Why'd I Buy It

Confession time - I do not buy Christmas gifts in August or September or even October. I am lucky to start making a list in November. But....I start shopping for September in June - that is right, I shop for BTS before I am even done with my present school year!!

So I have been picking up a few things here and there and I have learned one thing - it is better to do your crazy BTS shopping by yourself. I have learned not to bring my husband (he can not handle seeing the total) and now I can not bring my 13 year old daughter because she says "What do you need that for?" or "Why are you buying that" and I actually try to rationalize my purchases. So I thought I would share with you some of my purchases...

Font from KG Fonts, Clipart from Melonheadz, Frame from I Teach, What's Your Superpower?

....because I know you will understand!!

First up, a class set of sponges:

These are not so my students can clean the classroom, although that is a fabulous idea. These are for creating class graphs : )

I got this idea from The Teacher Tipster (who I am secretly in love with). You can check it out here.



Next up, apple erasers:

Of course these are not for actual erasing, that would be silly. These are for 5 and 10 frame math activities. I have these activities from Deidre at A Burst of First. (only I bought the whole bundle! but this set has apple activities!!)

I also picked up this great freebie -  Five Frame Fun with Apples from Babbling Abbey.

I also picked up some awesome apple freebies from Cara at the First Grade Parade.

Next, these buckets:

Which were hard to ignore, I really wanted them. Come on, they have little blackboards on them!! I even kinda wanted them so I could do supplies for each group on a Lazy Susan or something or for Bucket Filling BUT my daughter started harassing me about what I needed them for and then I could not justify buying like 25 (1.00 each at Target) so I just bought a few and will be using them to hold coloring tools that will be organized by colour. Last year I used drawers but I think this will be cute too.

Last one (for today - I have bought a lot more!), these books:

I bought a class set (8 books for $3 at Target). Again, my plan is not 100% solid but they have 16 pages each and I am thinking they would be perfect for circle stories. I love using If You Give a Mouse a Cookie and all of the other books in this series and then having my students write their own circle story. Christmas is a great time to use circle stories (If You Take a Mouse to the Movies) since students can use so many different Christmas characters in their stories. I love If you Give a Reindeer some Root Beer from First Grader at Last!!

Well there you have it, some of my purchases and why I NEEDED to buy them!!