One man's trash is another man's--or teacher's--treasure

My tiny room is filled to the brim with so many math manipulatives and phonics games that I can't even keep track of what I have. I hate throwing things away or passing up freebies because I am convinced that anything can become a cool math game. At the end of the school year, a generous parent gave me a bunch of her old teaching supplies, including a set of see-through pattern blocks to use with an overhead projector. I don't have an overhead projector, but I stashed the blocks in a container somewhere on my jam-packed shelves.

So I just came across those blocks again, and I had a flash of genius! In five minutes I created my own set of magnetic pattern blocks, which I'm really excited about! I hate when I'm explaining a pattern block activity and the unfortunate children sitting at the ends of my awkwardly arranged trapezoid tables can't see the demonstration going on in the center of the group. Now I can demonstrate everything on my whiteboard, and everyone will be able to see!

I know that's not terribly ground-breaking, but I get excited over the little things :)

My awesome new magnets!