Crayon Boxes

Do you know what I dislike? (Okay...I do dislike people touching my hair when it's wet and I hate pointy things next to my eyes. I also do not like it when people break rules, but those are posts for another day.) I dislike crayon boxes.
I'm sure the lovely folks at Crayola make those boxes as best they can, but the cute cardboard boxes were not built for everyday classroom use. I just threw away all my crayon boxes from last year and every single one of them looked like it had been through, well, 35 different fourth graders.
Do you know what I dislike most of all? You know those times when a student is carefully and quickly cleaning up from coloring something and just as they jab the last crayon in the box, they jab a little too hard and the back comes off? Crayons are flying everywhere. Crayons do backflips and kung fu moves just to get out of that box (at least in my classroom).
I love all the soap boxes, in fact, the soapbox for crayons was one of my first pins. My only problem was finding a multitude of inexpensive soap boxes.

Then came the day I was perusing Dollar Tree's website and found these Lock-Top Snack Containers two pack...with lids. Could it be? Would that container possibly fit a heap of crayons?

After two Dollar Tree store stops, I found them! The only problem was that there were only 11 packages in stock and I would need at least 16. Instead of being impulsive and buying all they had on the spot, I just grabbed one to check it out.

I played with the snaps for a while and they appear to be sturdy and kid-friendly. As for the crayons, they fit 24 regular Crayola crayons without even breaking a sweat. (Although to see a plastic container sweat would be pretty strange.) Two for a single dollar?
Not too shabby.

*Small update: I went to four stores to get all the boxes I needed (they were out at two of the stores). A saleslady told me that these small boxes go very quickly whenever they get a shipment in.

Monster Bookmarks: A back to school present

Last year, as a first year teacher, I rehearsed and went over the detail of every minute of the first week of school. I had plans, backup plans, and emergency plans. I read books and talked to expert teachers and thought I had considered everything. That is, until the students had their first silent read. A chorus of voices inquired about bookmarks. Bookmarks? Growing up, I had always used a scrap of paper, the flap of the book, or any other nearby object that was flat and small.
With the speed of an ocelot, I grabbed my paper cutter and made mincemeat of some colored paper.
This story has obviously stuck with me and this year, I made them some real bookmarks.

Meet, the monster bookmark.

He's adorable, lovable, and practical. I bought the pattern from the Silhouette Shop here and made a few modifications.

First off, I think that if you make a monster just like the one the picture shows, he just looks depressed.

See what I mean? Sad little depressed monster. I might change my attitude about reading if this unhappy dude was there to greet me every time I grabbed a book.

I also added a dotted line on the folds to make folding easier.

In total, 39 mosters were born today.

36 of those were for my students and 3 were made with some of my nephews in mind. This picture was taken when I had assembled the bodies of all the monsters. 12 pieces of your favorite scrapbook paper can make a lot of cute mosters.

These are three of my favorites. Mmmm. I love paper.

These are just one of the things I am giving to my students in a couple of months, but I am terribly excited about them.

To do today

Now that the school year is creeping up on me (I have less than two months!) I need to start moving faster. My classroom has been an intern classroom for countless years so it is full of junk. (To quote my father, "Stuff you keep. Junk you throw away.") I have been in there on average of two hours a day for the past two weeks and have a pile of junk to throw away and junk to ask about. I feel as though I have not made a very big dent.
A girl needs a break though so today I am just going to craft and shop.
Shopping List:

By the way. I just discovered this website. Class t-shirts? Yes please. These ones are the cheapest I have found, but now I have to figure out how to raise $259 to buy one for myself and my (at the very least) 36 students.

(Because this example is for girl's camp, you know it's a Utah based company.)