Summer Shopping ... Isn't it fun?

It feels like summer here today. The sun is out and its beautiful. And here I am at my computer blogging- go figure! I'll get up and get some other things done right after this later.

Right now I'm trying to decide on a classroom theme for next year. I'm tossed between jungle and beach. I have a tree that lends itself perfectly to a jungle theme and I could use animal print borders for my boards, etc. But the tree would also work for a beach theme and I found a cute bulletin board set and could use lots of bright colors  to decorate. I also stumbled upon super cute surfing projects on Brooke's blog Perspectives and Deanna Jump's blog.

This is driving me crazy! What do you think I should choose? I'd appreciate your thoughts. I need to make up my mind.

I did some shopping for next year on TPT and found thesegreat activities so I thought I'd share.

I love what Kelly and Diane have going on at Made for !st Grade and their pictures on their blogs convinced me this was a must have! I can't wait to change up the beginning of my year with this.

With our district starting Common Core, I really want to integrate math journals. I've thought about it before but just didn't get it going. So I found these Back to School prompts from Anna at Crazy for First Grade and I think they'll help me kick it off nicely. I'm thinking of binding plain white paper with a cute cover as their journal. It might work to have that on the desks as children arrive in the morning and they can glue in the prompt so we'll be ready to go at math time. If you use math journals, how do you do it?

I bought this packet from Abby at The Inspired Apple. She is amazing! I bought her Hot Chocolate packet last year and loved it! So I thought I couldn't go wrong. There are a lot of fun things I do at the beginning of the year but I'm looking for ways to change it up.  This will be a fun change.

  For math I bought Six in the Fish Tank from Mrs. Arnold at Oceans of First Grade Fun. It will be perfect for learning ways to make six and it comes with adorable fish the kids can use as manipulatives. She's my math inspiration for sure. Last year I used her Nine Little Ladybugs activity and will definitely do that again.

So those are my purchases so far. There will be more when I decide between a jungle theme and a beach theme. What to do, what to do?

You can link up and share your summer shopping fun at Ladybug's Teacher Files. Just click on the picture below.