I {HEART} Dollar Tree

There are other dollar stores out there, but this is my favorite.  The reason is a little silly since it has nothing to do with their products, but the fact that everything is $1.00 just makes it easy to shop there.  I'm there maybe once a month to replenish our tape and glue stick supply (our children can burn through rolls of tape and glue sticks like nothing I have ever seen).  Since I'm already there, :) I look at the rest of the school/office supplies.  The kids like playing with all the junk toys there {not sayin' we don't own any of said toys}, so they are happy little shoppers too.

Where in the world did all this DT excitement come from?  My finds today:

space folders, land forms cards with writing prompts, earth science sheets with information and questions, prefix/suffix - meaning matching game, bingo markers, vinyl badge holders, & tab dividers

This is getting long, but if you are a teacher - that'd be every mom, right?! - or just like school supplies :) you can keep reading for what I am doing with all this stuff...

We are studying earth science and space next year, so that explains those items.  And the tab dividers will be used for their assumed purpose. :)

I hope the matching game will be fun for Lily and help improve her reading skills.  Could be used as a filler - something for her to work on while she is waiting for me if I am busy helping E or K or if I am looking at just.one.more.thing. on Pinterest.  (It's ok to laugh...I am just kidding...I think...though last school year I didn't know about Pinterest...and it is pretty much a black hole...a pretty, fun, informative hole, but a black hole that sucks me in nonetheless.)

The bingo markers work wonderfully as dot painters for a fraction of the cost!  I bought some a while back thinking Kaylee would enjoy them, and she LOVES them more than I imagined.  I was surprised at how much Lily and Eli also enjoy using them.  I grabbed more today, because they are such a hot item in our house.

The vinyl badges caught my eye because of a post on Brown Paper Packages.  That link seems to only be going to her home page, so scroll down and enter "mini quiet books" in her search bar to see where I got the idea.  DT had the badges 10 for $1!  There are so many possibilities with these little do-hickies {Mimi, that was the first "word" that popped in my head and I do believe I got that from you!}.  I'm thinking in addition to mini books to look at, the kids could also use dry-erase markers on them to trace things like shapes and words, store Bible memory cards in them, or for a car game where there are pictures of different things they might see out the window and they can cross them out as they find them...lots of options!

And last, but not least in my babies' eyes, we bought a 4 pack of ice cream sandwiches to take to the park. :)