A Kindergarten Smorgasboard of My Favorite Office Supplies!

Day 4 of "THE FLEP!"  That's the name of my illness as coined by the mister because I have the flu and yes, the strep throat (this as he scurries around the house with Lysol and Clorox wipes.  Every time I move the Lysol is sprayed and anything not moving get's Cloroxed!)  The CEO, Butters, better not sleep or he'll be getting sanitized, too!    I am on meds and should be back to school next week for the 100th day!  Fingers crossed!

Yesterday, I shared some of my favorite books.  Today I am sharing another addiction of mine.  Office Supplies.  It's true.  After books I love to buy paper clips, pens, markers, notebooks, notepads and the like!  Here are just a few of my favorites!

File folders.  I have a billion of these.  All colors.  All designs.  All patterns.  EVEN THE 80's!  Now, I should start using them to get myself more organized!  They do look so good in my filing rack for sure!

PAPER CLIPS!  Again, I have a gazillion of these.  Shiny, plastic, neon, silver...large and small ones!  I use these a lot.  We use these for math manipulatives, we use them to make a 100 picture on the 100th day,  we use them for magnet tests in science, we use them to measure.  I even use them to hang stuff from the ceiling.  And I do use them to keep papers together!  But what I really love are all of the shapes that paper clips come in now!  

Yes, those are high heels and feet!!

And of course, mustaches!!  Sadly, I do not have these but am on a mission to find them.  Must.  Have.  These!

Mr. Sketch smelly markers are my all time favorite!!  I have loved these markers since I was a kid.  My favorite is the light green mint and the light blue blueberry!!!!  What is your favorite scent?

I love the bright colors that these markers make and do the monsters.  I use these for all of our anchor charts and predictable charts.  And yes, I am such an amazing teacher that I even let the monsters use these to do our writing charts and morning messages!  I know, such a giving teacher I am!

And yes, I do sit in my classroom and sniff these.  I admit it.  I'm Greg and I am a smelly marker sniffer.

Why write in black and blue when you can write in a rainbow?!  My favorite pens (for now!)  are the Papermate InkJoy pens!  I love all of the colors and the fact that they are cheap!  The price is cheap but these pens work very well!  I love to coordinate these with my other obsession (see below) of fun notebooks.  It just makes me happy to flip through my many notebooks of lists, ideas, notes and ramblings all in a myriad of fun and happy colors.  Seriously, people.  Makes me happy.  The littlest things bring me such joy.  

Here is a super way to use these in your classroom.  Trust me.  THIS.  WORKS.  MIRACLES.  If you have a ticket or token system of some sort, buy a bunch of these pens (they're so cheap!) and place them in a bucket.  Students can "buy" a pen to write in their journals, do their morning work, use in the writing center or for write the room.  My monsters go CRAZY for these.  Our hallway behavior is so stellar because they want to earn tickets so they can buy pens to write with.  So, let's get this straight....it's a cheap way to motivate gets to make good choices and they're excited to write?!  YES PLEASE!  And here is a bonus (I'm all about bonuses and freebies!)  Handwriting research says there is benefit in allowing children to use ink pens to write because of the friction on the paper.  There ya go!  

I also do not believe in having boring and plain notebooks.  It just isn't necessary in this world we live in.  I have tons of notebooks that I use for all sorts of stuff such as meeting notes, lists of things to do (that we all know I am never going to get to...), ideas for classroom resources to make and projects to do, shopping lists and more.  The best part is that they're always so colorful!  I sometimes dream of being so organized that I use specific colors for specific lists.  Yeah.   Just a dream.  

And finally, my love of all things Sharpie!  I think I need to have this installed in my classroom and home office (when we buy a new house and I have a home office that isn't my trunk....true story, my office is now the trunk of the car!)  and I can just have a Sharpie anytime I want it!

Well, as you know this is day 4 of my losing battle with THE FLEP and I am thankful for clip art and my laptop because I can lay in bed and at least be productive.  Today my sweet bloggy friend, Maggie from Maggie's KinderKorner, was home sick too so we both were productive ...but not just productive....

WE WERE PRODUCTIVE GANGNAM STYLE!  

Come on, who doesn't love that song?!?!?!  It makes ya wanna get up and DANCE!!!  So imagine how excited your students will be to get to do some learning, GANGNAM style!

Check out our sick day creations!  

And guess what?! One lucky reader can win BOTH of these!  That's right!  All you have to do is leave a comment with your favorite school or office supply and you're entered.  HURRY!  The contest ends at 10pm tonight!  And for more chances to enter, head over to Maggie's KinderKorner and you can enter there too!