Target Finds

I saw a couple of posts about Target getting teacher helps in the Dollar Spot, so I decided to go check it out today. I found lots of goodies!

• Leveled reader books (got level 2 books on Whales, Dolphins, & Sharks and Animals of Africa…they say grades 1-3, but my daughter who is not yet 5 could read them…they also had level 3, which say grades 2-4)


• 100-piece jigsaw puzzle of North America called Coast to Coast


• A Math Bingo game (says for 2-8 players, ages 5+)…includes 42 cards on addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, 70 bingo chips, and 8 bingo cards)


• They had tons of SmartMats. These are 2-sided dry erase placemats. They covered all kinds of topics. I got one of the United States. It shows states and capitals on one side, and is unlabeled on the other side. I plan to let Hayden keep this in the van to mark off the states when he sees out of state plates. He’s been making a list inside the cover of his puzzle book that he keeps in the van, but I thought it would be more fun to mark it on the map so he can see how far they’ve traveled. We have a lot of military here, and it’s also a popular tourism area, so we see lots of out-of-state plates on a daily basis. I also got one that says “class schedule” on it, but it has analog clocks without hands and blank digital clocks printed on it. I know when teaching time with Saxon Math, I have to draw a lot of these on the chalkboard for practice, so I’ll just use this mat instead!


• A small 8-pocket pocket chart called a Classroom Card Scheduler. I haven’t really decided how I could use this yet, short of using it to rearrange things in order (alphabetical order, numerical order, etc.). If anybody has any suggestions, I’d love to hear them! It has grommets at the top so you could hang it on the wall if you wanted to.


• They had TONS of workbooks of all kinds from PK-3rd grade. I only bought a Science one. It says grades 2-3, and it’s called Science Projects & Experiments. It had some cool-looking experiment instructions in it that you could do with household things. The pages are perforated for easy removal, so I thought these would make great “fun” items for the workboxes.


• Primary colored pom-poms and pipe cleaners for my craft supply box. They also had a bag with various sizes of googly eyes.

There were plenty more things that I did NOT get because I didn’t need them, like flash cards, rubber stamps with encouraging things on them (nice job, A+, etc.). They also had some neat non-school-related items. One in particular I just have to share is the telescoping metal marshmallow sticks with wooden handles! I bought one for each of us to take on vacation with us to the cabin in the mountains this fall. They will also be great to use in the fireplace at home next winter. I usually just use disposable wooden skewers, but I usually still need a glove or oven mitt to keep from burning my hand since they aren’t that long. These telescoping rods extend really far! The kids were thrilled!

That’s about it. It was definitely worth stopping in there.