Lakeshore, Target, and Kohl's finds this summer!

Well today I took the first of many back to school shopping excursions and came home with lots of goodies! Since a lot of my bloggy buddies have been posting their new finds, I thought I'd share mine too! I haven't been back to school to assess the situation that is my classroom (aka: hot mess) so I've held off on buying too much stuff until I see exactly what I need for the year.

In the meantime, though, I took an excursion to Lakeshore, Walmart, Kohl's and Target and found some great stuff!

Here's the haul from Lakeshore in the picture below. A ton of this stuff I got in the clearance section! They are also having a huge storewide 20% off sale until after Labor Day. The reusable bag was free -- woohoo! I found 6 non-fiction books for $1.99 apiece about various subjects we learn about and I am so excited to use them. I don't know why, but every year my kids love non-fiction learning. I was able to use 2 coupons on the games I got - the green box on the left ("Pop and Win Letter Sounds Bingo") is the one I'm most looking forward to showing my kids how to play. Anyone remember the board game Trouble? Well it comes with 3 different letter dice inside the popper thing - so the kids press down to pop it and roll the die to show which beginning sound they need to identify! How fun is that? The "Sight Word Steps" activity box on the right are non-slick nylon circles to put on the floor and play sight word games with. There is a pocket on the front of each circle to slip a word card inside, and I am also planning on making my own cards for different subjects to play other games with too! I'm excited to come up with different ways to use those...

Lastly, I found the Creative Teaching Press (love them) Chocolate Hot Spots circle stickers in the clearance bin, and they are PERFECT for some center games I need to make, most particularly for a couple of units I bought from the fabulous Mrs. Lee's Kinder Kids! Not to mention they also match my super cute paisley borders I have on my word wall. And of course I got the plan book for free with purchase, but I don't use it for that. Does anyone even write out their lesson plans anymore? It's typing all the way for me. Anywho, I use that every year as my calendar planner instead of buying one! Works great!

Oh, and just in case you didn't see my amazing new nametags for this year in the background, LOOK LOOK LOOK:

Really? So dang cute. And I think I may be forced to go back and buy the matching Eric Carle border. Maybe.

Next up, my Target Dollar Section treasures. I didn't go as crazy as I usually do buying teacher stuff there -- is it just me, or did they not have as much stuff this year? I got some new caddies, bins, and Dr. Seuss bracelets for Read Across America Day. I always like to give my class a little Dr. Seuss related treat on his birthday, especially since we do a big school wide Family Literacy Night to celebrate. I also snagged some paper plates in their summer clearance section - every year I hit this section up; the paper plates were only 29 cents! And the owl corkboard isn't for my classroom, it's for my apartment... but it was too cute not to share!

And raise your hand if you love the Kohls' Cares book section every time they bring a new theme in. The one going right now, if you haven't already been, is SkippyJon Jones. My class dies laughing every time I read his books, but I have a feeling it's more because of my terrible Spanish accent I try to use during the characters' dialogue. Haha. Anywho, I already owned all of the books that were there, but I bought the mini-Skippyjon because my kiddos will flip over it. So cute.

All I bought at Wal-Mart was gluesticks, because they are on sale this week for 10 cents apiece! The Wal-Marts here in Arizona don't have as much of the 88 cent teacher resources that some people have been posting around here, so I guess I'll have to live vicariously through you all in your excitement.

Tell me in the comments section about some of the great things you've found while shopping! Love seeing everyone's purchases!

I am going into my classroom for the first time tomorrow! Time to get the huge stash of stuff out of my house and into my school where it belongs!