Celebrating the Smaller Things

I don't know about the rest of you, but once the school year gets started and the State Mandated Testing looms over my head, I get caught up in the swing of things and don't always have time to focus on the accomplishments and celebrations of my students.  So to make things easier, I prepare for birthdays at the very beginning of the year (just one less thing to do during the busy school year).  I always have a bulletin board dedicated to birthdays (right by my word wall) and because I have over 130 students each day, I must update the board monthly.

This year, I decided to do an owl theme, not because I think my 8th graders will even care, but because I think they are so darn cute.  I created a poster using one of my new faves (http://www.blockposters.com/) and some decorative 3 inch circles and 3 inch owl circles with room for each student's name and birthday.  All of this is available for $1.00 in my Teachers Pay Teachers store.

And I just have to share my new favorite crafting tool... it seriously cuts the job in half (or even less than that!)  Fiskars Lever Punch!!




And for 2 inch circles I love the Fiskars Round-'N-Round Squeeze Punch!! 
These two beauts take a page full of circles that used to take me a couple of minutes to cut out down to literally SECONDS!!  I'm all about Teacher Timesavers!!