Thrifty Thursday—How to Shop the Dollar Store

Who doesn’t love a trip to the Dollar Store? Don’t you get a rush when you see all that stuff you can get for only a dollar? Do you automatically check out the Dollar Spot when you go to Target? Well then, you make have an addiction….So from one addict to another, here are my best tips for shopping the dollar store:
1.  Shop with a friend. It is amazing how much more creative I am when I am shopping with someone else. 
2. Go down every isle. Don’t just look on the isle with the teacher items or the toys. Look at every item and ask yourself, “What can I make with that?” or “How can I use that to make my classroom more organized and efficient?”
3. Go to every dollar store and go often. There are lots of discount stores that I like—Big Lots, Fred’s, Dollar General, Dollar Tree, Target. 
Here are some things I picked up at the Dollar Tree this week:

Love the glasses for read the room! Julie Lee has a cute game where she used sunglasses for an addition center. It is in her Weather Unit .  http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Whats-the-Weather-Math-Literacy-Centers-512075
The skeleton is great for hangman. Not sure how I am going to use the jack o lantern and skull. I’m thinking part/part/whole or cvc words. 

This mouse makes a great math game. Buy enough mice for a small group. Remove the string tail and add a pipe cleaner as the tail. Now, to play the game, invite the children to roll a dice. Whatever numeral is on the dice, have them put that many pony beads on the pipe cleaner. Roll again. Look at the numeral on the dice. How can you make it so that your pipe cleaner has that many beads. For example, first they roll a 5 so they put on 5 beads. The second time they roll a 3. So they need to take 2 beads off. Keep rolling and have the children either add more beads or subtract some so that the number of beads matches the numeral on the dice.
So who else has a dollar store obsession? I’m going to try my first linky! Each week let’s share our thrifty idea of the week. It could be something that you picked up at the Dollar Store. Or, it could be something that you are recycling and using “trash” in a unique way. I have done a lot of dollar store posts in the past. Here are links to some of them:
http://kindergals.blogspot.com/2013/08/dollar-store-deals.html
http://kindergals.blogspot.com/2013/04/wanna-go-to-dollar-store.html
http://kindergals.blogspot.com/2013/03/teachers-gone-wild-dollar-store-style.html
http://kindergals.blogspot.com/2012/07/4th-of-july-dollar-store-trip-and-look.html
http://kindergals.blogspot.com/2012/07/thrifty-thursdaywords-and-phonemes.html
http://kindergals.blogspot.com/2013/04/whats-at-target-dollar-spot.html
http://kindergals.blogspot.com/2012/06/thrifty-thursdays-feather-duster-ducks.html
http://kindergals.blogspot.com/2012/06/thrifty-thursday-counting-games-number.html
http://kindergals.blogspot.com/2012/06/more-puppets-for-thrifty-thursday-five.html
So link up below with a “Thrifty Thursday” tip! Can’t wait to see them!