HOT DEAL - Free Clothes and Help Out Schools!

So I like wearing nice clothes...but I dislike spending a lot of money for said clothes. So, I'm a garage sale, thrift store, clearance rack kind of girl :) It's amazing what really nice things you can find for so cheap!

Anyway, I was so excited when I heard of this new(ish) site Schoola. They sell second hand clothes AND 40% of the profits go to benefit schools! I'll be honest. The real reason I was so excited was because they are offering a FREE $15 credit when you sign up, plus they are also offering half off everything on their site right now with the promo code 'HALFOFF'. UPDATE 7/6: I don't think this promo code is valid anymore, but you can still get the $15 credit, plus an additional $10 credit for creating a "collection" which gets to you $25 and anything over $25 ships FREE! Plus you can try the code VONBEAUS for $5 off.

So it was as simple as putting $30 or less of items into my cart and checking out for free! Here's what I found.

And here was my total after entering the promo code HALFOFF and using my free $15 credit.

No joke people. What do you have to lose? It's free!!! And as a teacher, I'm sure we can all appreciate the fact that we are helping out other schools as well (and you can even choose your own school, but I didn't notice that until afterwards - find the link that says "Help Your School" at the bottom of the website).

Be sure to sign up with a referral link in order to get your $15 credit (that's my referral link) and then you can share the link with your friends to pass on the fun and receive additional credits! Win, win, WIN!!! (They have both women's and kids clothing, so you could get something for your kids instead too!) Let me know what you find!

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Organizing and Setting up Individual Student Schedules

Ask any special education teacher, the trickiest part about having a classroom with so many different ability levels and needs is making the schedule. And then not only making up the schedule, but setting it up each day for students as well!

I am in a unique situation, my room is not exactly self contained but functions like one for our morning block. Read more about the classroom structure in my program at my about me page.

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Money Uno games

Uno: Every special educators favorite game. Am I right? Well, it's definitely one of my favorite classroom games. Uno works on color and number matching, which is simple enough for many students, but higher level students enjoy it just the same! 

Since my students already enjoy (or at the very least, are familiar with) Uno I decided to make an uno-like game that works on money recognition skills!

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Classroom Aide Appreciation Gifts

For those of us who work in special needs classrooms, you know we couldn't do all that we do without the help of our classroom aides!

Sometimes just a little something to show your appreciation goes a long way. I gave these gifts at the end of year, but something like this would be great to start off the year too!

This gift was simple, I found some cute water bottles and added some tea bags/packets inside. I attached a tag with their name to the outside that said "you're tea-riffic" and a short little note of my appreciation on the back. You'll notice one gift just had a box of tea and no bottle...I wasn't sure my male aide would have appreciated a cute water bottle so he just got more tea than everyone else :)

I'll be on the look-out this summer to find a good deal as a welcome back gift too!! 

You might also be interested in this post: How to Work Successfully with Paraprofessionals

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