Take a Tropical Vacation!

Hi! My name is Cory Smith and I develop and design curriculum products at Discount School Supply®. Curriculum, as in Math, Language, Science, Social Studies…so why am I writing about an art supply like Colorations® Tropical Colored Dough (TROPICAL) you ask? Two main reasons: I have a degree in art, and Colorations® Dough is a useful classroom material for all curriculum areas! Plus, Colorations® Dough is used in several methods of teaching, especially our Colorations® Best-Value Dough – Tropical Colors (TROPICAL).

It’s great! You get three pounds each of six tropical colors including buttercup yellow, sea foam green, lavender, light blue, melon and pink - that’s 18 pounds of top-quality bright and squishy dough! It comes in big, reseal-able plastic tubs that make storing and organizing easy. It can be reused again and again without drying out or crumbling, and it never stains. Plus, it’s non-toxic and doesn’t contain common allergens like latex, dairy and casein, egg, or even peanuts or tree nuts!

Naturally, Colorations® Best-Value Tropical Dough is a perfect fit for your Arts and Crafts curriculum. It provides children with varied opportunities to develop and widen their artistic skills! It targets NAEYC curriculum content areas for Cognitive Development in Creative Expression and Appreciation for the Arts. Plus, it’s excellent for practicing fine motor skills.

But, I like using it outside the world of Arts and Crafts to help widen children’s imaginations, especially when teaching ‘dry’ math skills, like geometry, or retelling the same nursery rhyme over and over. Need a new way? Ask the children to bring the characters in a story to life by modeling them in fantastic fantasy colors! Tropical colors! Who says the cow jumping over the moon can’t be lavender? And boring old geometry? Make the connection between 2-D shapes with 3-D with Tropical Dough! Roll out some dough and cut flat circles, squares, triangles, etc. Ask the children to form buttercup-yellow-colored dough pyramids, melon-colored spheres, or even sea-foam green cylinders and match them to the flat 2-D shape partners. Add faces to the 3-D shapes, name them, and have the shapes tell a story about themselves! I haven’t even mentioned the endless uses and how beautiful our dough is for forming letters of the alphabet and numerals in Tropical Colors – think about the bright future in learning your children will have!

Back to our Tropical Colored Dough and art usage, you could always ‘just’ make a brightly colored dough scene with sea foam green-colored breezy palm trees, a native island woman dressed in buttercup yellow with a pink fruit basket on her head, walking in front of Caribbean light blue-colored houses and call it a day. Wait! That sounds really nice. Make it more beautiful and realistic with Colorations® MultiCultural Dough (MDS)! Plus, add Colorations® Scented Dough (ORANGE) to make the fruit basket on the head of the island woman come to life! You’ll triple imaginations and possibilities when you add additional dough sets for endless combinations!

Watch our video and check out the different varieties of dough we have available below!

Colorations® MultiCultural Dough - 6 lbs. (MDS)

Colorations® Scented Dough - 6 lbs. (ORANGE)

Colorations® Classic Colors Best-Value Dough - 18 lbs. (BVRD)

Enjoy your classroom tropical vacation!

Create with Colorations® IncredibleFoam® Dough!

Hi, my name is Kathie, and I work in the Merchandising Department at DiscountSchool Supply®.

When I think back on some of the toys that I played with when I was a child, I would have to say that -- other than my favorite kid-friendly baking oven and my sno-cone machine -- play dough was one of my all time favorites. I’d like to tell you about the Colorations®IncredibleFoam® Dough Sampler Pack (FOAMSAM)…..my new favorite!

This is a dough like no other. From the tiny beads to the bright colors to the non-sticky texture, you are in for a treat that will last for hours! From the moment you open the pack, you can dive right in with creating anything that you can imagine. The time you used to spend working dough until it was soft you can now use to create with IncredibleFoam® Dough.

One of my favorite things to make with IncredibleFoam® Dough is pretend jewelry. The tiny beads make it easy to mold, shape and create into a fabulous “one of a kind” piece. I don’t have to worry about the colors mixing together and altering the overall look of my jewels. Colorations® IncredibleFoam® Dough allows the “designer” to mold the colors together and easily separate them when done. Clean up is quick and easy with no sticky or smelly residue left behind.

While working with IncredibleFoam® Dough in a classroom, this product allows children of all abilities to participate and explore sensory and tactile experiences along with endless open-ended creative play. It’s easy to work with and never dries out, and it’s all the things dough should be and more!

For more information on our Colorations® IncredibleFoam® Dough, watch our video below!

Bring Your Raceway to Life!

Hello! My name is Danielle Wolfe and I am a Buyer for Discount School Supply®. I select products for several categories including Dramatic Play, Blocks, Science, Math, Puzzles and Inspirational items. One of the most rewarding aspects of my job is designing new products. With so many categories, inspiration can come from anywhere.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I have a son whom I home-schooled. Because of this, I am always looking at products with him in mind. I always wonder how he would use it or how he would play with it. This helps me to see products, not just as a designer, but through the eyes of the child.

When he was younger, one of my son’s favorite activities was playing with cars. He loved racing them across pretend roads on my kitchen floor. My goal was to create a toy that cultivated learning, yet retained this simple joy of racing cars. I wanted to create a racing product that would allow two children to play together, but would still be entertaining for one child, playing independently.

The result is RACEWAY, a two-sided wooden racing tower with six cars. With the two sides, kids can race cars down the angled drops. All the while, they’re tracking their progress while learning about angles, velocity and force. The tower is made of solid wood, which is my favorite material to work with. The six cars are also made of wood. Because of this, the cars make a satisfying “thunking” sound while racing for the finish line. I designed the cars to be a little thicker, as I wanted them to be easy to follow, even for younger children.

RACEWAY was as much fun to design as it is to play with. I hope that you have a chance to see it on our website and watch the accompanying video that really brings RACEWAY to life.

HighScope®/ Discount School Supply® Announce Exclusive Partnership

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: April Locke
Tel: 831.333.2549
Email: alocke@excelligence.com
Web: www.Excelligence.com

HighScope® Educational Research Foundation & Excelligence® Learning Corporation Announce Long-Term Partnership in Early Education

Preeminent preschool curriculum creator HighScope Foundation partners with Excelligence Learning Corporation for new products, exclusive distribution.

YPSILANTI, Michigan and MONTEREY, California (April 3, 2012) – HighScope® Educational Research Foundation, best known for the historic HighScope® Perry Preschool Study—which tracked more than 100 children for 40 years and established that those who had a preschool experience had higher earnings, were more likely to hold a job and were more likely to have graduated from high school than adults who did not have preschool—is partnering with Excelligence® Learning Corporation dba Discount School Supply®. The organizations will work together in a partnership to develop innovative educational products to complement the HighScope® Preschool Curriculum, one of the top early childhood curricula currently in use in preschools around the world.

 HighScope’s® new partnership with Excelligence® has two areas of focus. First, HighScope’s® Research and Professional Development departments will work with Excelligence’s® Product Development team to create original products. These products will be available exclusively from HighScope® and Discount School Supply®. The second area of focus is Discount School Supply’s® exclusive role as distributor, along with HighScope® itself, of HighScope® curriculum products in the early childhood market.

Clay Shouse, HighScope® Vice President, comments, “Discount School Supply® has a long reputation for high quality products at reasonable prices. This partnership will provide a convenient way for programs to implement HighScope® and allow them to focus on their goal of high quality programs with positive child outcomes.” Mr. Shouse continues, “We know that with all the demands on preschool programs today, anything we can do to support our Curriculum will help teachers have more time to work with the children.”

The Water Cooler

Curling up with a good book is my favorite spare time activity, but once in a while I ‘uncurl’ to do a little channel surfing. Since works of historical fiction are rarely a topic with my peers, I like to be in “in the know” on shows from “American Idol” to the “X Factor” so I do not feel left out during break-time conversations. Even at an age where I should know better, I want to fit in around the water cooler!

The desire to fit in is part of us at any age, but of course it is felt most strongly by teenagers. Over the past couple of years I have participated at conferences and expos focused on children with special needs, and I continually heard from the therapists and special education teachers of teens with special needs that, while those teens benefit from the same type of help and support directed to younger children, it is vital to offer this help and support in a way that recognizes the maturing interests and expanding horizons of the teens placed in their care. At Achievement Products®, we took that message to heart.

We reviewed our catalog’s content with a number of therapists who helped us identify products ideally suited to support teens in the following areas:

Core Strength-products that stimulate a teen’s natural motivation to move, while strengthening limb coordination, balance, judgment, and visual perception skills.

Life Skills & Socialization-products that assist with management of everyday life skills.

Academics-adaptive products to support classroom performance.

Art & Creativity-items that encourage creative experiences for self-expression and collaborative socialization.

Self-Regulation-options to engage in self-regulating behavior in a socially accepted manner.

Teen Cave-options for teens to individualize their sensory environment, to provide a space uniquely theirs to relax in and un-wind.

And we have had a wonderful response, including items that can be found in the Special Needs section of our Discount School Supply® catalog: the active sitting Sit Disc (AP9620J and AP9621J); assorted Physiorolls® (AP2055J, AP2057J, AP2058J) and Gymnastikballs® (AP20710J, AP20711J, AP20712J, AP20713J, AP20714J, AP20716J); fidgets such as the Tangles (AP1290J, AP2900J and AP3300J); and Slant Boards (AP5368J and AP5368J).

We invite you to take a look at our entire teen collection in Achievement Products®, and we want to hear from you at this ‘Water Cooler’ that is our blog site! Please share what resources, services or products have helped the teens in your care to succeed as they grow, mature, and expand their horizons.

The Singing Tree Marble Run!

Greetings! It is Barbara Riffert Glick the Central California Account Manager at Discount School Supply. This is the time of the year that many of us are starting to think about moving learning environments inside and about new wonderful items to keep the children engaged. The Singing Tree Marble Run (SINGTREE) from Discount School Supply is a wonderful product that can be used in the home as well as the classroom.

Children will enjoy the sturdy wood construction of the colorful tree. As wooden balls wind down along its branches, the “singing tree” creates tones similar to those of a vibraphone or xylophone, which is so much more calming than the sound of metal instruments. The wooden balls included with the tree are of different sizes, so they cause tonal changes. Children may also try different rolling objects to create experiments with sound.

When we display the Singing Tree Marble Run in the Discount School Supply booth at early education conferences, I love watching teachers gather around it. They really enjoy watching and listening to the tree. And in just the same way, the Singing Tree fosters social interaction among children. This is one of those great gathering devices for children of different ages, sizes and developmental levels who can all play together and have a wonderful experience. In addition to its music, the Singing Tree Marble Run offers learning opportunities about color, gravity, and cause and effect as it develops fine motor and listening skills.

Please see the video below for more information!

The Singing Tree Marble Run is in the Manipulatives section of the Discount School Supply catalog, and it’s in the Music Domain in the Discount School Supply Head Start catalog. I hope you’ll look for it, and I’d love to hear about your experiences with this product or any others you choose from Discount School Supply.

Our Center Board in Action!

Hi! My name is Loretta Ehrhart, and I develop products for Discount School Supply®. My two children aged 2 and 6 have served as an unwitting focus group over the years. Countless prototypes and samples from “Mommy’s office” have been tested and tried out and refined with their input.

I’m always so pleased to see one of the finished products that I developed go on to be used in my own children’s classrooms. About a year ago I finished work on Our Center Board (CNTBOARD). It’s a great tool to help teachers manage center time in the classroom; but, even better, it allows the children to become involved in managing themselves, too. In August, my older son Rainier started first grade. At back-to-school night, his teacher explained that she sets up learning centers and schedules a few times a week for the children to work independently at each of the centers. The centers reinforce daily lessons in math, reading, spelling and writing.

When I asked her how the children know where to go and what to do, I was so pleased to hear that she uses Our Center Board to help her! During the first week of school, she took a photo of each child, and put each child’s photo into one of the red photo pouches included with the product.

She hung the Our Center Board in a central location and explained its use to the children. The children know which centers are open by checking to see which illustrated Center Cards are in the pockets. If there is limited seating or access, the teacher will place a specific number of yellow sticky “dots” under the appropriate center card. The children’s photos are lined up along the bottom of the chart, easy for them to access. They select their red photo pouch and place it under the Center Card for the center they wish to visit. If time allows for multiple visits, they can move their photo to another place on the board to indicate where they are. The teacher and the children can see at a glance which centers are full and which have room for more.

The teacher reported that, after a day or two, they all got to know the rules and the routine and can now function quite well and very independently, practicing skills like self-regulation and time management.

Next, she plans to take photos of her centers and use them in Our Center Board in place of the generic illustrated cards. That way she will make Our Center Board that much more meaningful to the children and distinctively “Ours.”.

I look forward to visiting Rainier’s classroom soon to observe Our Center Board in action.

Be sure to watch the video below for more information!