Dollar Tree School Products That I Love

I probably should have written this post a month ago when Dollar Tree started stocking their teacher section for the schoolyear, but I didn't have my pictures lined up at that point. If your stores are anything like mine, you might not be able to find these anymore this year, but hopefully they'll still have something that catches your eye.

I make it a point to stalk Dollar Tree around mid-July because that's when the teacher supplies start showing up at mine. This year I scored a bunch of really nice, helpful supplies. Take a look ...

They had some new bulletin board sets this year. This "Parts of Speech" set will come in handy as we introduce new parts of speech. It will be useful for several years, too, since Abeka doesn't introduce all of these at once.

Punctuation Paradise is another good one. I'm pretty sure we cover this in both 2nd and 4th grades this year, so I'll get lots of use out of this one.

I was especially happy with The Writing Process set, since we're studying that with my son this year (4th grade). He's really "into" writing, but I haven't put much structure into his creative writing to this point because I don't want to kill the creativity. We'll be applying this mostly to the reports he'll be writing this year.

I found this banner a few years ago, but I was really happy that I picked it up because we are memorizing the books of the Old Testament this year. I love how the books of the Bible are presented on a bookshelf, just like regular books.

I bought this banner last year, I think. My kids tend to perfectionism, so this is a good reminder to have on hand. They tend to think completely the opposite.

There were some new banners this year, but my favorite were the goal-setting banners. This one is a thermometer-style. I don't have definite plans for it at the moment, but we often work toward a goal, so I'm keeping it handy.

Here is a space-themed goal-setting banner. My son loves space and we're studying about Creation this year, so I bought this one, too. This would be great to mark off days when they were well-behaved, wrote their names on all papers, or whatever other habit you're wanting to reinforce at the moment. In 12 days, you can reach your goal. That's definitely manageable for younger children.

One note about these goal-setting banners: They don't have to be single-use. Choose a paper cut-out (coordinating image or not) and move it along the banner as they progress. If you attach it with removable adhesive (like "sticky tack"), you can use it again.

Then there are nice, big posters. I was happy to find this Pledge of Allegiance poster last year, since we do that in our homeschool. (I realize not everyone does.) I'm pretty sure I saw one as a banner this year, but it sold pretty fast around here.

These large posters now come 2/pack, and I loved this one. It has synonyms ...

... and antonyms. These are not printed back-to-back. There are two separate posters. This comes in handy when you're trying to highlight the difference between synonyms and antonyms.

Here's another two-pack: punctuation marks (I like the examples on this, so I'll probably use it in addition to the bulletin board set.) ...

... and capitalization rules. We go over both of these in both 2nd and 4th grades this year, so I was thrilled to find this bright, eye-catching posters to illustrate an otherwise-boring subject. [I was an English major in college, but I know how most people view the subject.]

This year they also had 3-packs of smaller posters. These are still bigger than 8.5x11", and they had a lot of cute ones. This set is probably my favorite. I got it just for the ostrich poster (far right), and I joked with my children that I was going to hang it up next to the dining room table. Like Thumper's mother said, "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all." It's becoming a lost art, but I want my kids to learn it.

This set doesn't have cute pictures, but it's colorful and character-building.

This set adds some fun graphic elements to make them jazzier. Again, these are character traits that most children need to work on, and mine are no exception.

I also got another set, but I don't have pictures of it yet. It has a group of chicks going one way with one lone duckling going the opposite direction and says something like, "Don't just follow the group. Follow your conscience." What great advice! I got the whole set just for that one poster.

I hope you're inspired to check out your local Dollar Tree. You may want to check at Target, too. I saw two different 3'x5' (or so) bulletin board sets for $2.50. They were in with their back-to-school supplies, which they hide at the back of the store in my Target. The sets wouldn't work with any of our themes this year, but it's a great bargain if it works for you. I think one was a sky set with an airplane carrying a blank banner and I think the other was an ocean set.

Let me know if you find other great deals!