Shopping Haul | Target and Mardel's

It's that time of year where I find it very hard to walk past the Dollar Spot at Target. I usually end up spending my whole budget there and don't even get to enjoy the rest of the store. Most of our school room decorations came from the Dollar Spot last year. This year is not much different. I found a lot of new goodies and want to share what I got!

I had seen these books posted all over Instagram and knew they would be fun to read this year with my boys. My first stop at Target I was able to find 5 of them and I later picked up the last of the set. There are 6 in total. The books are Treasure Island, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Anne of Green Gables, The Secret Garden, Little Women, and The Call of the Wild. I also picked up a pack of blank books to use for poetry writing this year. 

 

I also picked up a Multiplication workbook for my youngest to use this summer and a book about Presidents.

Next from the Dollar Spot were these bookmarks. I like to set a time limit as a minimum for my boys so that they read for at least 30 minutes but usually they read longer. Some days though it can be a struggle and I think these will help. They have a timer right on them which will come in  handy!

Next are just a few things that caught my eyes and I figured we could use somehow. The paper roll we will use for Art. The banks we just needed to replace the small ones my boys have had for a while. The dry erase blocks I plan to use in several areas of our homeschool. I want to use them for Language Arts, Writing, and Math at least. I am sure I will find more ways to use them as the year goes on. 

I found these Fossil Digs and Gem Digs to use with our first couple of Chapters of Story of the World. My boys love things like this so I picked up two of each for them. 

The rest of the stuff from Target I didn't really need but had to have. 

Some pretty new stationary items and mouse pad.

Two new coffee cups even though I don't drink coffee. I might have a slight addiction to these cups as I tend to buy one every time we go to Target. I will use them for hot chocolate in the winter. 

A bin for our Math Manipulatives as our Trofast bin from Ikea was getting too small. 

And the popular storage caddy that is all over Instagram that I am in love with and had to search all over for! It is really cute when filled with a lot of colorful school supplies! 

I also made a trip to Mardel's which is a Christian bookstore and School Curriculum store. 

I only picked up a few things this time. 

A Math fact game in hopes it will make memorizing our facts fun.

A inflatable globe and multiplication flashcards.

And a few books to read this school year. Heroes of History; Daniel Boone and Abraham Lincoln. I also picked up Holes because it was a book I really enjoyed in school and we have seen the movie so I think my boys will really like it. 

Have you found any really good items in the Target Dollar Spot or at another Store? 

Feel free to share! I love a good shopping trip!

Another Shopping Post!!

I obviously have a school shopping problem. Although I will blame it on Instagram and the #targetdollarspot. If you don't check that hashtag already, stay away from it. I have found it addicting to check it daily!

With that said I made another run to the Target Dollar Spot last week and found some more goodies for our school room!

 I started by finding another one of the Maps except this one is dry erase and is of the World for $3. I stumbled upon bulletin board border so I grabbed two packs of those for $1 a piece. And I also found Word Strips to use in the pocket chart I bought last trip for $1. 

I am a sucker for cute ways to organize! I found these little tin pails for $1 each and they match several of the decor items I have bought! The little rectangle bins were also $1 each and I plan to use them for glue stick storage, dry erase markers, and whatever else I can fit in them!

These string lights I just bought because they are cute and match other decorations in the room! They were $3 I believe! They run off batteries too which I thought was nice!

 I bought two of the clip strips as my plan is to use them above the boys desk to hang their spelling words for the week and any other important papers! They were $3! I also stumbled upon this cute Learn sign and plan to place it on our book shelf! It was $3, also!

Next was some of the blank books that are already stapled and ready to go for the creative mind! My boys have already been coming up with ideas of ways to use these! They were $3! I also grabbed a few fun pencils for $1 each as my boys love these types of pencils over the regular yellow ones. 

I grabbed another set of flash cards from the Dollar Spot on the United States to go with our Geography lessons. They are $1! I will add there are a ton of different subject of flash cards there, too!

I also remembered that when my boys were in public school they always loved coming home with special erasers for rewards. So I went ahead and grabbed a couple packs of fun erasers to use as rewards! They were $1 each. And then I saw some $1 paper clips and knew it was one item I didn't have in my desk so I grabbed them!

Be ready for many more shopping trips as I head out this weekend to get our school supplies and hit up Dollar Tree's school section! I may even sneak into Target again! I tell you I have a school shopping problem! It's just too hard to pass up all of the cute things!

Lots of Shopping!!

The title of this blog pretty much explains what I have been doing over the past two weeks. Tons of packages have been coming in and the kids are loving it! The excitement when they see what I have bought for our school room is enough to show me that we made the right decision to homeschool!

 

I started with buying our curriculum!

I'll share a sneak peek but go into more detail in a few weeks!

Third Grade

Fifth Grade

 Once curriculum was bought I decided we needed some manipulatives to go along with lessons and to have some fun with during our day! Christianbook.com has had amazing sales lately so I snatched up the following for 10.99 a piece. The math items came in one set and the science in the other set. I would link to them but they are no longer available which makes me sad because it was a really great deal! I will keep an eye though in case they pop back up! 

Now my next shopping trip was a spur of the moment trip! I stopped by Target because I heard rumors they already had the back to school stuff in the Dollar Spot! They do so if you had planned to hit Target for fun school room type stuff get there quick! They started it early this year!

My first find in the Dollar Spot was a set of multiplication and division cards for $1 a piece! Dylan will be using this year as he starts to learn multiplication and division. 

Next was two dry erase boards. One side is lined and the other is blank with a cute red border. Not sure what we will use these for just yet but I figured they may come in handy! They were $1 also!

My next find was this calendar set. It was $3. I wasn't sure this year if I wanted to have a calendar that was going to take up wall space or not as I haven't really decided how I want to do our morning time routine, but I figured I can use this to show when quiz days may be and when holidays are coming. It is dry erase which is nice so I can easily write on it also!

This right here is what I stopped in for. I love pocket charts and they can be so expensive! The ones in the dollar spot are just $1!! Sadly this was the only one they had so I am hoping they restock soon! 

They also had this Landmark Map which I thought was cute and could be fun to incorporate into our Geography lessons. I saw online that they had 3 different options but this was the only one my store had. It is $3 and comes with 5 markers and the paper is huge and good quality!

And last but not least I bought myself a little goody for my desk. Not sure how I will use it just yet but it was too cute to leave behind! It was 5$ and in the dollar spot as well! 

Next up on my list of shopping is school supplies. I am just waiting for the back to school sales to hit stores first!!

Basic Learning Pack

My first Learning Pack is ready! I have been working very hard at this as I wanted something that covered a lot of the basics but didn't really have a theme. I wanted it to be something that we could use over and over again through out the school year. 

It has 50 pages plus ideas and tips for using it!

Included:

Alphabet match

Flash cards

Word cards

Numbers

Counting

Prewriting Practice

Sorting Colors

Shapes

Size Sorting

Sentence Practice

Addition

Subtraction

Missing Numbers

Count by 2's, 5's, and 10's

Plenty to use during the school year for Preschool, Pre-K, or Kindergarten! 

You can get it HERE 

It is on sale for $4.50 for 8/29-8/31 

(sale price shows on page of product)

 Returns to $6.00 September 1st! 

It will go great with my Alphabet and Number Tracing Pages!

Enjoy! 

Back to School

It is officially the first day of school here at our house. Austin has headed to school and Dylan has started school at home for this year.

Austin is in 1st grade and Dylan is in Pre-K.

Each year we take a back to school picture and this year I wanted a sign that showed what grade they were in.

So I made some up!

And now I am sharing them with you all!

You can download them HERE

Enjoy!

When do you all start school?

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