What You're Missing at The Dollar Tree: Best Teaching Products!

Classroom tools for only $1 at The Dollar Tree

I've always loved the dollar store. I love picking up storage containers and stationary there. When I quit my job last year to open up my own home daycare, I realized the true value of a dollar store. The local Dollar Tree has amazing resources for learning, all for $1.00! Crayons, stickers, workbooks (I love the Pre-K ones!), learning posters, reward stickers, chore charts, kids books, coloring books, calendars, clocks, hall passes, you name it!

Here's a few of my favorites from the Dollar Tree in August (their stock rotates with seasons but they always have a teacher aisle). 

1. Educational Wall Posters

Dollar Tree Classroom Wall Posters

 Not only do they usually have the adorable kitty posters with the "Hang in There!" motivational phrases, but they have lots of educational posters. The alphabet, fractions, counting, the periodic table, etc. They do a great job of including most subjects and all ages. For $1.00, you actually get two posters, since each poster has a different one printed on each side (usually in the same subject and always in the same age range). These posters are impressively large as well, and come wrapped in cellophane so you can keep them undamaged until you're ready to hang. 

2. Hall passes, Stickers, Rewards and Awards

Dollar Tree Stickers and Rewards

Hall passes, awards, coupons, and fun handouts. If you need recognition items, they have it! They not only have tons of stickers, but they have popular character stickers too (Sophia the First, Jake and the Pirates, Mickey Mouse). Pencils, pencil toppers, you name it, they have it.

3. Flash Cards

Dollar Tree Flashcards

They have flash cards in several different categories. From first words, to numbers, colors and shapes, to easy matching games for pre-k. They also have a good selection of flashcards for older grades, like multiplication, division, and grammar flashcards.  

4. Calendars, Charts and Learning Clocks

Dollar Tree Chore Charts, Tables, and Clocks

This is my favorite category! They have huge blank wall charts. You can make them into chore charts, potty training charts, subject completion charts, homeschooling charts, anything you can list! The calendars are huge, (as large as the posters), and each one has two sides so you can choose the colors that work best for your space. 

5. Work Books

Dollar Tree Workbooks

I'm always really impressed with the quality of the work books here, I use the Pre-K ones with my two year old. They have a huge assortment of popular characters, subjects and age ranges. They go up to about 5th and 6th grades. For $1.00 each, you can buy several topics that meet your age range and work through them one at a time. Thats what we do. He grabs the book he likes, and we can do it together. 

6. Classroom Decoration, Wall Decor

Dollar Tree Wall Decor/ Classroom Decorations

Dollar Tree has tons of options for sprucing up your classroom walls. They have matching die cut outs, like government, the alphabet, ketchup and mustard, dogs and cats, animals, signs to label parts of a classroom (Reading Center, Art Center, Music Center etc.), cowboy and wild west, etc. They come in packets with tons of items so you can fill a whole wall. A few months ago, I went in and bought die cut stars and put all the kids names on them and taped them to the wall. 

Bonus!

Dollar Tree Papers and Dry Erase Calendars

While you're there, check out the other offers they have. They regularly stock dry erase boards,  dry erase calendars, papers, art pads, construction paper, glue, scissors, crayons, etc. Don't forget to go find my personal dollar store favorites... stationary and Betty Crocker kitchen utensils. Click below to read about my favorite buys at the dollar store for your home.

Organizing using containers from the Dollar Tree

The Best Quality Kitchen Utensils are at The Dollar Tree!

Happy Shopping! Did I miss any of your favorites?

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DIY Project - Kid Proofing Your Dining Chairs in 30 min, for $4.00

Recently, while visiting friends, we noticed that they had an immaculate house despite having 3 kids under the age of 4. How is that even possible? We had long given in to the idea of not having nice things until our youngest is about 7.

One of the dirtiest parts of the house is our kitchen chairs. At 2, our little Squishy is old enough to sit on his own and eat, but man does he make a mess! (Okay, part of this is our fault for having dining chairs with white cloth bottoms). Our friends have absolutely beautiful dining chairs that they covered the bottoms of in clear vinyl. When the kids are old enough, just remove the vinyl. 

This project took us about 20 minutes for 4 chairs and cost about $8.00 (you shouldn't spend more than $4 though!) buy your clear vinyl from either the walmart fabric department or at Joanne's using the 50% off coupon they send out every month. This was a last minute idea for us and we rushed out to get the vinyl without price checking. 

The vinyl wipes off so easily! Even if you forget to wipe the chair right after the meal and the food dries. 

If your fabric chairs are already gross, remove the fabric and wash. Then cover with vinyl. Worst case scenario is that the fabric won't come clean in which case you spend another $4.00 on new fabric.

Needed Items:

Screwdriver

Vinyl - about 1 yard for 4 chairs

Staple Gun - not absolutely necessary but it will make this really easy.

This is so easy, it barely needs a tutorial. Just flip your chair upside down and see how the fabric seat is attached. In this case (and all Ikea chairs) there are 4 screws that connect the seat to the chair. Unscrew those and remove the seat. The fabric is attached by an elastic string. If you want to wash it, peel it off and throw it in the wash. If it's still new and clean, grab your vinyl (we didn't even measure, just eyeballed it- 1 yard of vinyl did 4 chairs with quite a bit extra left over) and fold it around the seat, stapling the edges to the wooden back of the seat.

Then screw the seat back onto the chair and you're all set! It was super easy. It took us less than 30 minutes to do all 4 chairs (most of that was time was trying to hunt down the staple gun). They look great and stains wipe right off. Now if only there was a way to protect the wooden chair back from Squishy's maple syrup covered hands.

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1,000 Books Before Kindergarten... and My Top 10 Favorites.

1,000 Books before Kindergarten

 

We're a huge fan of books in this house. Reading is something that we really want to expose our son to from a very early age. From the time he was born we would incorporate books into his bedtime routine. Now, at 15 months he routinely grabs a book and sits in his reading chair (or in my kitchen cabinets:) to flip through it.



1,000 books before kindergarten is a movement to expose babies and toddlers to 1,000 books before they start school. Many libraries have programs like this (ours doesn't, so we just do it on our own), where kids get rewards as they "level up" their numbers. Rewards can be anything from stickers to trips to the park.



In order to reach 1,000 books, you would need to read 200/year. In actuality we're almost triple that right now. We work it right into our routine... We always read a book at bedtime, and we read a book after lunch and before nap. There may be other times during the day that we read, but those are the books we can count on.



The best part? It's free! Thank goodness for libraries because 1,000 books would cost you between five and sixteen thousand dollars. Thanks to your local library, you don't have to spend a cent!



Here are my top 10 favorites:

Click here to head to my Polyvore page to get more info or to purchase.