Back to School Essentials~ A linky party

Two posts in two days, it's a miracle! Even though I'm heading back to school after our winter holidays in Australia, not to a new year after Summer break, I thought I would link-up with Amanda at The Teaching Thief to share my back-to-school essentials.

As my class this year will tell you, I have a massive stationary addition. Between them and my husband I swear they are working together to get me to stop. Every time I go near I shop now I hear my kiddos saying, "Do you REALLY need that Mrs Perry?" :) It hasn't worked yet but I'm sure I'll hear it again when they see everything I bought over our winter holidays (ummm... it's a LOT).

My typical summer haul looks (partly, ok this is about half) like:

 My B2S list normally includes:

1. New buckets, baskets and general cute looking containers. Not that I actually need any more but I keep on buying them!

2. New cushions and seats for my reading area. I normally sew new cushion covers and hit up Kmart for other bits and pieces.

3. Laminating pockets! Along with stamps & stickers. Aldi in Australia are great for cheap stamps close to the start of the school year.

4. A new classroom mat. These are not the cheapest item to buy in Australia. I normally wait until Kmart or Spotlight has a sale.

5. Clipboards for displays and group work. I bought mine from Amazon a few years ago and love them. I'm due for some more this year.

I also normally buy new tissue paper decorations, pencils and other small stationary bits for my reward box and new fidget tools.

Happy shopping to all of you heading back to school. Can't wait to see your blog posts and ideas in the next few weeks.

Teacher survival kit

In my 9 years of teaching, I have managed to have a lot of student teachers, so many I've lost count. I'm not sure how the system works in the US but here in Australia, students are sent out from Universities from their 1st year, increasing their placement time until their final, 4th year of University. 

Sometimes it can be really hard to work out what to give them as a parting gift but I've made a few rules for myself that have worked. 

First year & Second Year- Card from the students.

Third Year- Card from students, A Picture story book or two, hard cover when possible.

Fourth Year- Card from the students, a class photo and a Picture story book or my "Teacher Survival Kit". 

The Survival Kit is really easy to make and I vary what I put in it depending on the student and what I can find at the cheap shops. 

Some of the more common items are:
-basket or bag that they can reuse for their classroom;
-a big bucket of chalk;
-coffee sachets, tea bags, mints, etc;
-stickers & stamps;
-pens, textas, crayons, etc;
-notebooks, planners, a diary;
-a big box of bubbles and a copy of Lauren's Self-Control Bubbles;
-award certificates, ribbons or bracelets.

Do you have any other great gift ideas? Leave your comments below.

Five for Friday~ 30th of January

Oh boy, it's been a while since I've done one of these! I'm linking up with Kasey from Doodlebugs to share the happenings from this week.

Thursday was the first day back at work for 2015. Yay! New room, new year level (hello Grade 3 & 4), new kids. My new room is a gorgeous pile of gorgeousness. Love it!

Love my minion cushion from my niece.

 Bag lockers & tubs

Reward charts

Star display from our transition day.

Fish and pencil trolley.... because that works? :)

 Our Reading Corner

Curtained area

We kicked off our first day with some Name Zentangles. The kids did an excellent job with their artworks, I have definitely missed teaching bigger kids. 

I got the idea from this pin. We looked at filling the background in with different Zentangle patterns and I used this template as an example.


As my iPhoto has just decided to die I don't have any other photos to share (grr).

Happy weekend,

Minion Mayhem

As we start our new school year next week in Australia this week has been crazy fun as I have been putting the finishing touches on my classroom. I moved rooms {again} this year but am really excited to be moving to 3/4... plus I'm in a newer room which kind of rocks.

This year I'm going with a Minion theme to match my {slight} Minion obsession. Plus since the movie is coming out this year it's a great tie-in.

I made these sweet minions for our door display. 

If you'd like a copy download the editable freebie PowerPoint file here.

My name tags and this awesome Minion Calendar are from Yara Sea of Knowledge. I attached them to my whiteboard with magnetic tape {I just noticed the wonky '17' card, sorry about that} which is just surviving this heat. 

Download the free name tags from Yara's store here and purchase the calendar from here.

Need more Minion ideas? Check out my Minion board on Pinterest and follow me @becsperry on Instagram to keep up with all the fo-shizzle happening in Books, Bugs & Boxes land.

100th post, a giveaway & some freebies

*Sigh* My last week of holidays is quickly coming to an end but it's probably a good thing because there is only so much cricket & Aussie Open tennis that I can handle!

I'm really excited to be starting this year. I have a really positive outlook and I'm determined to stick with it!

For anyone else starting back to school in the next few weeks or for anyone looking for some new resources here's a quick update/reminder of a few of the freebies I have in my store. Just click on the pics to go the freebie! 

Welcome Back to School Bookmarks

Beginning of the year counting assessment for Kindergarten/Prep

Make 18 Math Game

And this is officially my 100th post {it's only taken a year to get here}! Just follow my Facebook page to win your choice of $10 worth of products from my store.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Back to school- A freebie, Letters Home & Collecting Information

Our school year is scarily getting closer to beginning. I'm a bit excited and a fair bit nervous/stressed about starting over at a new place but I think we are going to have a great year. I have really struck gold with my teaching buddy, so far we are thinking exactly the same way & have gotten a lot done in the last 2 weeks.

We mailed our Prep Letters yesterday, which are just a little welcome pack for our new preppies. They get a thrill having a big envelope sent home!

This year we included-

Welcome Letter
Just without the love hearts {the big one is covering up the school logo}.

We included the link at the end for our parents to fill out our google form. 

We asked them to let us know about any special interests/other information, how their poppet would be getting home each day & if/when they may be available to be helpers in our rooms.I'm very excited that we have already had two parents fill it out!

About Me/Meet the Teacher sheet

A bookmark
With cute Scrappy Kids graphics from Mel at From the Pond. If you would like your own copy of the bookmark go here for the freebie.

Ready Confetti

 That's our fat cat Axel keeping watch a.k.a. trying to play with the sequins.

Isn't this the sweetest idea?! I found this very cute, free poem from O"Fish"ally First Grade. We are really hoping the kidlets get a kick out of this. I filled the bags with paper confetti, assorted sequins, coloured stars and plastic jewels. I made up all 50 bags while watching 4 episodes of Buffy {season 3 incase you wondered}. Totally worth it!

We also put in the Literacy testing timetable and would have normally included a class photo but we decided we'll send this home instead on the first day (shh, we forgot to print it!).

How are your back to school plans or 100th Day of School plans going?