This summer my friend Kate and I have started a new hobby–Garage Saling! Both of us are hyper-organized teachers who have been known to spend more than a few dollars on teaching supplies and classroom materials. But like everyone else in America, we are tightening the purse strings. That is what inspired our Garage Sale adventure.

Items I’m looking for:

• Books–novels, pictures books, non fiction (2nd-6th grade reading level)
• Shelves–I have a LOT of classroom books and my new classroom is lacking in the book shelf dept.
• Classroom library Seating–One of my goals this year is to create a more homey classroom setting. I want to have some comfy chairs and cushions to add to my reading corner.
• Fun Lamps–Also to create a homey atmosphere–I got my inspiration from Angela Bunyi’s classroom!

Last week was our first try. We mapped out our route using our local paper’s Garage Sale classified section. Any garage sales that looked promising we plugged into MapQuest’s newest tool Route Planner. This handy little tool lets you put in multiple destinations and then gives you lots of options for creating a customized route!

With our plan, we set out for our garage sales. The first time we went we met at 9:30 and we shopped for a few hours, hitting about 10 garage sales (and 2 estate sales just for fun). I was kind of disappointed because I only  got a few books, and most of the garage sales were super picked over. Today was our second attempt, we  sacrificed our sleep and left a little before 8am and we got to the garage sales right as they opened. We only went to about 3 sales, but on our first one we hit the jackpot!  They were selling 2 storage shelves with the bins for $25! I looked it up and these sell for $70-90…yes please! I don’t know if I will use it for classroom supplies or books, but I am excited with my bargain purchase.

I love the colors of the bins...all the ones I've seen are very "primary" or "cutesy"

I think Garage Sales might be our “thing” this summer, so I’ll make sure to share about any other amazing finds!