The Elementary Entourage: Thrifty Teacher Finds and a Giveaway! {Kelsey from Aloha to Second}

Every teacher is always looking for a great deal because who doesn't love to save money!? My all time favorite teacher store is Dollar Tree. You can ask my husband, he even made sure our new apartment wasn't within walking distance to a Dollar Tree to try and encourage me not to go! (I'm not kidding. lol)

So here is one of my favorite finds from Dollar Tree. I use this fun appetizer tray for a money game. It is a great way for students to practice making coin exchanges and they LOVE it! It also keeps things organized, which I like. They put all the quarters, dimes, nickels, and pennies in a section. Then, the two open sections are for the students to place the money they collect. They roll the dice in the middle and that tells them how much money to collect. Then, they keep making exchanges with their money until they have 4 quarters to get a dollar. The first person to a dollar wins! It is a super easy and fun game for the students - plus it practices a very important skill. You should go grab on at Dollar Tree today!

Also from Dollar Tree, I love, love, LOVE the baskets for storing things. I have so many and they are just $1. You can't beat that. I'm sure every teacher has these, but I can't not post about them because they're my favorite! You can see some below that I use in my classroom. These are used for math centers and to store math manipulatives. I'm also always seeing so many fun different colors to choose from.

I know I've been talking a lot about Dollar Tree, but I also like using Amazon. I bought some awesome contact paper on Amazon and re-did this table. I love how it turned out. It's also super easy to do. You just line it up and peel off the back. Then, stick it on! It's also nice because the back of the paper has lines you can follow to cut straight lines. Let me be honest - I cannot cut straight. :/ One flaw as a teacher I hope to master one day! :]

Now that I have shared some of my fun finds I want to share about how our fun Elementary Entourage family is GROWING! Check out our new members below. We are SO excited!