Bind it Up, Baby!

You may have noticed that I'm a little bit of a do-it-yourselfer. Today I'm going to show you one of my favorite tools I use in some of my do-it-myselfing. Let me introduce my Pro-Click Binding Machine...

This slick little device allows me to do my own binding. We use it for notebooking, binding school papers at the end of the year, and making my own planner.  

What's unique about the Pro-Click is the spines they use. You can "zip" them open or closed, allowing you to add more papers to something even after you bind it.

How cool is that?! (It's great for me since I usually change my mind later and decide to add something extra!) I love it! 

What are some of your favorite teacher tools?

Related post: Never Ever Ever Bind Anything at Staples!

Our Plan for First Grade

I thought I'd share what we'll be studying this year because...

Language Arts: 

I ended up writing a program of my own with a lot of help from The Three R's by Ruth Beechick. We'll be doing much of what you can read on my Writing page.

For reading, we'll keep going at his pace with easy readers. We're also going to use the Victory Drill Book, for practicing phonics, spelling, and word-building. Just for fun, I'm getting DICEcapades Word Pirates for game days. I am a believer in practicing skills with games rather than flash cards. It's more fitting for young children and doesn't zap the life out of school.

Ideas for the New School Year

A Hand Tracing or Hand Print

At the beginning of each school year, trace your child's hand or make a hand print, then cut it out & laminate. I got the idea from Crissy's Crafts, although her idea is a little different, and goes along with the book "The Kissing Hand ." We do a hand print each year, and it's fun to see how they grow!

DIY Planner

Last Spring in my before-the-baby-is-born spree of preparing all our Fall school stuff, I was re-evaluating how I keep our school records. I was using SkedTrack, which I think is a great tool, but it just wasn't a perfect fit for us since it is based on school hours and our state doesn't require us to track hours, just days. I looked at some pre-made paper planners which all had a LOT of stuff in them that I just don't need, so I ended up making my own. Surprisingly it wasn't too big of a deal. Here's what it looks like...

The first section is calendars, for my own reference to jot down appointments and things. I just printed some pre-made printable calendars online (from here).