What Do We Do With Our Free Time?

My school is on break this week so that means I have so much free time to myself, right?  As a teacher, there are certain things that people often say to us in conversation.

"I could never do your job!"
"You must be so patient."
"You get so much time off, you're so lucky!"

Don't get me wrong, we do get a good amount of time off.  We need it, our students need it, it's necessary.  That being said, the majority of teachers end up going in to work during these long breaks to get stuff done.  It's near impossible for me to get one thing done in a single sitting due to the volume of activities going on around me.  I usually start several projects in the 5-20 minute breaks I get between students and then little by little, my classroom begins to look like a giant junk drawer.  During these breaks I like to take my time getting organized and regrouping.  

Before I left for the break I noticed that my students' desks were getting a little out of control.  I give them a lot of tools to keep at their desks throughout the day.  Sticky notes, highlighter, reading window, dry-erase marker...just to name a few.  They use each and every one of these tools so it's important that they have them handy without having a distracting mess on their desk.  

My good friend, The Dollar Store, came through again and I was able to find some good bins with attached lids for their desks.  I thought they needed a little something to jazz them up though, so I made some cute labels (3x5)to add a personalized touch.  I love them so much I'm going to put them up for free on my TPT store, because every kid needs some pizzazz in their life...it just makes the day better!    

As a sidenote: I originally did the tags with just the chevron background but after I printed them out I decided they needed some red to help them pop.  In my TPT file the red background is already included.  I printed them on card stock and used velcro dots to attach them to the bins.  The good thing about using velcro is that if you need to repurpose the bins down the road you can just put a new label on them without worrying about peeling crusty tape off.

The file on TPT is a PDF, see mini-tutorial below to for help on how to add text to your PDF. 

   

Step 1: Select the "Show Edit Toolbar" button.

2. Select the "Text" button.

3. Click and drag your cursor where you want your text, you can move it around later if you need to.

4. Type your text.

5. Highlight your text and select the "Tools" tab at the top of the screen.

5. Select "Show Fonts"

6. Choose your font and adjust your color.

8. Enjoy!!!