It's a Back to School Blog Hop - Freebies and a Giveaway

Hi Sweet Friends!

I'm so excited to be participating in a fabulous Back to School Blog Hop hosted by  the AH-Mazing Christi Fultz from Ms. Fultz's Corner.

There are 12 amazing freebies included in this blog hop.  Simply hop to the next link at the bottom of each blog post to get your next FREEBIE.  There's also an amazing Back to School Giveaway opportunity as well.

As a new school year begins one of the things I like to have in place in my classroom are activities for my early finishers.  We all have those students who finish their classwork seemingly within minutes of receiving it.  These are my kiddos that also need a challenge and variety.

I have centers set up in my classroom for these early finishers.  At the beginning of the year, I begin by introducing one center every couple of days.  I also am very clear about my rules for classroom behavior at these centers and my expectations of their completed work before coming to these centers.

Some of the centers I have in my classroom are:

A Puzzle area

IPAD with my chosen educational app for that day

Newspaper Center

Writing Center

Quiet reading in our library

This year I also want to have an area that are for my students who enjoy seat work or due to testing or other circumstances my students may not be allowed to go to a center for a particular time period.

I found this fabulous idea posted by Hope King from Second Grade Shenanigans.  Click HERE to see her photo that gave me this inspiration.   Hope used the back of her bookshelf to adhere folders of work for those early finishers.  I thought this was a fabulous idea and such a great use of space.  I haven't been able to get into my classroom since I made these darling "What to Do When I'm Finished Folder Covers", but my plans are to first place bulletin board around the back of my metal book shelf.  Then I'm hoping to use large magnets to attach these folders if not I'm using hot glue. :)

Here's a peek at some of these folder covers:

 I plan to make copies of activities to place in these folders.  My students love crossword puzzles of our spelling unit words and Boggle so I will place these in the "Spell It" folder.  I have many different picture journal ideas for students to write about.  In the reading folders, I hope to copy some of the graphs and tables from Time for Kids or Weekly Reader and post these activities in those folders.   The possibilities are endless for what you can add to these folders.  I do want to ensure that the activities are challenging and have a game sort of feel to them rather than feel like a worksheet.

These " What to Do When I Am Finished... File Folder Covers"  are free only during this Back to School Blog Hop.  You can download them from my TPT store by clicking on the photo below.  Enjoy!

This is a blog hop full of Freebies so click the photo to below to HOP to your next FREEBIE and teaching tip from Abigail at Third Grade Bookworm.