Attention, all teachers and parents!

It is no secret that starting school in the fall costs money. There are clothes to buy, shoes, pens, pencils, folders, paper and all of the other things that are on the back to school lists. Today I found a great deal and want to share it with you. I went to Office Max.

Office Max is great if you are a teacher because they offer a rewards program that rocks! You register for a Max Perks card and swipe it when you shop (not a credit card, it just keeps a tally of purchases). Working at Kumon counts as a teacher (I think even aides could get benefits because they just require a pay stub for proof). For every $75 you spend (in 3 months time) they will give you a gift certificate for $10. But they also have an ink cartridge recycling program (which is how I get most of my rewards). For every empty ink cartridge you bring in, they give you $3 in gift certificates :) Now you do have to wait until the end of the quarter (3 months) to print the certificate and it does have an expiration, but I'll take a few stipulations if they want to give me free money! Ok, now on to my savings! I got everything below for FREE! Ok, so some of the discount was from Max Perks, so if you don't have any perks built up, you will pay some for this, but I combined coupons and store deals and even without the Perks, it is a great deal, let me show you!

1. I printed these coupons (note, coupons expire 7/30):
which made the Office Max filler paper $.20 each (originally $1.79)
and the SCHOOLIO notebooks $.20 each (originally $.99)
2. The filler paper is currently on the Buy one get one free sale, so 3 of them were free!
So without Perks, the 6 packages of filler paper and 6 notebooks would be $1.80
3. Since I had 3.00 in Perks (just recycled one ink cartridge), I picked up the dry erase board as well for $.99 and the total came out exactly to $3.00 (after tax)-so it was free :)
Disclaimer- I did not take the time to figure out the tax and make it perfect, I knew I was about $1 short, and chose the white board accordingly-it just happened to be spot-on :)

So, do you have an Office Max nearby? Cash in on these great savings!!!

Teacher Discounts

I recently had heard from another teacher that you may obtain a teacher's reward card at Office Max. This got me wondering how many other places offered discounts to teachers, unbeknown to us. So I did about a 15 minute internet search to compile as many stores as I could and what their discounts are. Most also include home school teachers, as long as you can verify it with paperwork.

JoAnn Fabrics-15% must apply for card within store
J Crew 15% with authentic paperwork
Staples teachers rewards card
Office Max teachers perks card
Ann Taylor Loft 10% with authentic paperwork and ID
Barnes and Noble 20% (not sure if this is a card or just proof)
Bookwarehouse 15%
Dell 2-4%
New York and Company 15%
Dollar Tree (ask for discount)
Hobby Lobby 10% (ask for discount)

Happy shopping to all educators!

One more to add:
10% off at The Limited

Setting Up

This week I attended classes (in which I was a student) and helped my mentor teacher set up the classroom.

It is amazing what six years of teaching will do for you! She had an abundance of information on how to do little everyday things. Her classroom library was amazing. It had lots of different books in several genres. She did mention that she would like to get more non fiction, but that the school library had a vast variety of non fiction, so the students still had access to books of that nature.

I am excited that we are going to incorporate mini lessons and writing workshops for reading and writing into the curriculum. My C and I 208 and 209 teachers would be proud :D

I worked with another intern to put up our first ever bulletin board! We even came up with the design ideas ourselves. We ran into some space difficulties, but three tries later, we finally got something that would fit. I was shocked at how much time it takes to make a bulletin board, but perhaps the time decreases with practice and preset ideas. I will post a picture of our board when I get one.

Coming up next week: district retreat and back to school night!