How to Garage Sale For The Classroom

In Minnesota we are soon coming into the summer season, which also means yard and garage sale season!  My sisters, mom and daughter are all garage sale queens.  Most of us have a purpose and an idea of what we want to shop for at the sales except my mom.  She buys for all of us and more!

School items are always at the top of my list.  As I go to a sale the first thing I check out is ...
    1.  Quality and well made toy sets(farm, gas stations,etc.)
    2.  Legos
    2.  Games with all pieces and in good condition. I turn them into math or literacy games
    3.  Boggle
    4. Scrabble game tiles  (I use them for math and literacy)
    5.  Books
    6.  Craft Items
    7. Magnetic Alphabet
    8. Anything Alphabet
    9. Craft items
    10. Office supply items
 

Today I was excited because I found two items that were great.  I found a clock that plays Christmas music on the hour.  It is a great tool for the classroom.  Every time it plays a song the kids look up and say the time!  I already have the bird song clock that tweets.  There is an inspirational sound clock that plays Amazing Grace, but I haven't found that.  I think my ideal clock would be a Cockoo clock, but I'm not so sure I'll find that.

The  other item I found was a set of hanging chimes.  I hang them from the ceiling and I have a baton that is used to tap them.  It is a signal in my classroom to begin our day.  One of the classroom jobs for the week is to ring the chimes.  I also use them to get a complete silence and look at me during reading and writing time.

Don't go past a yard sale and not stop, you'll never know what treasures you can find for your classroom.