Saturday, July 24, 2010

Amazing Deals

I found an online coupon for Office Depot (visit school.com to keep up with any deals they're offering for teachers) that was $10 off of a $25 purchase, so since there are several things I need for the beginning of the year- off my 2 little helpers and I went to Office Depot. I ended up spending $0 and here is what I got:

*22 green folders with brads (these were 5 cents/each with a limit of 5 per person/household/day, but I lucked out & got a REALLY sweet cashier who, without me asking, did 4 transactions so I could get them ALL for 5 cents each!)
*2 packages of large printer labels (these were buy one get one free)
*5 packages of wide ruled loose leaf paper (25 cents each/limit 5 today)
*1 package of 100 clear plastic sheet protectors

I had a $25 gift card that the PTA gave us last year & I hadn't used. The coupon said you couldn't use gift cards with the coupon, but again- REALLY nice cashier who I thanked profusely!

So, I ended up actually using $24.75 of the gift card & then handed the card with 25 cents left to the guy behind me...figured it was good karma!

Sunday, July 4, 2010

Big Changes

In May the county I work for laid off all part time teachers, so I found myself for the first time in my life contemplating unemployment- not fun. I almost became a middle school Family & Consumer Science teacher, probably not the best job for someone whose blog is all about what a mess she makes & how she's totally domestically challenged! I have a very domestically inclined mom AND a best friend who is like the Italian Martha Stewart (who would have been in the room next door- big upside & #1 reason I was pursuing the job)- so I figured we'd have lots of "guest speaking" opportunities. In the end, I got re-hired at my previous school and will be teaching KINDERGARTEN again, full-time. I'm thrilled to be going back to Kindergarten, not so sure about how the full time thing is going to go with the kids & responsibilities around the house. We're all going to have to adjust.

For right now the plan is that daddy has the kids in the morning, we have a sitter come to the house from 12-4/3 days, 1:15ish-5/2 days (Pnut will be going to Pre-School 2 days/week!!- more fun changes!!) and I'll be home hopefully earlier than 4/5. I'm feeling pretty good about the arrangement since the kids will still be with daddy all morning, they nap from 2-4 and then I'll be home. I'll really only be missing 2 "awake" hours with them that I had previously. Of course I'll also be missing the 2 hours that they nap where I got stuff done, but we'll just have to figure that out when we get to it!

In preparation for going back to Kindergarten I've been doing a lot of online research & reading K teacher's blogs, so now I'm going to get to post some of the great stuff I've found & want to use on here! I'm seriously cringing a bit when I think about ALL the stuff I gave away when I left K 4 years ago. There are SO many things I have to re-make or re-buy. I spent 2.5 hours the other day writing out some poems for the poetry center- did 24, filled up a whole $7.50 chart tablet (that I'm now going to bring to my mom to have her illustrate- thanks for volunteering mom!!) and realized that I had only made a very small dent in the poetry notebook. Of course all the research has created additional work/$ spending plans to incorporate all the cool ideas I've found...c'est la vie of the full time Kindergarten teacher! Twist my arm...