So, where is your countdown at? Are you in the negatives and already enjoying the summer sunshine? Or do you still have weeks to go? Wherever you're at, you will want to SAVE this post!! It is going to be CHALK full of amazing ideas to use next school year - all featuring Creative Teaching Press' new Chalk It Up! collection in their 50th anniversary catalog! Get that 'Pin It' button ready!!
I am happy to say that I've teamed up with Creative Teaching Press because I believe in their products whole heartedly. They are always on the cutting edge of what is new and in with teachers! They listen and respond and have extremely reasonably priced resources for all teachers and classrooms! They are celebrating their 50th anniversary and they have asked myself and a few other bloggers to share how we use their products in our classrooms - so here's how! (Make sure you read to the bottom - its WELL worth it!)
I pride myself in thinking outside of the box - and I try to do that along with using any type of 'product' I see, use, or buy. The more uses I can get out of something, the better. So here are some unconventional ways to use...
Creative Teaching Press' Inspire U Chalk It Up! Posters!
These posters are more than just eye pleasing. They have some of the most important and powerful life lessons and messages on them for students to use and relate to. I'm sure you all have posters sort of like these in your classroom. But the messages I've found on the ones from Creative Teaching Press are so much more meaningful to the students' lives. The students can relate to them on a personal level. The posters mean something different to each of the students. One of my favorite things to do with these posters is journal writing. I have them hanging around my room and once a week or so - sometimes when the lesson is needed because of behaviors in the classroom, I will choose a poster. The students then write a journal entry using the life lesson from the poster. I vary how the journal is completed. Sometimes I'll give them a prompt that is related to the poster or I'll leave it open for them to do a free write related to the poster. I've found this to be extremely meaningful as it makes the visuals in my classroom so much more integrated into the students' lives than something they just read. After the do their journal, we talk about what they think about the next day or time they look at that poster as they are glancing around the room. Once you use these amazing Chalk It Up! Posters from CTP - you won't go back.. I promise!
One of my next favorite products from the Chalk It Up! collection from CTP are the Chalk It Up! Dots on Chalkboard Library Pockets. You're probably thinking.. Library pockets!? But these beauties are adorable!! And with the way I use mine, you'll want some that will hold up to lots of movement.
See! Aren't they adorable! So - using library pockets can be for many obvious reasons, but what I love to use them for is sorting centers. Now I'm super sad to say I don't have pictures of the ones I have made with these beauties here, but I do have something to SHOW you how you can make sorting centers using the Creative Teaching Press' library pockets. Check this out!
So basically you take an old tissue box and tape or glue one of the Chalk It Up! Library Pockets onto each side. The ones I'm using in the pictures came off in a few weeks of using the centers. They were torn to shreds. But the Creative Teaching Press ones are very sturdy and lasted much longer! You can label your library pockets anything you want. Inside of the tissue box you'll put cards with the questions, sentences, whatever and then the students sort! Super easy, quick, and cute to boot! You can see in the photos that my kids were sorting types of sentences! I can't WAIT to show you the ones I made with the Creative Teaching Press pockets!
The Chalk It Up! Collection has so many more amazing and beautiful products to help make your classroom pop! Make sure to check them out for next school year!
Also, can you all add to your post a quick note about visiting your local dealer stores and add a link to our dealer locator. Thanks!!!
Now - if you're in LOVE with these products and want a chance to WIN some, here you go! Enter for your chance to win FREE Creative Teaching Press products up to $50.00!
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Make sure to HOP on over to Savvy in Second Grade's Blog to see what SHE loves about Creative Teaching Press! You'll have another chance to enter to win $50.00 in CPT money!!
The library pockets look really cute!
ReplyDeleteEmily
I love the chalkboard quote posters!
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