Friday, July 6, 2012

Fabulous Find Friday & School Supplies

I'm joining up with Elizabeth @ Fun in Room 4B for Fabulous Find Friday. I so need to school to start soon or I am going to go broke! I may need an intervention, I can't seem to stop spending! I told my daughter the other day we had to quit buying things we don't need. We stopped by Big Lots to see if they had their 9 pack of glue sticks. They didn't, so I should have walked out empty handed. WRONG!!! Somehow I ended up buying a pink office chair for Delaney and this cute rolling cart for me.
Isn't is fabulous? It was very easy to put together. I like that the drawers aren't huge. That way I won't overfill it and I will be able to find my stuff easily. I thought it was fabulously priced at $35. If you prefer bigger drawers, they had some with 3 drawers for $29. I plan on putting it next to the table that has my document camera. I'll keep my markers, pens, etc... in the top drawer and the other drawers will have read alouds for the week, my literature response journal, poerty journal, calendar, etc... I think it will work great.

I don't have a fabulous find for the home this week.

Here are a few, not all,  things I picked up cheap.
The green fabric bins came from Dollar Tree, can you believe it? They also had the patterned pencil boxes that I'm going to use to store my phonics card games, they had this patterned paper, it's patterned on one side solid on the other. I got the foam cloud letters and the tamborines on the clearance aisle at Hobby Lobby.

I was at Target buying a shower gift yesterday, they already had their school stuff out. They had 2 Rose Art gluesticks in a pkg for $.25. We go through glue sticks like crazy so you know I had to load up. Their Rose Art crayons were also $.25, but I decided to hold off to see if I can get Crayola for a good price. If I can't I'll look for Crazy Art, they seemed like pretty good crayons.

My school is 85% free and reduced lunch. We give the parents an option of paying $20 for the year for school supplies or buying what is on the supply list. I would say I'll have 1/4 to 1/3 each year, maybe more, that don't do anything. We get donations from Feed the Children, but it's kind of a guessing game what you will get. We probably have enough spiral notebooks to last 2-3 years, but we ran completely out of crayons. One good thing is we have a ton of the world's best pencil (and I'm being serious). We have boxes of Dixon Ticonderoga pencils, they really are the best! Last year, they made us take evert thing except the essentials off of our list. The powers that be didn't think tissues were an essential. Seriously? Have they ever been in a first grade classroom during cold and flu season? When I would see parents I knew from previous years, I would tell them to please send tissues. I was very happy to see that they added those"non-essentials" back to our list this year.
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14 comments:

  1. Our school is the same (with free and reduced, but I think we are at 90%). I am going to end up broke as well with all the out of pocket stuff. I wish we could shop for our BTS items and parents just pay for it for us (I would get the best deals for them), but a lot receive assistance from the county as well for BTS supplies.

    LOVE the cart! :)

    įƒ¦DeAnne
    First Grade and Fabulous

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    1. DeAnne, I totally agree that it would be great if they would let us but our own stuff. I'm sure I could get some great deals. Our secretary orders the supplies and there are things I use every year in 1st grade that is never bought. Then there are things that are bought that aren't anything I use. I buy my own paper sacks and every time it's party time kids from the 4th or 5th grade come down asking for sacks. I always give them if I have them. This year they came down wanting glue sticks. I had just bought $14 worth, I gave them a couple and told the teacher where she could buy some cheap. Was that horrible?

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  2. I feel the same way about school starting soon. I'm out there spending $$ everyday lately! I absolutely love that rolling cart! That is a steal for the price. Great finds! :)
    Lisa
    Learning Is Something to Treasure

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  3. I love your cart! Tissues not essential? That's ridiculous.

    And, no, that is not horrible for you not to give away the glue sticks that you bought with your own money.

    I'm seeing a trip to Target for some glue sticks in my near future.

    Thanks for linking up :)

    Elizabeth
    Fun in Room 4B

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  4. HELLO! I'm your newest follower!! I am in your boat, but here's the funny...I've been teaching for over 18 years and I always do this every summer..over spend, over load on teaching ideas!
    Natalie

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    Replies
    1. LOL Spend all summer, then spend the rest of the year paying it off! ;D

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  5. super cute cart. I will trade you tons of Kleenex for some of those pencils! I hate the pencils the kids bring, so much so that this year on our school list we put ONLY Ticonderoga pencils. We'll see if it works. Happy shopping.
    Tammy
    First Grade @ Storybook Cafe
    dtklinger@gmail.com

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  6. I am so jealous of all these great bargain stores everyone has on the Mainland! We don't have a Dollar Tree, Big Lots, Kohls, Hobby Lobby...We did get a Target here a few years ago, but it is ridiculously expensive and I have never seen a dollar area there! Great finds by the way!!

    Aloha,
    Corinna
    Surfin' Through Second

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    Replies
    1. Bummer! Most of these stores have websites, I guess they ship. Would it be ridiculously expensive to ship to Hawaii?

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  7. I feel your pain! I am also at a Title 1 - 80%-85% free and reduced lunch school, the amount seems to go up every year. Our school supply list is ridiculous! Since I am in a LARGE district, that is laregely suburban and middle class, we can't adjust it. So our parents buy the cheap stuff -- I get thousands of folders (that I don't use) and no markers, scissors, hand sanitizer, or kleenex.
    Kim

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  8. Hi! Coming over from Fun in Room 4B! I know what you mean about classroom supplies...every year I have students who don't bring any supplies. :(

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  9. Great finds! I like your blog name! I'm your newest follower! :)

    The REAL Teachers of Orange County

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  10. My spending addiction is books and lattes ~ ha ha!

    ❀Barbara❀
    Grade ONEderful
    Ruby Slippers Blog Designs

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