Sale Extended

Great news!  The TpT sitewide sale has been extended one more day!

That means those discounted products you thought you missed out on you can still get.  Woot! Woot!  Just enter promo code HEROES at check out to get up to 28% off. Click HERE to go to TpT or click HERE to go directly to my store.

Happy extended shopping!

Book Bindery

Over the last 3 years, we've acquired a good number of paperback books through our Scholastic book fairs with the help of Scholastic Dollars.  I love being able to get books from the book fair to add to our collection because I know these are books the kids will read since they are books that they buy from the fair.

Well, after six fairs, we had over 500 paperbacks.  I had intended to get them library bound a few at a time, but the budget never seemed to be there. Luckily our PTO graciously decdied to foot the bill for these books this year and now we have some fantastic reads in our collection.

The kids have been waiting for these books as they knew I was able to purchase books from the book fairs for our collection.  They began checking out these books yesterday and they were ecstatic.

We are going to write thank you notes to our PTO at one of our library centers this week.  I know the PTO will be happy to receive them.

We use the National Library Bindery Co of Georgia. They don't have a website, but you can get their contact information HERE.  We've used them in the past and were totally happy with the results.  You can read about one of our other big bindery orders HERE.

What do you do with your paperbacks?  Do you use your Scholastic Dollars to purchase books from your book fair (if you use Scholastic Book Fairs)?

Teachers Are Heroes Sale

Exciting news!  Teachers Pay Teachers is having a sitewide sale on Wednesday and my store will be participating!

Just enter promo code HEROES at check out and you will get 28% off any of my paid products. Many other great stores will be participating, too, so go ahead and fill up your wish list to get ready for some great sales.

 Happy shopping!

St. Patrick's Day Fun

You may or may not know that I sort of have an obsession with purchasing clipart.  So of course I had to make something with my lastest purchases.  I've spent my last few days of mid-winter break making some fun signs and activities for St. Patrick's Day.  

I made some new shelf signs for book displays.  I used some cute clipart from A Sketchy Guy.  I love his fun leprechauns.  You can get these signs HERE in my TpT store.

And because my call number sorting center and shelf order center were such big hits, I decided to make them with a St. Patrick's Day theme.

You can get the call number sort center HERE in my TpT store.

You can get the shelf order center HERE in my TpT store.

All 3 products will be 50% for the rest of today.  =)

Happy Sunday!

Reading Goals

For the past 3 years I have participated in the Goodreads reading challenge.  I have been able to meet my goals each year, but last year was pushing it a bit, so I decided to not stress myself so much this year and just shoot for 100 books.  I mean, 100 books is a great deal of reading.

This week we were on mid-winter break so I was able to put a bit of a dent in that reading goal.  Woot! Woot!  I am ahead of schedule...for now anyway.

This is what I've been reading...

I'm off to a good start.  Hopefully I can stay on schedule.  So, what about you?  Read any good books lately?  Anything I should add to my "to be read" pile?

P.S.  If you'd like to friend me on Goodreads, you can find me at Jnase1.  =)

Valentine's Goodies

Our Book Fair wrapped up last week and it was a big success.  It was the most successful spring book fair we've ever had. I'm not sure what I did differently this time around.  Maybe it wasn't anything I did. Perhaps it's a sign that the economy is really turning around.

Something I've done at every spring book fair is Valentine Grams.  Parents and grandparents can purchase a book on the sly at the book fair, either by dropping by or by sending in their payment and book choice in a sealed envelope.  You can get a copy of the Valentine Gram letter I send home by clicking HERE.

Then I wrap up the book along with a goodie or two which usually includes a piece of candy, a pencil, and a bookmark.  Then on Valentine's Day, I deliver the Valentine Grams.  We had about 40 Valentine Grams this year.  I forgot to snap a picture of the Valentine Grams from this year, but you can see from the pictures above what they looked like in years past.

The bookmarks I put in the Valentine Grams come from my Valentine bookmark packs.

Click HERE to check out this pack of four FREE bookmarks.

Click HERE to check out this pack of 20 bookmarks.

The kids really love them.

Since I was delivering Valentines, it got me in a festive mood.  So I put on my Valentine Jamberry nailwraps.  I don't normally wear jams on all of my fingers because I am super hard on my nails, but these were really cute.

After a week, this is what they looked like.  There was a little wear on the tips, but overall, they still looked pretty good.  I think the foil backing helped.

The jams that are plastic don't wear quite as well on my fingers, as seen in the picture above. This was after a week of  lessons, no parent volunteers and lots of  reshelving of books.  Still, I like the look so I will probably keep wearing them, at least on a couple of nails at a time.  If you liked to check them out, click HERE to go to Jamberry's website.

To keep up the Valentine spirit, I did a fun "Blind Date" lesson with the fourth grade classes. I started off the lesson with a short 6 question quiz to help them discover their perfect genre. I found the quiz on Mrs. Reader Pants' blog.  You can get a copy of it HERE.  Then I book talked several different books in each of the genres and invited them to pick a book within their newly discovered "perfect match" genre.

To make it more interesting, I wrapped some books in bulletin board paper and labeled them with only the book's genre, reading level, and the barcode.  The only stipulations were that they couldn't unwrap the book until they got back to their classroom and they had to keep the book for at least one day.

 I called it a Blind Date.  I got the idea from THIS pin on Pinterest.  All but 2 students ended up being pleased with their choices.

I made some fun signs to decorate the shelves.  You can snag 'em HERE for free.

So that was my Valentine's Week.  How was your?

Book Fair

We're having a book fair this week.  Scholastic's theme for this book fair is "Under the Sea."

I attended a book fair workshop a couple of weeks ago and received a free promo code to choose a select item from the school resource catalog.  I again choose the decorating kit.  It is full of so many great items and definitely saves me a ton of time from having to create extra items or to go shopping all over town to gather all the items I would need.

I used everything from the kit to decorate (and then some).  Here is the front doors to the media center all decked out with the Under the Sea theme.

Here are the inside doors to the media center decorated in the "Under the Sea" theme.

To add a little bit of pizzazz, I made some coral out of paper strips.

I used the fish banner in the decorating kit to make fish swimming under the waves.

This fun squid hat also comes in the kit...fish face is optional...but fun.  ;)

These are some of the other faces I make throughout the duration of the book fair.  I really do love the book fair, but it is A LOT of work to put together and run.  I am happy to see it come, but also happy to see it go.

And just because you made it through all my crazy pictures, I have a freebie for you.  You can snag a copy of the fun little book fair banner shown in the first picture in my TpT store.  Just click HERE.

Hope you enjoy!

P.S.  These ideas would go great with my "Oceans of  Fun" Media Center theme.  Click HERE to check it out on TpT.  =)

Groundhog Day Sale

Happy Groundhog Day!  

I'm having a sale today to celebrate.  20% off in my TpT store today.  If you've had your eye on something, today's a great day to snag it. And don't forget to leave feedback to get credits towards future items.  You can even use current credits you have along with the 20% discount to get an even better deal.

Hope you enjoy!

February Free Author Poster

This month's spotlight author is Jennifer Holm.

To download your free author poster, click on the picture above or click HERE.