Blogging Project Update

I seriously have the best, most wonderful boyfriend in the world. Monday after I posted my blog about the blogging projects I wanted to work on, he took me to the Dollar Tree, Dollar General and JoAnn's to find some materials for the projects I wanted to tackle. I was looking for some bags to use for the carpet bags (which I'm going to call Gear Bags because every time I say carpet bags I think of carpetbaggers.) I couldn't find anything at Dollar Tree that weren't too girly and my class is almost all boys. I did find some silly straws for the birthday balloons. So he suggested that we go look somewhere else and we went to Dollar General. I couldn't find exactly what I wanted but this is what I found for $ .75 each so I got them.

But not before looking all over the store and obsessing about candy to put in my treat jar I had found. He didn't rush me, he just offered an opinion. I also  bought a photo album to put another idea I had seen into place. This can be found at A Garden of Children. I think I'm going to do their pictures and then their I am sentences they wrote week before last week.
Then he took me to JoAnn's where they had their huge packs of scrapbook paper on sale for $9.99. He helped me pick out some that weren't too girly and even paid for them. So I'm set on scrapbook paper for a long while.

I used the scrapbook paper and the straws to make this birthday surprise for my kids. I'm excited I got it done early. My first birthday in the class is Thursday.
I also finished my gear bags. I first had to decorate them a bit. I only got 10 so the kids are going to have to share because my space and budget are limited. I put a whiteboard, marker and sock for each student in the bag. There is also the basic red, blue, green, yellow crayons for each student and a pencil.

Here's a peek at what's inside them. 
Eventually I'll put their calendar folders when we tackle that project in the bags. I also plan on putting baggies with the math manipulatives that they need. Passing stuff out takes just way too long. So hopefully this will help.
Here's what they looked like when completed and stored.