New Year...New Adventures!

Well, I'm about a week and a half away from the first day.  Still can't get in my classroom until Monday but at least I can get some things ready before that.  (We have a year-round school in our district who's building is being worked on over the summer, so they are occupying our school until the end of this week.)

I'm sticking with the OWL theme just because I LOVE it and may also be too lazy to change it...but I do have a few things I will be adding to my room this year.  And of course, these ideas are from Pinterest!

The first is for pencils.  You know how your kids are always breaking or losing their pencils.  Well, this  clever teacher decided to use a straw dispenser for new pencils.  You fill it up and any time a student needs a new pencil, they just go and grab one from the box.  Genius!  I bought one online a few weeks ago.  It finally got here and I pulled out my Cricut to cut out vinyl letters for the front.  I saw a few people had also lined the inside with cute scrapbook paper.  I may have to do that too.  Anyway, here's what I've got for now:

OK guys, I'm SOOOOOOO excited about this next idea!  I don't know where the original idea came from.  I got this from a friend's pin but it doesn't link it to a sight.  Ready?....

I'm not done yet, but basically, the idea behind the ReadBox is that the display shows several books that the students might want to try.  I printed off a couple book cover images that I will put up on the red background.  Some of these are in my library but others are just to get ideas of what to read.  I also went to my local library and they had pamphlets recommending books on various interest levels.  I grabbed a few of those and will have them located next to our ReadBox display.  I'm really hoping that my students will get excited about this and find some new things to read.  I'm tired of everyone ready the "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" series.  While they are funny and easy...they are TOO EASY!  My kids need more of a challenge and I'm hoping that this will help pump them up.  If you want to use this in your room, feel free to download the "screen" and use it however you'd like!  I'll make sure to post pictures of the finished project next week when it's all set up!

**UPDATE:
Here's the finished ReadBox.  My kids LOVE it!