Dollar Store Finds

This is the time of year that we are all running from store to store trying to find those awesome items our little ones will love! Or the many trips to the dollar store to find those inexpensive items for those great projects.  Well, have you ever searched the school aisle at Dollar General? I will admit, Dollar Tree has been my go-to store the past couple of years. I didn't even realize Dollar General had a $1 line of teacher items. I am going to highlight some of our favorite items shared with us this week. The Learn Motivate Reward line of ArtSkills (www.artskills.com) is available exclusively at Dollar General (www.dollargeneral.com) all for only $1 each.

What teacher doesn't love foam shapes? These foam shapes are 50ish pieces for $1. They come in numbers, circles and letters. The numbers and letters are great for center work. The circles make great counters.

This year I really wanted to incorporate some fine motor skills into the beginning of school time. I think lacing is a great way to do this. This item is 7 lacing cards for $1. Great deal!

 I love these classroom posters. They are not too big and also not too small where no one can see it from across the room. There is a cute cat clock poster. It can be whole group and then put into a center. I think adding some time flash cards and the students can move the hands to match the times on the cards. The I Spy Spinner is one of my favorites. We always play I Spy but this variation on it allows you to spin in order to pick a color. Love it! Dry Erase Shapes are great for those areas where content changes.

 Puzzles! Need a I say more? I love small puzzles for center areas. 

 I saved the best for last! STICKERS! I love stickers. I have always loved stickers. Did you have a sticker book when you were a kid? The shiny pages that made the stickers "movable". I don't remember them being that "movable" but I loved my sticker book anyway. I love stickers! The kids love stickers! Win-Win! My students have always been motivated by stickers and I had already been thinking of ways to incorporate more into my day.

Here is one idea. Do you use journals or notebooks in your classroom? I do! I have journals for math, science and work work. One of the things I struggle with is getting and keeping the kids on the right page. In a perfect world we will start at the first page and continue, without skipping pages, through the year. Well, the world is not perfect! So my thought was putting a small sticker on the page the students will be recording on at that time. I always discuss, model and walk around pointing to where I want them to be but it never fails, they somehow changes pages when I turn my back. Am I the only one that happens to? I am going to try placing a small sticker on the page as a visual reference as we work on that particular prompt. Some of these $1 packets have 400 stickers each. That really is a great deal!

The products above don't even begin to show you what Dollar General has to offer. We couldn't show you everything but wanted to spotlight some of our favorites! The Learn Motivate Reward line of ArtSkills (www.artskills.com) is available exclusively at Dollar General (www.dollargeneral.com).