Wishing...

I've been horrible about blogging over the past several weeks.  I feel like my days have been crazy busy and my evenings have been either busy or I've just been super exhausted and unmotivated to do anything.  

Anyway, this week was conference week.  I actually enjoy conferences quite a bit, but they do wear me out.  We opted for three late nights and half a day tomorrow.  I don't think I like the extra late night (normally it's just Monday and Wednesday), but oh well...  

Moving on...

Every year the teachers at my school get to complete a wish list of items that we would like for our classrooms.  They typically tell us to assume we have $100 - 200, but this year we were told that it's probably going to be $100 maximum.  I happened to be in the office today (I'm hanging out there a lot now that I have a student teacher) when one of our secretaries happened to be opening up a box of the new Lakeshore catalogs.  

OMG!!!  Soooooooo many great things!!!

I don't live near a Lakeshore store, but I'll be near one this weekend and plan on making a stop.  I figure I haven't spent hardly any money on school items since last summer, I have a coupon, and I just got my tax refund.  I'm probably going to limit by budget to $50 or less, but I figure this might be a good time to check out some new items and pick up a few new goodies to use here in these last few months of school.  I love their materials for reading work stations and math centers as everything is very kid-friendly and easy to use without a lot of help from the teacher.

So...  Here are my current picks for my possible $150 budget ($100 from the school + $50 of my own).  

(All images are from Lakeshore.com.  Click the picture to be directed to the item on their website.)

"It's a Mystery! Comprehension Readers" - These look very similar to the fluency partner scripts I have from  Lakeshore.  I love how they have the questions right there and I think the mysteries would be fun for the kids to read.  ($49.95)

"Interactive Graphic Organizers" - This is the one item I'm really hoping they have in the store this weekend, though online it says it won't ship 'til March 1st. It's a CD-Rom of all sorts of cool graphic organizers to project and use with your Mimio (that's what we have) or SmartBoard.  I've been finding all sorts of cool graphic organizer ideas on Pinterest, but this would be way less work for me and all ready to go whenever I want to use them!  ($19.95)

"Month-by-Month Fluency Practice Kit" - This isn't a new arrival, but it's something I have wanted to add to my collection for a while.  We do about 10 minutes of fluency practice during whole group reading each day as well as a fluency station each week.  One of our second grade teachers has the lower grades version of this kit and it looks pretty cool.  I always try to insert seasonal activities whenever I can, but I always forget. I love that this is all organized by month and all ready to go!  ($39.95)

"Before, During, & After Reading Fiction Prompt Cards" - We have to do a lot of read aloud aside from our regular reading series and I think these cards would be a great way to insert in some comprehension into our read aloud time.  I like that these can be used with any book.  There's also a set for nonfiction literature, which I would also like to get my hands on as well.  ($19.95 each)

Well, that pretty much gets me to my budget.  It's not a ton, but it's all stuff that I think I would use a lot.  Lakeshore stuff can be a bit pricey at times, but there's not a lot of comparable resources out there.  In my opinion, it's usually worth the money if you know you're going to use it.  

I'll be sure to share my purchases from the weekend soon!  I'm giving myself a little "fun money" to spend out of town this weekend.  My mom and I are hitting a new outlet mall and then some other stores that we don't have in town.  (It sometimes amazes me all the great stores that we don't have here in town.  We're driving nearly 3 hours to a city pretty much the same size to hit up a handful of stores that we don't have!)  

I get 4 1/2 days off!  I totally need it!

5 school days 'til assessments begin!