Thrifty Thursday - School Supplies

As you know, school supplies can break your budget if you are trying to purchase things for your classroom and/or your students. I probably spent well over $1000 my first year as a teacher – and that was on an $18,000 contract (1990). Here are some suggestions for amassing supplies and “stuff” to use in your classroom:

Go to garage sales, check Craigslist, dollar stores, Wall’s, and my favorite, thrift stores. At the beginning of the school year, there are plenty of back to school sales. Be sure to attend Staples' teacher day sale so you can get some free goodies from them!

At the end of the year, ask the students if they want to keep their crayons and other supplies like rulers, scissors, pencils, pencil boxes, etc. If they don’t, have them leave them in bins in your room. You might want to alert parents about this in case they want their kids to keep their school supplies for the next year.

I’ve always had good luck asking parents to replenish the supply cabinets in your classroom. If there is an active PTA or PTO at your school, they might consider purchasing art supplies or other supplies for your classroom.

Attend conferences and ask friends to donate to your classroom supply closet. Ask me! I have plenty of leftover highlighters, rulers and pens to give away!

Whatever you do, don't try to buy everything your first year. Asking for help is better than spending your own hard-earned cash for "stuff" for your classroom.

Two Exceedingly Helpful Websites for New Teachers

When I started teaching 20 years ago or so, we didn't have the internet. I believe the web has become the most influential tool used by educators that I know. As for myself, I have come to rely on a great number of websites the last few years. For newer teachers, these two are probably the most supportive: Education World and Scholastic. Both of them offer voluminous amounts of free teaching ideas, lesson plans, and other resources across the curriculum. Education World has free newsletters that you can elect to have sent to your email on a weekly basis. The one I most used when I discovered EdWorld was the Lesson Planning Newsletter. It includes lesson plans, thematic units, bulletin board ideas, blogs and articles written by teachers and administrators and other specialists in the field, as well as advice on classroom management and discipline. They both have ideas on technology integration and book and website reviews.

Scholastic has a class homepage builder and video center that are user-friendly. They even have a separate page just for new teachers' survival! Newer teachers, please go and check out these websites and come back to let me know what you found most useful. Enjoy!

FREE resources

I was visiting with the CML Librarian before Christmas and she pointed me to a wonderful resource I had never heard of before. It is called the Elementary Teachers Guide to Free Curriculum Materials. It is published yearly by Educators Progress Service, Inc. This year's publication provides teachers with information about over 1,000 free books, teacher's guides, web sites, charts, posters, lesson plans, maps, and articles that will save you money and enrich your classroom.  There are free curriculum materials for all subjects, all levels of instruction (elementary and early childhood), and even includes special education and teacher reference materials. There are title, subject, and source indexes. Some sources have multiple entries, including the American Museum of Natural History, Federal Citizen Information Center, and ThinkQuest. These are creative and FREE materials for teachers. The book is in it's 67th edition. The ISBN is 978-0-87708-503-4 in case you would like to order it. I highly recommend you ask your librarian to purchase the book for your school.