) and I hit the dollar bins for a bit today to see what kind of deals I could snag.
It was a little picked through, and there were obviously a lot of parents shopping for back-to-school, but I managed to score some great deals, especially for my prize box.
For The Classroom:
This is not the exact set I got, but they look very similar. Plastic magnetic clips (assorted colors or in solid black or solid white) are $1 for a 4-pack. These are great for pinning charts to the whiteboard/blackboard and to other magnetized surfaces (like those big industrial heaters in the corner of the room that are only on for a few months!). They can also be used on the chart line in a pinch, but they're a little heavy for that.
These plastic clothespins were $1 for an 18-pack. They came in blue but I got them in bright pink. I know it sounds like a nothing issue, but they're really cute. Even though I could use plain wood clothespins, for $2 I got enough of these to make even the chart hangings in my classroom super-cute. I know it's lame, but things like this really do get noticed. If I had to pay out a lot for this item, I'd have stuck with wood, but for such a low price it was better to get them now and get something cute. This is especially true because I always forget to buy clothespins and end up bumming off other teachers or scrounging around in the bottom of my closet to try to find some. It's not worth it.
For The Prize Box:
Okay, before I show you the great stuff I got for my prize box, I should explain my system. This is no dinky treasure chest. This is a serious deal. Prizes in the prize box are given "price" values ranging from 2 - 100 (really big ticket items are "intangibles" like lunch with the teacher - a great way to bond with your student with almost no cost and a great vocabulary word). Students earn tickets for doing the right thing in the classroom but they do not lose tickets. Every 2 weeks the prize box opens and everyone can shop. You can choose to spend or save or a combination of the two.
In order for the prize box to work, I have to have a wide variety of prizes that appear to be "worth" different amounts, even though they're all dirt cheap. The Target dollar bins SAVE me in this area, because a lot of their dollar items can sell in my classroom for 20-40 points, which means I'm not giving them away as quickly as the small prizes and it encourages the children to save.
I know a lot of teachers have a problem with prize boxes and incentive programs. I got yelled at for being a Behaviorist in one of my grad school classes last year. But I mean it, nothing beats the prize box for classroom management, and I like being able to reward the kids for doing a great job. I also do all of the classroom community stuff to help teach my children to be good people--prizes or no--but the prizes really help them remember this message on the days they want to forget.
This here was the find of the week! These are High School Musical 3 poster books that retail on Amazon.com for $7.99. They were in the dollar bin, so I stocked up and got 8. There are 12 kids in my class and only 4 girls, but sometimes kids buy prizes as presents for friends and relatives. Also, everyone likes HSM (not just the girls) so I needed to be prepared for a lot of people to want them.
Buying large quantities of a good item is also good for prize box inflation. Let's say I got 8 HSM books and I put 5 out in the prize box and they go right away. Maybe some kids are disappointed that they didn't have enough tickets to buy one before they sold out. I time it so that a kid (or a few) who would've liked it (or wants another) may have enough tickets for it and I announce at Prize Time a few weeks later that I managed to find three more HSM poster books! I may decide to charge the same "price" or I may decide to jack the price up a little bit to really encourage the kids to work for it over the next few weeks. But most importantly, this is a prize that they will LOVE, and that keeps everyone happy.
This is not the exact image of what I got; I found something even better! For $1 I got a package of 6 large, puffy, shiny Hannah Montana binder stickers. In case you didn't know, little girls will do almost anything for Hannah Montana, but her stuff is expensive because she's both self-branded and a Disney product. I was shocked to find Hannah Montana stuff in the dollar bin. The only other time I managed to score some HM product was when Kay-Bee Toys went out of business last year and everything was prized to go; even then, I didn't get any HM stuff for a dollar. Since she is so loved (like HSM, which is a little easier to find on the cheap, though it's sometimes knockoff stuff) and so hard to get at a good price, I got several of these and may go back for more before school starts.
Everyone likes Super Heroes (while not everyone likes Hannah and HSM), so I was excited to find these Spiderman magnets in the dollar bin. Again, the quality is way higher than $1 and I can easily rank this set at 25 tickets so it'll last for a while.
Even more exciting than Spidey, though, was the other super hero that was offered in a magnet set (though I couldn't find a picture of the set online). No, not Superman or Batman. Not even Aquaman or the Green Lantern. I'm talking, friends, about IronMan.
...what?
OK, let me explain.
This is Ironman. I have no idea what his powers are. His outfit is pretty dopey looking to me. But I have a boy in my class, N, who is obsessed with Ironman. Every Prize Box day N would ask me if I'd managed to score any Ironman stuff for the Prize Box. I never saw anything Ironman EVER, forget about on the cheap, so he was always a little disappointed (though easily plied with Tek-Decks and Legos, both of which are sort of expensive). N is one of my biggest behavior issues, but he responds to stuff. If he knew he wanted something in the Box, he would keep himself in check until he got enough tickets to buy it. If he wasn't interested, he'd be punching people, cursing, throwing things and other disruptive behaviors. While we will be working with N a lot next year on his behavior and his anger (I finally got him counseling services), the very idea of Ironman in the Prize Box excites me.
I also found Spiderman activity/coloring books that are pretty cool, but I couldn't find a picture anywhere.
Anyway, I spent less than $20 in the dollar bin today and I got a ton of classroom stuff, including some really high-value items. I know Target dollar bins vary in stock by region, so you may not find the same deals I did, but it is ALWAYS worth checking the Target $1 section; I almost always get at least a few things for my class.
I have seen almost no good sales on Elmer's White Glue. Glue stick sales are everywhere (and I got some at Office Depot yesterday) but white glue is my class's glue of choice. While not an amazing offer, Office Max's B2G1 Elmer's Glue sale is decent if you can find a coupon. If I find any, I'll make sure to post. It's really frustrating that glue is so hard to come by this summer!
