Five for Friday! {July 17, 2015}

It's been too long since I've done a Five for Friday post! I think mainly due to the fact that I've been up to nothing interesting this summer besides grad school, struggling hard at the gym, and napping like it's my job ;)

Throughout it all, I still haven't really been able to turn my teacher-brain off. Today officially marks the "one-month until it's back-to-school" countdown. Summer flew by but I am so ready to get into my classroom and prepare for the upcoming year!

'Tis the season to spend all my money at Target! Wait, I think that's true all of the time. Regardless, everyone has been sharing their Target dollar spot hauls and I thought I'd post a picture of mine! Sorry that the lighting is so terrible. Here's a quick run-down:

• On the left, I grabbed a bunch of sentence strips and some lined whiteboards. The whiteboards I got are fun because they look like a piece of paper ("portrait" style rather than "landscape") so I thought that would be fun for the kids!
• The "creative me" books looked like so much fun for indoor recess and early finishers. Each page has a different activity that allows the kids to be creative. 
• I got the glowstick bracelets as a back-to-school gift for my kids.
• No trip to the dollar section is complete without some plastic storage (mini and larger chalkboard-colored bins).
• LOVE the sum puzzle game! A total steal for $3.
• Also can't go wrong with some chalkboard buntings, big dice, and owl accents.
• I also found the cute birthday bag and told my mom I wish I had a use for it because it was so cute. Luckily my mom is also a teacher and apparently a genius because she recommended cutting it out and using it on my birthday board. Done and done!

FINALLY, a hopeful solution for all of my crayon-storage woes! And it only cost me a little over $10! I bought these guys at the dollar store and they fit a 24-pack of crayons so perfectly! No more tattered boxes, plastic baggies, or crayon hoarding!

Clearly I'm on a roll spending money lately. With my man moving in soon, we are in need of more storage space (sorry not sorry for hogging the entire walk-in closet and two dressers in my master bedroom...) Anyways, saw this at one of the consignment shops in town and fell in love. Even better - it was 20% off! We are going to pick it up in his truck tomorrow.

Speaking of my man, our mini-vacation to southern Illinois was absolutely perfect. For me, the highlight was definitely zip lining through the trees. We will definitely need to do it again someday!

I've heard a lot of great things about this book and I finally got my hands on my own copy. So far I am really enjoying it! Teaching writing is definitely my biggest challenge so I am excited to learn from this book and put those things into practice in the fall. Is anyone else reading it this summer?