Teachers
Just Want a Bargain!
What a Deal!
If you are like me, you are
constantly buying items for your classroom. We all know
that the one-hundred to two-hundred dollars we are given
for our classrooms never covers all the supplies and
teaching materials we need. So many teachers dig into
their own pockets. On average, I spend five-hundred
dollars a year of my own money on my classroom. During my
first year of teaching I spent over a thousand dollars of
my own money. My husband put a quick stop to my spending
and forced me to budget in only five hundred a year. As a
result, I am always hunting for a good deal. I search
ebay at least once a week and I am always checking out
the dollar store. When back to school time comes along I
always make a trip to Wal-mart to purchase a pocket chart
for nine dollars. I think I spend the most money over the
summer. They say, teachers get the summers off - Ha!
I have created this page to store
the deals I find. I also compile deals I hear about on
various mailrings or chatboards. It is nice to have
everything in one place!
Updated May 1, 2005
 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/teachersgaragesale/ -
Teachers Garage Sale is a group for educators, parents,
homeschoolers, or others who are looking to buy, sell, or
even trade educational items. All transactions are
between the buyer and seller only, no middle man. Payment
and shipping are arranged through the buyer and seller.
This list was just started in June 2003 and it has over
400 teachers buying and selling on it. It is an
alternative to Ebay.
 The
Teacher's Flea Market - This is like an Ebay
just for teachers!
Ebay For
Teachers - Vanna tells you how to search
for teacher goodies on Ebay!
Primary
Teacher Time Savers - These will save you time
and money!!! All you need is a computer and printer!
BiblioCat's Garage Sale - For
Teachers, Librarians, and Homeschoolers. - I know
how expensive items are for teachers... Here is a place
to get rid of your stuff and look for new stuff ... clean
out your closets!!
 
Click on the banner above to view bulk pencils at a great
price. You will also find great craft ideas for the up
and coming holidays.
WWW.EBAY.COM
I still buy tons of goodies on
ebay. I have a teacher resource library of over 300
books. I purchase lots of these books from Ebay. You can
get some great deals. I also have purchased children's
literature for my classroom library.
My tips for getting a good deal:
When you find something on Ebay you want to
purchase, check on Amazon to see how much they are
selling the item for. This way you will know how much the
item would sell for if you bought it new. For instance,
if someone on Ebay is selling a book for $12 dollars and
it is on Amazon for $22 you will know that the Ebay price
is a good deal. You can also make sure that your bids do
not exceed a predetermined amount!
Always look at the shipping price. Many times
I find that buying an item is not worth the price in
shipping.
Make sure you read the sellers feedback. I
only buy from sellers that have at least a 90% in
positive feedback and who have sold over five items. That
is just the way I do it.
Use Paypal. It is fast and easy. - www.paypal.com
For more great tips and advice on Ebay read
Vanna's Ebay page found at http://www.pre-kpages.com/ebay.html
Here are some user id's for teachers who sell
teacher resources on Ebay. You can do a search by seller
to see if they have anything up.
Marva
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below you will find teachers from
all over talking about deals they have found. These come
from
http://teachers.net/mentors/ and http://groups.yahoo.com/group/teachingisaworkofheart/ and some
ideas were sent in!
I wanted to share a find that
my friend and I recently discovered. We were visiting
Office Depot for their Teacher Appreciation breakfast,
and while we were there we noticed an empty cardboard
display with "Sponge Bob" characters on it. We
asked the manager what they do with the displays when
they're empty and he said they throw them out. Can you
imagine? Anyway, this display was the perfect size to fit
chapter books in my reading center, and it was covered
with characters my students love. So, now every time I'm
shopping I stay on the lookout for empty cardboard
displays that could be used in my classroom. The store
was more than happy to give them to us. Just wanted to
share! Thanks for all your wonderful ideas that you've
already shared on your site! Sincerely, T.D. (Swisha24)
Sam's club has beautiful little rugs for a
little more than $15.00. They are plush like
stuffed animals but look like a bear skin rug. They
have lions, tigers, leopards, polar bears and I think
regular bears. I bought 3 of them to put on the
floor of my classroom for the chilren to read on.
The bear ones feel more like a bathroom rug than a
stuffed animal so I just bought the cat family
ones. They are really nice, quality products -
Susan Marsh
Kohl's dept. stores have a real deal going
right now and it is a win-win situation. They have
stuffed mice, moose and pigs from the books If you Give a
---- a -----. They are really nice quality items
and they only cost $5.00 each! On top of that, they
are giving their profits to children's hospitals.
They are the same stuffed animals that cost at least
$12.95 from teacher catalogs. I bought all three
and I'm taking them to school for the children to read
to. - Susan Marsh
Just wanted to inform you guys of some neat
stuff at Dollar Tree! I love that store! I got several
packs of 60 mini erasers. They have many different kinds
(telephones, butterflies, parrots, etc.) and I thought 60
for $1.00 was a good deal. They also had the cutest
assortment of books of stickers (frog stickers, smiley
stickers, ocean stickers, etc.). I bought lots of these
to go along with what I teach. Each book had from 500-700
stickers for a dollar. What Dollar Tree bargains have you
found? Let's share our teacher finds! - Janet
Okay, so I don't have a Dollar Tree, but I do
have a Dollar General... I buy plastic placemats and cut
them in half for play dough mats. Also, they have
packages of 12 little cookie cutters,
which are great with play dough.
They have wonderful foam rugs that
look like flower gardens. I put these in one of my
reading areas for kids to sit on. Okay, so they aren't
really all that soft, but kids love the idea of sitting
in the garden and reading books
Just got home from the Dollar Tree. I found
the cutest little sun glasses in the toy department (good
quality/not the cheap summer ones) that had little tiny
stuffed animals that slide onto the side earpiece. The
glasses were in different colors -- blue, green, pink and
black and the animals were a fish, a bear, a puppy, a
rabbit and a bee. Cute and great for "read the
room"!!! Posted by Sharon on 6/11/03
This is what I found . . . I
bought the cutest fly swatters-ladybug, frog, and a
bee. My class will play games with the vocabulary
words. I will write them on large index cards and put
them on my whiteboard using magnetic strips. I then
divide the class into two teams. Two kids come to the
board, and I'll call out a definition. They try to be
the quickest to swat the answer. I'm going to use
this same idea in learning multiplication facts, too.
Posted by Lori/ga on 6/11/03
I found about 3 weeks ago the greatest bubble
wands and bubble solution at our Dollar Tree. I have also
found nice small crates for books, caddies for stuff,
things for my goodie box. I'll have to look for the
flower mats they sound cute! Posted by Tamera/CA1st on
6/11/03
Lowe's is Awesome!!!!! I will
be moving into a new classroom. The room is white,
but the cabinet doors were painted a nasty, bright,
yellow-green color by the previous teacher. I went to
Lowe's this morning and told them the situation and
their paint department GAVE me the primer and 2
gallons of paint. The paint color was mixed to the
shades I wanted. Everyone was very nice. I was told
that they get rid of paint often and we should check
with them. They also sell gallons cans of paint for
$5.00. They are "OOOPPPSSS" paint cans.
These are cans of paint that they made mistakes on,
ie... not the right color, etc. If you need anything,
Lowe's is the place!!! Posted by AnnaB/TX on 6/16/03
I bought several brightly colored (red, blue,
yellow) photo albums at Dollar Tree --the type where you
slide the photo between two sheets of plastic. They take
a 4x6 photo and are a good size for small hands. I plan
to type color words, number words, basic sight words on
my computer in the century gothic font and cut them in
the 4x6 (3x5 would work, too)size. Then I
will insert one word where each photo would normally go.
I think my first graders will enjoy knowing they can read
all the color words in the color words "book",
etc. It's good for centers or to take their desk or work
with parent volunteers. Thought I'd try it. The albums
were so cute. Found them where the picture frames are.
Another summer project! Enjoy! Posted by Sharon on
6/19/03
me too. I'm always on the look out for things
that I can use in my classroom. Every Sunday I check the
fliers for sales on crayons and markers etc. Then on the
last day of school (today),I look around and say to
myself: why do I have so much stuff?? fortunatly that's
just one day a year.I'm always in the used book store
looking for great books at a bargain. Posted by vicki/2nd
on 6/19/03
I live at garage sales during the summer it
seems! I have already got several puzzles, some books,
and some organizers. But there always seems to be more
I'm looking for. My goal this summer is to get as many
non fiction books as possible and those plastic magazine
holders. I remember a few summers ago when I found 2
garage sales in a month from teachers retiring! I though
I had died and gone to heaven!!!!! - Posted by Terri F. on
6/19/03
Me too!!! Last week I went to Ikea, and my
friend and I said we are not buying school
stuff......well I think thats about all we bought!! I got
a great hanging organizer, that I plan
to put math games in. Its great, Its bright green! That
store is great and the stuff is so inexpensive. I've
really got to do the yard sale thing. You can tell we
love our jobs!!!! Posted by jpk on 6/19/03
I think the retailers see us coming(*-*)I
found plastic shoe boxes at the dollar store .50 each. I
plan on organizing team science boxes and math
manipulatives to make management easier. Composition
books were also on the discount shelf at a going out of
business K-Mart….25 each.Nice fabric prints for a
couple of bulletin boards. And…I’m just
beginning to shop! Malinda - Posted by Malinda on 6/20/03
Also, at Wal-Mart I saw children's beach
chairs with Clifford on the front and back of the chair -
even had his name on it just like a book cover. The frame
is painted red and they are really cute! (But I forgot
the price.) They were either $7 or $9 and they were in
the linen dept. near children's bedding. I'm going back
to get it for the library
Posted by Holly/OK on
7/02/03 -Just returned from Wal-Mart where I bought a
piece of material with the world map and another
piece with the US map. It was under $10 for both. I
never have to worry about them getting tore up and
they fold up for easy storage!
I also bought a cute vinyl
tablecloth that I'm going to try to make pillows out of.
Hopefully this will decorate my reading area without
being a "creepy crawly" harvest area:
Target Goodies
Posted by avan on
7/03/03 - A friend told me that Target had butterfly
houses, which includes a certificate for
caterpillars, on sale in the gardening dept. I looked
today but they were all out but they did have ladybug
homes (w/certificate for ladybugs), ant home, lots of
bug catchers and butterfly nets and some bug
magnifiers....these were all within 2-7 dollars.
Also, I bought in the front section
of summer things, a 3x3 foam checkerboard with 24 round
pieces. I thought I could make a matching game...upper to
lowercase (I ended up buying two just to have enough
pieces for this), number symbols to words, letters to
pics....all sorts of possibilities. These
were 6.99. They also had small plastic chairs for $4 but
they seemed a little low so I passed. OH!! They also had
in the children's furniture dept. a shelf/bench with 3
canvas drawers, side by side. I think it measured 30 long
and 14 high? Something like that and it was only $10.
Anyway, those were the things I
noticed today
Posted by KC on 7/03/03 - I have had my eye
on the garden stakes with flowers, a bird and one with a
ladybug on a red ruler - they were finally 50% off so I
splurged (for read the room) I was going to hold out for
75% but was afraid they'd be gone... I got a big metal
watering can to hold them for $1.98 I also have an
outside area so I got the Miss Spider cute child's broom,
shovel and rake (for my class, but really for me ) for
half off and a cute sign... (grown with love) Now to just
stay away until the summer stuff is half price!
Posted by Cindy in fl on
6/30/03 - I went to Target today to look for the
storage bins someone mentioned the other day, but
couldn't find them. I did find some really cute
chairs for my reading center. They are in the lawn
and garden dept. They are basically folding lawn
chairs for kids. I got a loveseat style and 2 single
chairs. The loveseat has alligators on it and was $9
and the chairs were yellow/pink and were $5.50. All
of their kids gardening items (and there are lots!)
have a bug theme, mostly ladybugs and some other bug.
Very cute for a classroom as well, especially if you
garden with your class, or have a great bug unit1
Posted by avan
on 6/30/03 - Oh yeah, I got two loveseats LAST
year for $7.90 each. It was a great deal since I
had no furniture in my room for the kids. I put
one in the library and one in the house area.
Mine have a floral pattern on them. I also bought
a small wooden lawn table for kids but I don't
remember how much that was....it is my kitchen
table in the house area. I was so excited to find
them as my room was so empty and they were so
cheap for furniture.
I bought parachute men for
2.99 at Target for outdoor play and today I
bought colorful flannel tablecloths for only
$2.00.I also bought the play dough kits for $2.30
each, and that is reasonable in Illinois. Louise
Michael's Goodies
I know it's not a dollar
store, but I found some great deals at Michael's!
This week they have packages of cardstock (50
sheets different colors) for 50% off making them
$1.99. This is as low as they get. I always keep
my eyes open for them to go on sale. Also, bought
some wonderful tubs of foam pieces for $3.99
(also 50% off). Some of the buckets are sticker
foam pieces. I bought a tub of alphabet and
numbers (stickers) and shapes stickers (perfect
for math especially when we do "The Shape of
Things." There were tubs with bugs shapes,
flowers, handprints, etc...
-Stacey/K/TX
The
Shape of Things
Click to learn more!
The Shape of Things"
is a picture book by Dayle Ann Dodds. We read it
within our math unit about 2 dimensional shapes.
Each page follows this
pattern:
"A square (or another
shape) is just a square until you add two smaller
squares and a rectangle. Then it's a house."
After reading the book, the
children make their own pictures and fill in the
blanks to complete the words. It makes a great
bulletin board, then a class
book, too!
-Stacey/K/TX
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