I have never been into the dollar store scene.  But after reading a few blogs of moms who found some great hands-on materials to use with their children, I decided to give it a go.

When we were visiting my parents recently, I decided to visit all the dollar stores in their town.  Some were junky and some exceeded my expectations. I had the most success at Dollar Tree and it was by far the nicest of the four stores.  Here are some of my finds!

Caroline really likes Pooh and it is the only “character” thing that we do. I found these cute puzzles and they were much nicer than I expected.  I’ve given her the first one and I’m saving the second one for when I need for her to be totally absorbed for a half an hour.  When she gets a new puzzle, she does it over and over.

Caroline isn’t quite ready for the books, but they were so adorable I bought them for future use.  They are full color inside and really nice for only a dollar!  The card sets she can do now. I’ve given one of them to her and am saving the other one for a bit.  I plan on using the workbook pages in plastic binder sleeves like I saw on Chasing Cheerios (and can’t find now) so we can reuse them.

I found these cute Christmas puzzles and special pencils (which were fifty cents, not a dollar).  Caroline adores puzzles so it will be fun to start bringing these out after Thanksgiving.

There were several other things I found, but I’ll save those for another post.  All in all, it was a good first experience and I think I will probably locate the Dollar Trees around here and see if they have good stuff as well.  I also plan on looking into the Oriental Trading Company. I ordered from them in college and as a teacher, but haven’t looked at their catalog or site since having Caroline.

Posted on October 27th, 2009 in Inexpensive fun, Preschoolers, Puzzles, Toddlers |