Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Frugal Finds


Cheap, penny pincher, frugal, whatever you call it.... that's me! I'm always on the hunt for a good deal, or a way to do it myself. I know there's others out there like me, so I'm going to share a few frugal finds, that we use almost daily.

 The dollar area at Target is my favorite place. It's a great place to find homeschool supplies, among other things. Practically any dollar store, dollar spot/section is a great place to look for things. During back to school time I was able to get a giant foam clock, and some foam counters to use for math. We use these so much, they were worth their $1. The play money came from the party/$1 area in the toy section at Walmart. I bought 2 packs, because my oldest will be counting pretty high this year with money. It's also cheaper, than printing and laminating play money you find pictures of.

Recycling is a great way to make things you can use as manipulatives. I've seen other people use these with their children, so I thought we'd give it a try. My daughter loves them! I had this grand idea to cut circles out of pretty cardstock, then write the letters on them nicely. But I ended up going an even easier route, and putting number and letter stickers on them. Super fast, and super easy. And since we drink a ton of water around here, we had bags of water bottles (we recycle those too) to take caps from. I'll be making some printables soon to use with these.
Empty pudding and soup bowls, are great for art projects, and sorting containers. Raymond actually won a pack of 24 of those giant soup bowls at the county fair, and their pretty durable. I use the soup containers to hold some of our manipulatives in. The pudding containers are great for holding a small amount of water, for water color painting, and for sorting like things. This is what works for us Wednesday. I'll post a few more frugal finds, in the weeks to come, and if you have any feel free to share!

2 comments:

Nichole said...

I love the bottle caps idea! I'm a big fan of the dollar bins at Target, too. We have the same foam clock!

Niki Jolene said...

Nice post. I like the idea of using lids for manipulatives. Very creative! I am a preschool teacher and I am pleasantly surprised at the great stuff Target gets in those dollar bins!

I am enjoying my visit to your blog (it's my first time). I hope you can stop over to Free 2 Be Frugal sometime soon.