Saturday, August 2, 2014

Back to School Shopping: Dollar Tree Edition


Can you believe it's already time to start back to school shopping?! Where did the summer go?!

Today I'm going to show you some purchases I recently made at my favorite Back to School store: Dollar Tree!!

Y'all Dollar Tree really came through for me in the organizing department. I am so ridiculously excited to get my organize on!

Check out my purchases:


YESSSSSS!!!

Okay now let me tell you what I plan on doing with all this stuff.

First:
I got this really cool toy organizer on a local yard sale page and I was so excited!

The only problem: the bins did not match my color scheme at all. The bins that came with it are primary colors and my classroom has definitely more of a bright color scheme.


I almost just sucked it up and used the primary colored bins. I would have sat and stared at them all year and loved it while I was hating it. Then I realized something: hey, I've got a lot of fun bins from Dollar Tree. Maybe some will work?


OH.MY.WORD. How is it possible that these bins worked perfectly?! Now my bins match my classroom perfectly and all is right in my classroom :)

Okay onto my next organizational project:

In my class, I use tables. I love them. Even when I didn't have actual tables I used "table groups" which were just desks pushed together. I also use community supplies because I just can't handle dealing with kids not bringing/having the correct supplies with them (remember we're departmentalized). So last year I started using what I called "table baskets." Each table had a table basket with all their supplies in it (glue, crayons, scissors, and colored pencils). They kept their table baskets on a book shelf and when we needed to use the supplies, they got them out. Now being the organizational nut that I am, I couldn't just have a bucket full of supplies with no rhyme or reason. Everything had a place. They worked fabulously. The kids new how to keep them organized and we were never hunting for supplies. The only problem with last year's table baskets:

PRIMARY COLORS!

I really don't have anything against primary colors. They just don't match my room! And I'm a matchy-matchy person!

Honestly, my baskets would have lasted at least another year but they just don't match! So I went to Dollar Tree with fingers crossed and wouldn't you know, their new colors match my colors perfectly! So I got everything I needed to create new table baskets!

Now I'll show you how I assemble my table baskets. Here are the supplies you'll need:


Square baskets, sandwich boxes with latches, cups of some sort, labels

Notice that I'm missing a matching pink sandwich box?? It took a few trips to find that one. When I bought these boxes they were still in the process of stocking all their new stuff and hadn't received the pink boxes yet.

Next, I put my crayons in the sandwich boxes (there will be crayons in them when kids come). These boxes are great! The lids never pop off because they have the latches and they are really easy for the kids to use. I stand them up with the latches on the side and slide them in on the side of the square basket.


Next, I load the scissors and colored pencils into these fun cups that I found on the baby aisle (they're supposed to be sippy cups, but I tossed the lids and now they're scissor and pencil holders)!


Next, I load up the glue. I didn't have any glue bottles to show you but last year I just lined them up on the side opposite of the crayon box.

Finally, I labeled the table baskets with coordinating labels! Love them!!


And there you have it folks! Cute, bright, ORGANIZED table baskets for super cheap from the Dollar Tree!

A lot of the other baskets will be used throughout my classroom to hold supplies or trash when we're doing cutting projects (I got a bucket for trash to match each table basket!). Hopefully that'll solve the issue of tiny pieces of paper all over the floor!

I hope that you got some ideas for (CHEAP) organizational goodies to use in your classroom next year!

Stay tuned for a classroom reveal post, a teacher binder post, and a post on how I do Parent Night!




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