School Shopping Begins!

Yay! It's my favorite time of year for shopping- back to school sales! This week I got a few deals that I thought I'd share. I am still going to watch to see if the prices go any lower (there's been alot of $1 deals going on at the office supply places but nothing I really need yet). Here are a couple things I've gotten so far:
Crayola Dry Erase Crayons! I saw these advertised somewhere and wondered how they compared to the washable dry erase markers that I got last year. I ended up being less than impressed with the markers since the colors were too light and I still worried about stains. When I saw these crayons, I was skeptical but thought I'd give them a try. So far they seem great! I haven't had to try out the washability of them yet (thank goodness), but the colors are vibrant and they write smoothly. Definitely waxy-ish like crayons but nice. They wipe off easily either with a dry eraser or the black cloth that comes with the crayons. The box even has a built in sharpener. There are 8 crayons in the pack, and they are thick like the preschool size crayons, so I think they will last for a long time. They also have a set of "bright colors" that seem more for black dry erase boards (I didn't even know there was such a thing!). I just got the classic colors because I wanted them to show up well.

Anyway, we went to Toys R Us last night and they had a deal on all Crayola crayons, buy one get TWO free! Unfortunately, the Dry Erase Crayons were for some reason not part of the deal, but they were on sale for $2.79. Again, I will probably look for a better deal but so far they are worth the money!

Of course, I still took advantage of the Crayola deal and got some markers! We have like a bazillion crayons (many, many unopened packs) so I don't need those, but we only have one pack of markers that work right now so I was excited to get some new ones (I think, more excited than the kids!). So here's what I got:
20 pack of SuperTips thin markers (4.99) and my two free items were the regular markers, classic and bold colors. So that made each item only 1.67 each!

When we were checking out, I saw my favorite pencils- Ticonderoga! Yes, I am a nerd to have a favorite kind of pencil but I'll tell you why. How many times do your kids' pencils break over and over, only to sharpen them 50 million times until they are no bigger than your pinkie in like two days? Well, I bought a four pack of the bigger "my first pencil" or "Laddie" pencils by Ticonderoga when Zach started school four years ago, and those four pencils have lasted through both my two older kids and will probably make it through the youngest as well! And that's not because they didn't use them! LOL! We hardly had to sharpen (maybe once a week) and it only took a couple rotations to sharpen it (we used the sharpener that came with the pencils and it's awesome too). Last year we went to the regular size Ticonderoga pencils and they are just as good. We've never had one break or get smaller than the size of their hand. Of course, the catch is, you never see them on the .25 cent deal or even the $1 deal that often (and that's just a 4 pk). So at TRU last night, I saw the 12 pk of the regular size pencils and they were buy one, get one 1/2 off. They ended up being $4.50 total for both packs but considering how long they last, 24 pencils will last for all three kids! I never have to buy pencils again- unless another sale comes up since I use them myself too! (:

I can't wait to see next weeks ads to find out what's going to be on sale next!!