Thrifty Thursday

So something that you do not know about me is that I LOVE thrift stores. I love going in hunting, searching and finding great deals on things. Most of the time I find things that I didn't even know I wanted or needed but am so excited to get (I may have a bit of problem)!!! My classroom is a mismatch eclectic blend of things that I find here and there. This is one of the big reasons I love summer so much, it gives me time to support my thrift store habit.
Now one of my favorite things to look through at thrift shops or even garage sales is children's books. Another thing that you should know about me is I am on the frugal side as well. Now I do not go into a garage sale and think that I am going to get things for half the price (I think those people are a bit on the rude side-this is from my own experience running our garage sale), but I do go in with the idea of I am going to get something for what I think it is worth. Well here is a box of books that I got from a garage sale down the street. There are a few look and find hardcover books and some lego books. This will be great high interest books for my boys in the class! Anyways I paid $3 for the whole box! SCORE!!!

My next stop this morning was GW (GoodWill). My summer classroom project is to spruce up my classroom library. I have decided that I am going to switch around my dramatic play area and my library. This way I can really sort and categorize my books. At the beginning of the year to promote reading I allow the kids to check out books from our classroom library to read at home with parents. Now these are NOT leveled, but are purely for interest purposes. I have this go one for the first 2-3 months of school. After that they take home leveled books to practice at home and then they have to read them to me (with only 2-3 mistakes) and answer comprehension questions. If they struggle, they have to take it back home and practice more (I am very picky about this)! So here are some beanbags I picked up at GW for my new reading space $3 each.

Here are a few pictures of my dramatic play area and library which I am going to switch around. As you can see I have tons of shelves, which I thought would be used to story toys, but that doesn't happen. The kids just store all the toys on top, so really all those shelves are not being used:/

Dramatic play now soon to be library

Library soon to be dramatic play area

Here I have tons of book displays, and storage on top of the bookshelves, but no room to organize really....

 Here is my leveled book section
that I just have in the back of the
room behind my divider, so that
way when students read to me
or my para they do not get too distracted. My plain boxes are my nonfiction leveled books. I am trying to decide if I should mix them with my leveled, or have a leveled non fiction section. I will post some makeover pictures once I finish with this project! Wish me luck and focus!