Playground Duty: New Purchases!

Every year, our PTO is kind enough to give us money toward purchasing materials for our classroom. You can see the desktop easel I purchased with my PTO money last year in this post. This year since I work in two buildings, I was able to make two separate purchases. For my morning school, I got $25 and I used it to purchase a magnetic word builder set from Lakeshore:

At my afternoon school, I was allotted $63. I couldn't decide what I really needed besides a pocket chart, so I started checking out some catalogs that were in my school mailbox. I decided to order from Learning Resources. (The same company that makes the recording device I won!) I only have one (standard size) pocket chart in my room and I'm currently using it for my center board. I have small pocket charts, but they don't work well for center games. Now I'll have another standard pocket chart (plus a free stand from school) so the kids can do a pocket chart center! Please send any and all ideas my way! ;) I also ordered a letter construction set. I thought this would be good for an ABC center, early finishers, or even indoor recess. I also picked the Creative Writing flip book. It has pictures of Who, What, When, & Where to help with story ideas. I plan on introducing this in interactive writing and then letting my kids use it as a tool in writer's workshop. After all of this (with a coupon code), I still didn't qualify for free shipping so I had to throw in one more small item. I decided on Phonemic Awareness reading rods. I figured these could easily be integrated into centers somehow. In the end, I got all of these goodies for $18 out of pocket. Not too shabby! Plus Learning Resources shipped me my order in 2 days!