More Leapfrog TAG Amazingness

Holy Almost-Free Leapfrogs, Cheaper Teacher!

Remember when I showed you that Leapfrog TAG Reading Systems were on sale at Target for $25.00 (down from $50), and with a $10.00 off coupon, you could get the system for $15?  And how I ran out and got 2 to create a center in my classroom?

Well, the price on the TAG System at Target is down again - this time to $12.48!  With the coupon, that brings the cost down to just $2.48, which is an incredible savings from the $50 original price.

Couple this with the K-Mart sale I told you about earlier in the week on books for the TAG System, which can get the books (retail $12-15) for $1.80 by using a coupon and shopping the clearance section, and you've got one sweet deal.  How sweet?

Imagine you want to create a center where 4 children can work at the same time.  You want to give each child a selection of 3 books and have pre-programmed the books into the TAG pens.  4 pens X $2.50 each = $10.  Each TAG comes with one free book, so you'll need to buy 8 books (either duplicate titles or different titles: if you buy different titles, each child could have up to 9 choices but if you buy multiple copies of the same title you avoid fights).  8 books X $2 each = $16.  Total cost = $26.00 plus tax (in NY, that would come up to $28), which is roughly $8-10 LESS than I paid for my two TAG systems when I bought them the first time!!!

While Target does not offer price adjustments, I have this plan worked out for getting some money back on my Leapfrog systems I bought just recently:

:::Go to Target and bring my receipt for the LeapFrog TAGs I bought recently at $15.00.  Also bring two $10-off coupons for the TAG system.  Do not bring the old TAGs with me.

:::Go directly to the toy aisle and check for the TAG at 12.50 clearance price.  If they have it, buy FOUR.

:::Get on line and pay $10 for the TAG systems.

:::Leave the store.  Put 2 TAGs in my car or ask a friend to hold them (if I'm not in the car).  Return with the 2 new TAGs and my old receipt.

:::Return 2 of the TAG Systems and receive a $30 refund.  

:::Since I spent $10 on the 4 new TAGs, I have gotten 2 free TAGs and $20 back at the new price.

:::Go to K-Mart and spend the $20 back on TAG books.

:::Create TAG Center!

Have fun!!!  :-)

$14.98 Leapfrog TAG Reading System at Target

 Leapfrog Learning Systems are popular with parents and teachers because kids love them and they help children learn.  I have 6 Leapfrog Leappads that came with corresponding books on vocabulary, reading and math.  The Leappads are kind of old and the books are not the most exciting in the world, but the kids like them.

Leapfrog TAG is an upgrade from the Leappad; the electronics are all stored in the nifty little pen thing, which has a microcamera and can be programed to "read" up to five books at a time.  You download the electronic content off the website and buy the books for the TAG separately.  Each TAG comes with one book, and books sell at about $8-10 full price.

Leapfrog TAGs usually cost about $50.00, which is a little cheaper than the Leappad (which is about $80.00) but still way out of most teachers' price range.  However, with a great sale and a manufacturer's coupon at Target, I was able to score two Leapfrog TAGs at Target today for $14.98 each!

Target currently has Leapfrog TAG systems on sale for $24.98, which is about half price and a good deal even without any additional discounts.  However, if you got to the Leapfrog site, you can print out a $10 off Leapfrog TAG system and a $5 off Leapfrog TAG Jr. system.  I printed two coupons and was able to use both (though, obviously, I couldn't have used two to make the TAG only $5... you can only use one coupon per purchased item.

It's important to keep in mind that not every Target may be running this promotion, or may be on a slight delay from my Target.  Apparently some towns still have the TAG for $35.00, which would bring it down to $25 with the coupon.  It's still an OK deal, but not good enough for the classroom if you ask me. 

While the books aren't cheap, my plan is to buy one or two a month and upload them into both TAGs at the same time.  I might have to buy 2 or even 3 upfront and then buy more as the year progresses.  This is probably a great purchase for Donors Choose if you already have the TAG - I bet you can get a lot of books at a good price from a generous donor.  Or, if you're feeling ambitious, you can try to get some on Craigslist or Freecycle.

Let me know if any of you take advantage of this great deal!

Off to Target

I'm off to Target again.  God, I love Target.  I have some coupons I'm hoping to use to save money both on classroom items and personal items, but I also am in love with some (full price) clothes and shoes that they're selling right now for fall.

The truth is, I'm not like those other money-saving sites I've seen where I won't buy anything at full price... I love a deal, especially on stuff for my classroom, but I buy a lot of stuff at the regular price as well.  While I'll be getting some cat food free with overage (two coupons - one manufacturer's and one target) and might be picking up some Leapfrog Tags ($15.00 with coupon - if I get 2 they'll make a badass center!), and of course the $0.88 colored pencils that went on sale yesterday that I talked about, most of my purchases today will be of normal cost.

Oh, and I have like a million baby wipe coupons that I'm hoping to pair up with some sales.  Because baby wipes are effing expensive.

Anyway, I hope to have some exciting deals to share with you when I get back!

New Target Weekly Ad - 8/23 - 8/29

The new Target Weekly Ad is up, and it's not that hot for teachers this time around.  There's only one page of school supplies on sale, and the only good buy I noticed was Crayola colored pencils for 88 cents.  I'm not crazy about colored pencils (they break, the kids spend 6 years sharpening them, they're expensive on full price) but it's always good to have a few.  If I happen to be at a Target, I'll grab 4-6 of these, but I won't be loading up like a maniac and I won't be going out of my way.

That said, Target has adorable shoes for fall.

Target Dollar Deals - Mostly Prize Box

I love Target (as I've said before) 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.

A Love Song to Target

Oh, Target.  How do I love thee?  Let me count the ways:

(1)  You have all sorts of amazing cheap things for my life, home and wardrobe.  Even if I weren't a Cheaper Teacher, we'd be pals.

(2)  Your August School Supply Sales are amazing.  So far I have gotten:

(3)  10-pack wide Crayola markers for $1 each!  This may sound expensive considering that Rose Art goes for about half that on sale, but kids, let me tell you something, Rose Art markers are the WORST.  You'll pay 3X as much if you get that junk.  I got 15 packs of markers and they should last me the year.  Target is also amazing because they have no limits on how many of a sale item you can buy.  <3

(4)  24-count Crayola crayons for 25-cents.  I know I said that I got these cheaper at Staples the last few years, but Staples is holding out on me and I couldn't pass this deal.  Again, with no limits, I got crayons to last the year and then some (32 boxes, if you're wondering - they break and get lost so easily that I'd rather be safe than sorry) for $8.  A steal!

(5)  Target Dollar Bins:  This is the first place I go when I walk into a Target.  They have all sorts of amazing things for teachers.  Just last week I got:

(6)  4-packs of magnetized clips for $1.00 (that's 25 cents a clip, kids!).  While cheaper to buy clothespins for hanging charts, having magnetized clips for your whiteboard or magnetized chalkboard is magical.  They can also put charts on a clothesline in a pinch.

(7)  Happy Birthday / Super Student Certificates:  24 in a set for a dollar.  At the time I bought them I thought my class might be changing to a class of 27 (from my Special Ed 12) but I got my class back, and I've got extras for next year.

(9)  Student Name Plates:  24/$1.  Last year I got red ones with monkeys and bananas.  This year they're blue with stars.  They had all sorts of selections, all cute for different age groups.  Last year when I got these they lasted all year with a strip of clear packing tape over them.  Made of good card stock.  A teacher supply store would easily get $3-5 for a pack of 12 of these babies.

(10)  The Prize Box.  Target's dollar bin keeps me in prize box purchases all year.  They're also great for holiday and year-end gifts for your students if you do that.  My year-end gifts for the kids cost me $40 TOTAL (only a few cents over $3/kid) and were adorable - each child got a pail and shovel set ($1 each), sports bottle (50 cents each), pack of sidewalk chalk ($1 each), bath squirty, bubbles, pencils and bookmarks.  It was insane!  I plan to post lots of prize box finds as I come across them.

(11)  Tupperware!  Both for storage and for lunches!  

There are a million and one other reasons I love Target, but man, I'm tired!  More later.