2015 Teacher Tool Gift Exchange

Last Saturday I attended the 2nd Annual Spring Teacher Blogger Meet-Up at the beautiful French Lick Resort in French Lick, Indiana with over 100 of some of the best teacher bloggers out there, and I must say if it is even possible, it was even better than last year's meet-up. Seriously, it was AMAZING! Next week all of us teacher bloggers who attended the meet-up this year will be letting you all in on all the fun we had last weekend, but this weekend we are going to share one very special, and exciting, part of the meet-up... the teacher tool gift exchange! {A big thanks to Miss DeCarbo for hosting the teacher tool gift exchange linky!}

This teacher tool exchange goes like this:

Each blogger is encouraged to put together a gift of their favorite teaching tools and to bring it with them to the meet-up. This year we had so many bloggers attend the meet-up, we broke up into grade levels to exchange our gifts. The wonderful Amanda Pauley from Mrs. Pauley's Kindergarten read a teacher right/left story she wrote. In this story, every time that Amanda said the word left, everyone passed the gift in their hand one person to the left, and then every time she said right, we passed the gift in our hand to the right. At the end of the story, whichever gift is in your hand is the one you got to keep! We then sat down and went around and opened our gifts for everyone to see, and we got to hear from the person our gift came from about why the items were their favorite teacher tool.

{Above is the group of Kinder teachers in our group for the gift exchange.}

{Above is all four groups we split into by grade level for the exchange.}

My gift this year for the exchange was a combination of several things I cannot live without. I, of course, forgot to take a picture of my items before exchanging them; however, I did take this picture to post on my Instagram prior to the meet-up of my wrapped teacher tool gift...and Max, who loves the camera, had to get in the picture. 

I wrapped up several pads of sticky notes because the organizer in me labels just about everything in my classroom. I also can be very forgetful, I'll blame it on the fact that my mind is working on several things all the time all at once, so sticky notes are my saving grace to making sure I do things I need to remember to do. I have learning that if it doesn't make its way onto a sticky note, it might not happen. So, gifting pads of them just made sense. 

I also gifted a pack of Papermate Flair pens. Along with my labeling obsession, I like to color coordinate when I label, and my favorite way to do that is with flair pens. 

The final thing I added to my gift was a $5 Starbucks gift card. Unfortunately there isn't a Starbucks in my town; however, if there was, I would be getting a hot chocolate every morning to make it through my day. (Hot chocolate because I have not acquired the taste for coffee...yet. I'm working on it.)

I can't for the life of me remember who received my gift, but I hope they are enjoying it and finding the items useful. 

Now, onto the gift I received...

My gift came from Crystal over at Kreative in Kinder.

I received all of the goodies above: pencil pouch full of colorful gel pens, two packs of sticky notes (yay!), a small notebook, colorful duct tape, and a Glade air freshener. 

I have already explained why I would be so excited about the sticky notes and colorful pens, but what you also may not know is that I keep a small notebook next to my bed in case I come up with any teaching, blogging, or TPT ideas at night because, if I'm honest, some of my best thoughts come to me when I'm lying in bed trying to fall asleep. My brain rarely shuts off. I am excited to have another notebook I can use when my first one gets filled up!

I use duct tape all the time in my classroom. More specifically, I use it to label a spot on the carpet where particular students need to sit during our morning meeting or read aloud time. Right now, in particular, I am using duct tape to put spots on the floor during our class play rehearsal time to show students where they need to stand during the play so that everyone can be seen and heard. I recently ran out of duct tape, and I was still needing some for the first week of April when we perform the play in the cafeteria for our school and our parents. Now I have some!

I also got pretty excited about the Glade air freshener because I am lucky enough to have both a boys' and a girls' bathroom in my classroom, and let's just say, they don't always smell the greatest. Every time I spray my room with air freshener, I pay special attention to both of those bathrooms. I am now able to open the air freshener and not worry about those less than pleasing smells from the bathroom. 

Now, head over to the other blogger's blogs who attended the meet-up, and find out what teacher tool they received during the exchange. You might just get a great idea for your own classroom!

An InLinkz Link-up