Sunday, September 09, 2012

Recent Purchases

This girl is EXHAUSTED! I need me a break big time! We have just finished Winter here in Australia and you'd think I'd get sick at least once in that 3 months and be able to have a day or two off but NO, I didn't get sick it all. Either did my boy, so I couldn't stay home with him. I would have liked to get *just* sick enough for a day off! Oh well, we still have 12 weeks of school to go in our school year. There's still hope. And holidays in 2 weeks. Please let me get through these 2 weeks!

One of the reasons I'm so exhausted is that I have soooo much on after school. Look at the coming week for instance. 

  • PD after school Monday on Cued Articulation from 3-5pm. I miss our weekly year level meeting to go to this. Visit my nephew in hospital until visitation closes at 7pm.
  • PD after school on Big 5 comprehension skills Tuesday from 3-4pm. My boys footy training from 5-7pm. 
  • Staff meeting from 3-4pm Wednesday. Woohoo, early day!
  • PD Thursday on problem solving in math from 3.30-4.30pm. My boys footy training from 5-7pm. 
  • Friday - P-2 staff meeting from 8.00-8.30am. Come home and sleep (as is my weekly routine!).
This schedule has been going on for ages too. The  comprehension and math problem solving PD's go for 5 weeks each. The cued articulation is only this week and last week. 

I shouldn't complain though... I signed up for all the PD's since I haven't really done anything this year and as my fellow Aussies know, we are required to do 30 hours each year.

Oh well, 10 school days and I'll be on holidays. 

Anyway, to get to the title of this post, I've also done a bit of shopping. Last Wednesday I went to the Scholastic Warehouse Sale and nabbed me some bargains. See those green stickers - $1! I've now got a book for each of my kids for their end of year present by buying the $1 books. I LOVE the Australian Geographic magazines you can see in the corner - I buy 6 of each title whenever I see them and use them for guided reading groups throughout the year.
 This is my most recent Scholastic book order. I also got some chapter books for my boy and new pocket charts, Aboriginal paper etc, but these are just the books for my class.
 This is the huge box of books I've got hidden in a corner of my lounge room so that I can see it all the time. It's the books I desperately want to contact so I can take them to school. I slowly make my way through them and contact them while watching TV but then I go and buy more and it fills up again. My garage is full with other boxes like this, but those books are so urgent.
These are some that I've just contacted. My  boys and girls are going gaga over these books. I had to make a new label and tub for Super Hero books. I'm so good at covering the books in clear contact, I hardly ever get any bumps! The corners of the books don't get all dogeared either - books I've had since I started teaching in Year 2 still look new!
Talking about tubs, I've been picking up a few of these new ones the last two weeks whenever I see them. I found these cute containers too - I don't know how I'm going to use them but they are in my colours and they have polka dots - how could I resist??  You hear me, right?!
I picked up these glasses from the cheapie store too - they are great for the 'oo' sound. The idea is from the Teacher Wife and she has a set of glasses as a freebie. You write 'oo' sounds like 'look' around the rim of the glasses. I LOVE the idea, but I prefer to use these because they are funky and sturdy and the kids don't have to try and cut out the middle so they can see!

So that's probably it for another week, I doubt I'll have time to post again until the weekend. 

Oh, I am giving away any item from my store at a giveaway over at Coffee, Kids and Compulsive Lists. You have 4 days left to enter!