesterday and today that I'm ready to spend the rest of my weekend in bed sleeping.
This week I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for her Five For Friday Linky Party!

Wednesday our students were release an hour early, the teachers sat through day 4 of our professional development series, and at 3:15 we were release for a 4 day weekend! WOOHOO for Fall Break! 

5 packs of notebook paper, 20 spiral notebooks, 5 packs of tabbed dividers, 2 box of magnetic clips (12 per box), 2 new binders, 50 big envelopes, 2 expandable file holders, 2 rolls of toilet paper, and more that I can't remember right now. 

This box has all the goodies that the kids will love! 5 packs of  pencils, erasers, highlighters, toys, scissors, rulers, paper towels and napkins, 2 new James Patterson books, paper clips, TONS of stickers, toys, sheet protectors, hand sanitizer, ink pens, bulletin board displays, and so much more! 

I also got this super cute Reading Roller Coaster wall display that includes the different genres of text. 

Not pictures: 5 poster boards and rolling file cart

On Thursday I was able to go "Shopping" for classroom supplies at our local Kinds In Need store. This is a non-profit origination, ran by the Atlanta Food Bank, that helps teachers working in low income schools to get brand new school supplies for their classrooms and students! You get 30 minutes to shop and they have limits on each item. At the end of your 30 minutes they weigh you cart (I had 47 pounds of free supplies), load it up, and you head home. If you bring in two boxes (to load your supplies) you get a chance to "Spin The Wheel!" Of course I brought my two boxes; I didn't win the grand prize (not even sure what it was) but I did win a rolling file cart that will be great to use with my guided reading groups! 

This was my first time visiting Kids In Need and I must say, I was a little overwhelmed! Trying to track how many items you are getting (you have to total out your items), not run in to people, get supplies, locate supplies, etc. made me miss a lot of items. That's ok though because I can't wait to go back next semester and know exactly how to navigate the store to get the most of out my 30 minute shopping trip! 

Today is my 3 month anniversary of being married! I can't believe how fast 3 months has gone by. I feel like we were just planning the wedding a few days ago. My amazing, handsome, police officer, husband had to work today so I'm going to surprise him with a nice fish dinner when he gets home. 

Holes was one of my favorite chapter books in elementary school. I also couldn't turn down the chance to expose my students to J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter since it's the whole 1st book on tape! 

Who doesn't love Gail Gibbions and Skippyjon Jones?! I can't wait to read Witch Mama and aaaarrgghh! Spider! to my classes for Halloween. 

I've been meaning to read the Lord of the Rings Trilogy but I just hated to idea of spending $15 per book! I got all of these books for $1.50 each. The LOTR books are used but the other three are brand new. 

Twice a year my county has a HUGE library book sale at our county fair ground. They have to use two of the giant exhibition buildings to hold all of the books! There were so many books that I didn't even know where to begin. Of course, I went to the children's books section first and it took up half of a building on its own. I didn't get as many books as I wanted but my knees were hurting and I forgot to bring a rolling bag to hold everything. I did however manage to get 11 children's books, 1 book on tape, and a teacher's guide about teaching science. I also bought myself 6 books. I got all of these books for only $16.50! I'm planning on going back tomorrow because they have 

probably 50 boxes of National Geographic magazines for 10 cents a magazine or $2 a box! Although they are the adult versions of National Geographic I know that we can use them in the classroom to hit some key Information Reading standards and to use for projects! 

I've been brainstorming what to do for a Donors Choose project. I was playing around with a few different project ideas when I finally decided on one. If you don't know, my classroom has no student computers, not curriculum to follow, only books that I supply, and no forms of technology at all. My students love working with technology and there's so much that we could do if we had it available to use! My DonorsChoose.org project was approved today for 2 new tablets to use with my amazing Title I students =D I'm crossing my fingers that it gets funded because we could do so much with these two tablets. 

I'm going to to try to bribe you all. For 1 week, until October 18, if you donate to my project, using the code INSPIRE, Donors Choose will match your donation 100%. Now, here comes the bribing.. if you donate $2 or more to my project and use the code INSPIRE I will let you pick any item from my TPT store to have for free! All you have to do is send me an email or message me on facebook with the name that you used to make the donation and the product that you would like! It's that easy! 

Well, that's it for this week's Five For Friday! I hope you enjoyed reading about my week and I can't wait to read all about yours. Enjoy your weekend =D 

Shanon