Classroom Must-Have: a Teacher Toolbox (or 2!)

As we begin a new school year, many of us are looking for something new that makes our teaching lives easier. A few of my fellow Tennessee bloggers have joined together to bring you some of our classroom must haves, just in time for Back to School! For a little added bonus, we are also offering one lucky reader a Winner's Choice item from each of our TPT stores, so don't forget to enter the Rafflecopter at the end of this post!

My Classroom Must-Have is defintely a Teacher Toolbox... or 2 of them! I first ran across the teacher toolbox idea on Pinterest a little over two years ago. I made my first one that summer, and have added a second this year.

If you aren't familiar with them, the teacher toolbox is just a hardware organizer that you can buy at Lowes, Home Depot, or even order on Amazon. We teachers are using them to store all kinds of things... most commonly those office supplies that clutter up your desk!

Of course, being teachers, we can't leave them ugly plain, so we all pretty them up in our own way! I spray painted this one turquoise, and used my Chevron label kit in it last year, but this year I changed it to my Perfect Patterns labels. (More about changing them in a minute.)

This one holds all of my brag tags for my fifth graders. I found it on Amazon, and it was already black, so I just went with it! You can find lots of different sizes & combinations of drawer types on Amazon now...woohoo!

In my opinion, the trick is to Mod Podge the labels onto the inside of the drawers. I did this last year with my Chevron labels, and when I wanted to switch them to match my Perfect Patterns classroom, they peeled right off! It was perfect! 

A little tip for you...if you have an inkjet printer, mod podge will smudge the ink. BUT... you can eliminate this problem by spraying the entire page with cheap aerosol hairspray before you mod podge!

I now have 20 different patterns in my TPT store, and they continue to be best sellers. Just for fun, I'm making my latest Teacher Toolbox Label Kit a flash freebie now through Wednesday, August 20th! Click the link below to see all of the options and download the freebie!

Hop over to my friends' pages to check out their Classroom Must-Haves! Then, be sure to enter our giveaway for a chance to win your choice of items from each of our stores!

           

Since this is a Made-It, I'm also linking up for Monday Made-It at 4th Grade Frolics!

a Rafflecopter giveaway