Today is officially "Half-Way Day" for me - exactly one half of my vacation is over. Cue the dramatic music . . . This summer is going too fast! I have more to do! More sun, more sand, more bananas! (The first person to comment with the name of the book that inspired the last sentence can choose any item from my TPT store as a prize . . .)
     So, to drown my sorrows, I decided to go shopping and, oh the horror! I walked into Target and saw the most terrible, horrible, no good, very bad thing. It was . . .  the Back to School display. Aaarrrggghhhh!
     I was surrounded by markers, crayons and lunchboxes and I have to admit, it made me twitch a little. Then I noticed that the 24 count Crayola crayons were only 50 cents, so I got over my melancholy and picked up 10 boxes. You can NEVER have too many Crayolas!
     I continued my Half-Way Day shopping extravaganza at the Dollar Tree and Walmart.  Boy, let me tell you - Walmart has really upgraded the selection of teacher goodies in their Back to School section. Look at some of the terrific things I picked up:
     These great Scholastic pocket chart activities were only $5.97.  They focus on very basic alphabet and number matching skills and I think they'll be perfect to use when introducing Math and Literacy stations in the beginning of the year.
     These were the big score for only $2.97.  Also from Scholastic, I think they'll be great to use for Word Study - I only wish they had more!
     I have a couple of these already in my classroom, but for $8.97, I couldn't resist one more.  They also had a 27 pocket version, but I don't think I have a big enough wall space to hang it, so I passed it by.

All in all, the great goodies I found made it a very happy Half-Way Day after all.  I hope you had (or will have) a Happy Half-Way Day too, whenever yours is.  Have a great night!