New Beginnings and Endings

I don't officially go back until the 24th, but I'm already starting to feel a little busy getting ready for the new school year.  I took advantage of the sale at TeachersPayTeachers.com so I'm seeing some printing, cutting, laminating and cutting again in my near future!

All of this downloading and seeing all of the things that others have made has inspired me to go through some the things I've previously created and found one of my favorite things.  A speech therapy diploma!  As we all know our kids work just as hard as we do and deserve the recognition.

I usually print these out on the resume paper I purchased at the end of graduate school that will likely never be used again now that everything is done online.  The kids love it!  I've been a little disappointed when I've had kids not react at all to their diplomas when they receive it, and been surprised later with a parent call or teacher email to tell me about how it was put up on the bedroom wall or didn't leave the desk for the rest of the school day.

I thought that this would be a great way to start the new school year!  Some kids do make surprising progress over the summer and we can all use smaller caseloads so here's one for positive thinking!  Grab the Google doc here! 

Shopping for the New School Year!

I've been pretty quiet for most of the summer, but to be fair, I haven't been working either!

I've started shopping for the upcoming school year.  I have no budget anything outside test protocols this year so I need to acquire anything I might want to use in the cheapest way possible.  I've been following all the sales.  My deal of the week is the 1 cent folders at Office Depot.  Pretty much every week during school supply season both Office Depot and Office Max offer some crazy 1 cent and even some 5 cent deals.  There are usually some small item number limits, which has an easy work around.  Bring your teacher ID and get double the limit!  (I think you have to sign up for the teacher max-perks reward program at Office Max no signing up for things has been requested of me at Office Depot) Three trips to Office Depot and my 60 kiddo case load is covered for 60 cents plus negligible tax.

Another Item I've been collecting this summer are cheap plastic pencil boxes (Depending on color the one's I've got were .47 to .57 at Walmart and .99 at Target).  I've currently obtained 9, but am ultimately going for 12-15.  They are going to be used as an organizational tool for the numerous decks of therapy cards I've created or printed from all my fellow bloggers.  I'm planning on featuring it in a future post toward the end of the month.

What's your deal of the week?