Teaching On A Budget

Hello! This is Crystal McGinnis from Mrs. McGinnis' Little Zizzers. I can't believe that school has just ended and I am already beginning to think about next year. I just made one of my weekly summer trips to The Dollar Tree to see what goodies I could find for my kindergarten classroom. I am always amazed at all of the fun items that I can get for just a few dollars. I also love that I can keep going back and I usually find something new each time. Here is what I came home with.

 

 

 

I purchased these plastic plates to use as dry erase marker boards during my small reading groups. My students use pieces of felt as their erasers. These work perfectly because they can be rinsed off in the sink. They came in a pack of 4 for just $1.00.

I found these adorable baskets at The Dollar Tree. I will use these as my student's book boxes this year. I think that they will work to keep their individual leveled readers in. I loved that they took up very little space and they had the cute handle. These were $1.00. They had blue, green, and pink.

I found this blue tray, and I think that I will use it as a sorting tray in one of my math centers. Students can sort coins, counters, blocks, etc. I also found these jumbo dice. These will be perfect for my math center and all of the dice games that we play.

 

 

 

My kids love to "read the room." I purchased these jumbo glasses and sparkly pointer for my kids to use during this activity.

 

 

 

 

One of my favorite units to teach is my insect unit. I purchased this bug catcher, net, and tweezers set at The Dollar Tree. I would love to have a class set of these.

 

This beach ball was also just $1.00. I wrote numbers on it to use as a number recognition game. Students will toss the beach ball back and forth and say the number that their hand lands on.

 

 

 

 

 

 I love, love, love these jumbo fly swatters that I found. I will use these during my "swat the sight word" game. I will place our sight words on the floor. I will call out a word and the first person to swat the word is the winner.

 

 

The last purchase that I made was this popcorn tub. I thought that this would be perfect for our sight word "pop" game. Students place all of the sight words in the popcorn tub. They draw out words and read them one at a time (with a partner). If they can read the word, they get to keep it. If they draw out the word "pop", they must put all of their words back in the tub. The person with the most words at the end of a set time is the winner.

 

 

 

If you are like me and you need to teach on a budget, you should visit your local Dollar Tree store.  

 

If you would like to see more of my teaching ideas, you can visit my TPT store by clicking here.