ADvertisements Will ADD To Our Writing Center!

So, it's Tuesday, which means two things...Monday is past us (yippee!)... and coupon/junk mail day.  I still get kind of excited when I see the big wad of coupons in our box.  I keep thinking maybe I'll find a "golden ticket" of a deal...but always to no avail.  

Today's junk mail.

 So every week they go to waste.  But wasted no more!  Today I decided to cut out some of the better pictures from each ad to make a stash of  usable magazine pics. for future literacy center activities.  I'm thinking they could glue a picture in the middle and make a web of adjectives to describe them (there were lots of food pics which seemed to naturally lend itself to this).  Or they could use the pictures as writing prompts, sentence starters, etc.  Anyway, this inspired me to start an envelope that I can keep pictures in  as I cut them out (I'm thinking I could watch TV while I clip them).

I love the CONCEPT of all the cute "let students cut out pictures from magazine" activities, but A) there are so many inappropriate pictures in magazines that I don't want my first graders to come across, and B) first graders are SO messy and I personally don't ever feel like dealing with magazine scraps in every nook and cranny of my classroom.  So if I just clip along the way, I can establish a good stash to have "on the ready" whenever I want them to do this type of work!  I'm looking forward to putting them to good use!  

Anyone else have any brilliant early childhood ideas for ads/magazine clips?

And for a funny teacher story...I definitely had a teacher "first!"  Today as I was teaching away, I started choking in the middle of a sentence...something had caught my throat. A student had the most disgusted look on her face and said, "Um...a fly just flew in your mouth!" HAHAHA!!! That sucker flew right into my wind pipe while I was teaching!! So before they went to activity today, we read "There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly"  in honor of our "event."  And that, folks, is one of the reasons why I love teaching.  No two days are alike, and there is never a dull moment!  

HAPPY TUESDAY!