Angeles Value Line™ is a Real Value!

Hello, my name is Thom Parsons and I’m part of the Merchandising Team at Discount School Supply®. Part of my job as an Assistant Merchandising Coordinator is to help to select new furniture items for our catalogs. Our primary philosophy and objective when selecting any new products is always to provide Discount School Supply® customers with high quality products with exciting and innovative features and benefits at great prices!

Birch 10-Section Wall Locker (VB9160)

Our new Angeles Value Line ™ Birch storage units definitely meet and exceed the objective listed above! Outstanding quality at low prices, with lots of exciting new features and benefits, made in the good old U.S.A., incredibly easy to assemble (more on that to follow), eco-friendly and shipped absolutely free within three days with a lifetime warranty!! How’s that for starters!!? Want more? Okay, allow me expand on everything listed above!

Birch 5-Section Preschool Locker (VB9154)

All Angeles® Value Line ™ Birch units feature a CLEERseal ™ UV Finish which is easy to clean, sanitizer-safe, eco-friendly, non-yellowing and resistant to stains, scratches, and abrasions. All Value Line™ Birch storage units are constructed of 5/8”-thick, 11-ply birch plywood, with smooth, rounded corners and edges for safety and fully finished wood-grained recessed back panels. All units include a kick plate that prevents items from rolling under the units. Mobile units come equipped with heavy-duty 2” casters making them easy to move around the classroom. All units have 14 ½” deep storage cubbies, perfect for books, games, toys and other classroom essentials! 

Birch Mobile Divided Storage (VB9150) 

Okay, now back to the incredibly easy assembly. And I can speak to this first-hand because I was lucky enough to be the one chosen to assemble these units when they were shipped to my location for our photo shoots! All units are built using dowel-pin, cam-lock, bolted construction. What does this mean? It means practically no tools! All Angeles® Value Line ™ Birch units are shipped ready-to-assemble with easy-to-follow instructions and a small bag of connecting bolts, dowel-pins, cam-locks, and a single hex-wrench. That’s it! You won’t even need to open your toolbox! True story: the first sample unit we received for photography came without instructions (because it was a sample), and I was still able to fully assemble it in less than 10 minutes. It just doesn’t get any easier than that!

Birch 2-Shelf Storage (VB9147)

Did I happen to mention eco-friendly? Besides the aforementioned CLEERseal ™ eco-friendly UV finish, all Angeles® Value Line ™ Birch units are GREENGUARD Children and Schools® Certified. Plus, all Value Line™ Birch units are shipped in packaging that is 100% recyclable! How’s that for eco-friendly!?

Birch Mobile Divided Storage (VB9149)

Check out our full selection of Angeles® Value Line ™ Birch storage units online at http://www.discountschoolsupply.com/Default.aspx?es=4589500000w. View the video and other images of any of the Value Line™ Birch units online. Additionally, several new Value Line™ Birch items are coming soon, including the narrow 3-shelf mobile storage unit; the 18”D x 35 ½” W x 62” H teacher’s storage cabinet; 15-, 20-, and 25-tray cubbie storage units shipped with opaque trays, and 5-packs of opaque cubbie trays made exclusively for our existing Value Line™ Birch units!

For more information, watch our video here:

Angeles® Sinks Are So Versatile!

I’m Judy Short, an education consultant in the state of Georgia for Discount School Supply®. I’ve been with Discount School Supply® for 13 years and taught preschool for about 10 years before that. It’s important to me to keep current on child care rules and regulations and industry standards.

I recently attended a child care licensing orientation meeting in Atlanta, GA. The 35 attendees were there to learn about opening a child care center. And although it was not an in-depth meeting about rules and regulations, some rules were touched on briefly.

One that stood out in my mind was the rule about washing hands. Although the rule had not changed, it was a bit different. When I taught many years ago, washing hands was important in my preschool class before and after art, eating a snack or playing outside. Soap and water was used, however, there was no hot water allowed in the classroom. And of course we all are familiar with the rule about how long to wash hands; to the tune of "Happy Birthday" or "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star." The difference in the rule is the requirement for hot water.

One of my customers is a preschool classroom, which is a lab school in a high school setting. Washing with warm soapy water is required immediately before entering the lunch room. For those preschoolers in a high school environment, the lunch room is down long halls and through many doors. And of course a child-sized sink in a high school bathroom is unthinkable!

Another modification to the rules is with infants. No longer are towlettes or hand wipes acceptable for washing the infant’s hands after a diaper change. Warm soapy water is required.

Many facilities such as older schools, smaller churches are not equipped with hot water or even sinks in the classrooms. Expensive plumbing is not an option in most cases.

New products are introduced daily in the early childhood industry. The newest product available to help make the required rules accessible to your facility is the Angeles® Lil' Portable Hot Water Sink (LILPREM).

Angeles® makes a variety of portable sinks to fit the need of any child care facility. There are teacher-sized sinks, child-sized sinks, double sinks, each with its own fresh water supply and waste water tank. There’s even a Portable Hygienic Changing Table (KIDDIE). All of these products have scald free hot and cold running water and best of all they come assembled! No expensive plumbing is required. Accessories include Slip Resistant Risers (LILSTEP) and EZ Flow™ Water Sensor (SENSOR) for hands-free washing.

There’s also an EZ Fill-N-Roll™ Kit (ROLLDOLLT)which makes refilling and transferring water easier. No heavy lifting with the adaptable hose and easy-to-roll dolly.

The preschool inside the high school facility I mentioned earlier installed a single preschool hot water sink(LILPREM) with an ABS Top and Basin right next to the cafeteria. And by installing, I mean they took it out of the box and plugged it in! Now they meet the requirements for washing hands immediately before lunch. And don’t forget the sinks are portable. If you need to change the location, just unplug and roll to the next location!

Watch our video for more information!

Brilliant Glittery Glitter Dough!

Hi my name is Cyndi Williams and I am the Product Development Manager for Excelligence Learning Corporation. I really enjoy playing and creating new projects with our Colorations® Glitter Dough (GLITTDO). We offer six brilliant colors in a set, all non-toxic to little ones. Our Glitter Dough adds sparkle to any play table and is fun and easy to work with. It can be a learning tool by using it to cut out numbers, shapes, and letters of the alphabet. It is good for learning about textures, and Glitter Dough can be used with raised patterns or embossed surfaces. Also, our Glitter Dough does not contain latex, dairy, casein, eggs, peanut or tree nuts. This is fantastic information for children with allergies.

I have a set of Glitter Dough in my home. When my nephew Kraemer comes over to visit, he always asks to play with it. We set it up on my kitchen table and play for hours. We create our own superheroes, creatures, blobs, bad guys, and even buildings. We pretend the superheroes are saving people, and sometimes, in the process, our buildings get knocked down or destroyed. Our Glitter Dough makes it easy to rebuild so our superheroes can go on to fight the bad guys another day! It is so much fun!

Sometimes, Kraemer likes to use my cookie cutters with the Glitter Dough, and we practice learning different shapes by cutting them out in different colors. Our Glitter Dough cleans up easily with soap and water. It never seems to crumble, and with the re-sealable tub, it lasts a long time!

Due to the nature of my job, I visit preschools frequently. I see children playing at the art station and they often have Glitter Dough. It makes me happy to see our product being used, but even more so, I love the fact that children are enjoying themselves and creating things with our Glitter Dough. It’s fun for children because it stimulates their imagination and allows them to create something great! The possibilities with Glitter Dough are endless.

Check out our video for more information!

Pantone in Paris!

My name is Mary and I am one of the Arts & Crafts buyers at Discount School Supply®. I would like to share a story with you.
This summer I took a trip to Paris and was delighted to see a "Pantone" exhibit at the Pompidou Museum. Within the museum was a snug passageway that opened up to an amazing chamber overflowing with wildly shaped furniture and cases filled with vibrant 3-dimensional displays. The walls were lined with brilliantly colored canvases that invoked in me a childlike sense of happiness. I just wanted to jump on the furniture -- but, instead, I decided to take in the art.

In the back section of the exhibit hung a series of resist paintings. One in particular caught my eye. The entire canvas was black with the exception of a few perfectly placed circles that popped in rainbow colored swirls. As I looked closer, the base of the canvas was covered with red, blue, yellow, green, orange and purple. Atop was a thick layer of black paint, with only the circles showing the underneath colors. The contrast of the stark black to the vivid colors made me recount the first time I did resist art in Mrs. Wortman’s 5th grade class.

She never had much money to buy supplies, but she always found clever ways to inspire us. She cut up her old manila file folders into squares and had us fully cover the square – first with bright colored crayons and then with a layer of black. Her recommendation was to color as hard as we could so that the colors underneath would pop. I remember coloring so hard and outrageously that the crayons would get hot to the touch.

Using a pair of blunt-tip scissors, we would scrape off the black, making a design. I remember being mesmerized by the contrast of the black to the vibrancy of the colors beneath; I scraped nearly every inch of that square just to see the “reveal” time and time again. Once our class was finished with the squares, Mrs. Wortman arranged and hung them together like a quilt.

Today, it’s much easier to create resist art. As an Arts & Crafts buyer for Discount School Supply®, I was delighted to be able to construct the Colorations® Scratch Design Boards (SDBOARD). These sheets of multi-colored cardstock are pretreated with a non-toxic, easy-to-scratch-off paint. Similar to scratching off a lottery ticket, the black paint can be removed with a wooden stylus (SDJPEN), craft stick (CRAF) or a finger nail. Inspired by Mrs. Wortman, I designed them in 5” x 5” squares, which is enough space for a child to draw in, but small enough for a teacher to be able to arrange in “quilt” style. For safety reasons, I thought it best to avoid using scissors for scratching off the surface and designed a small wooden stylus in the same dimensions as a child’s primary-sized pencil. The stylus is easy for young children to manipulate.

I hope that children today enjoy the stimulating contrast of resist art as much as I did, and maybe someday they’ll be able to recount their own childhood experiences of drawing on scratch art paper.

Watch our video for more information!

Moving and Learning…It’s a WIN-WIN!

My name is Lara Lauer, and I am the Michigan Account Manager with Discount School Supply®. From the time I was a little girl, I was always in motion. I was constantly involved in sports. I still love to be very active and recently completed my second marathon. For me, staying active is just part of life. I have learned how important it is in relieving stress and how much it helps me to stay healthy and in shape.

We all realize that not everyone is active. Over the past three decades, the childhood obesity rate has more than doubled for preschool children aged 2-5 years. When I visit child care centers, one of the most prominent requests I get is for new, fun, active play items. The GET UP AND GO DICE® (GODICE) are perfect for sneaking in active play while teaching at the same time. The dice promote healthy physical movement along with enhancing gross motor skills. They also help to reinforce language, math awareness and social skills. The GET UP AND GO DICE® can be used for inside or outside activities. The students love to see their teachers get up and move!

One of the coolest things about the GET UP AND GO DICE® is that they include 10 blank cards which allow teachers and students to be creative. The blank cards can be personalized with fun and unique challenges, like “act like a monkey” or “fly like an airplane.” What other activities or movements can you think of? The dice come with a handy activity guide that includes even more fun ideas. When children learn to move while they learn, we hope that it becomes “just part of life” for them. That’s a WIN-WIN situation for everyone.

Check out our video for more information!

Table Top Easel Pad Makes Art Time a Breeze!

Regina Eardley, Discount School Supply Account Manager for Southern Texas, has been working with children and art for more than 15 years. Previously, she owned and operated a KidzArt® franchise serving hundreds of students in the private and public sector. She is TEA certified in Art K-12, ESL, Generalist 4-8, ELA 8-12, and Journalism 8-12 and taught middle school through the public schools. Additionally, she holds certifications in both One Stroke decorative painting and faux finishing for Walls & Furniture. She has a passion for color, pattern and texture and delights in using imagination and creativity to stimulate the senses of young children.

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Do you remember paint days at school when you were a child? One of my earliest memories is standing at an easel, paintbrush in hand, letting my imagination run across the paper in front of me and getting carried away by the colors. I like to recreate that experience for my students, but I have not always been fortunate enough to have enough workstations. When I came across the Go Craft® Self-Stick Table Top Easel Pad (TEASEPAD) I was thrilled. It is a very affordable, portable easel pad with wonderful rubber feet on the base, so it won’t slide or move around.

Storage can be a problem in the classroom, but because this easel pad collapses onto itself and closes with hook and loop tape, you can easily store several in a closet. It is perfect if you want to take the class outdoors for inspiration. One of my favorite features about this product is that it comes with 25 16x15" sheets of high-quality paper. What is even better is that the sheets tear off and have a self-stick adhesive on one end so you can place a sheet on the opposite side of the easel and -- ta-da! -- you’ve created a two-person work area!

Using the Go Craft® Table Top Easel (TEASEPAD) gives me an opportunity to let students explore Colorations® Liquid Watercolor, BioColor® and other great paint mediums available from Discount School Supply. It is also a perfect teaching tool for me as an instructor when I demonstrate a technique. I love the flexibility I have to tear the sheets off as I go and stick them to the walls around the group. Students love going on “gallery walks” through the classroom and seeing their artwork displayed.

See the easel in action by watching this video!

If you have a limited budget but want to create economical workstations, this is the way to go. For less than $20 each you can have an area that will accommodate two children at a time without taking up a lot of classroom space. Give your students the opportunity to make memories and let them use their imagination to explore art mediums with the Go Craft® Table Top Easel (TEASEPAD). And don’t forget there are plenty of activities at our Free Activity Library – just visit www.discountschoolsupply.com!

Tactile Discovery with Moon Sand®!!

Hello, my name is Sara Strand, and I’m an Administrative Assistant for the Merchandising department here at Discount School Supply. I help our buyers as they select new products for the catalog and develop new items for our customers.

Of all the cool things I’ve gotten to play with in my job (Wait, did I say play? I meant work…), Moon Sand® (MOON20) has got to be one of the most unusual. This specially-coated sand is designed specifically to provide endless opportunities to mold and sculpt. Moon Sand® feels like wet beach sand, but molds beautifully. Plus, it’s just really fun to squish!

Moon Sand® can also be baked to create hardened sculptures. If little ones want to preserve their sandy masterpieces, it’s easy—baking at a low temperature causes the Moon Sand® to harden. But, here’s the best part: when you’re ready to start reusing the sand, just reheat it, and it goes right back to its original, moldable form. In other words, it’s an art supply you can actually reuse over and over.

I am always looking for fun ways to incorporate early literacy activities into play, and Moon Sand® is perfect for this! Kids can practice letter recognition in a no-pressure, tactile way by drawing letters in the sand, using letter molds, and starting over again and again. The super-sensory experience gives a great incentive for kids to play and learn in a hands-on way.

I also love the opportunities for children to practice their narrative skills using Moon Sand®, because it is completely open-ended. This material can become anything a child can imagine! Have a child or group of children use Moon Sand® to tell a story, shaping objects in the story, crumbling and recreating as they go. Or, have the children describe to you what they’re doing as they explore the cause-and-effect relationships of molding, packing, crumbling, squishing, rubbing, and pressing.

Moon Sand® doesn’t require any special tools or maintenance. My favorite way to play with Moon Sand® is in a large tray, which minimizes clean-up.. Another great option is to spread a plastic sheet on the ground in your play area and let kids play to their hearts’ content. When they’re done, just gather the corners of the plastic and funnel the sand back into your container of choice. Or you may prefer to just wrap the Moon Sand® in the plastic sheet and place the whole bundle in a container, ready to go for the next time.

See how versatile Moon Sand® is in this video:

If you’re looking for something tactile, creative, open-ended, and incredibly fun to use, I highly recommend Moon Sand®, available in a variety of sizes and colors through Discount School Supply.

3-D Magna Tiles Have Many Uses!

My name is Rebecca Patterson and I am one of the buyers in the Merchandising Department at Discount School Supply. One of the categories that I manage is Manipulatives. My favorite product by far in this category is the 3-D Magna-Tiles® (MAGNA100). 3-D Magna-Tiles® is a favorite for use in designs, building and imaginative play.

You may not believe this, but 3-D Magna-Tiles® were inspired by the ancient Greek philosopher and mathematician Pythagoras of Samos (560 – 480 BC), who was responsible for many important discoveries in mathematics. It was his belief that the entire world could be better understood through a greater understanding and appreciation of the relationships among numbers. Pythagoras may never have envisioned Magna-Tiles®, but they offer a wonderful way to explore many of those complex relationships he felt were important. Whether through directed instruction and guidance, or through open-ended creative play, Magna-Tiles® allow young minds to experience and understand basic math and science and yet to still have fun!

Magna-Tiles® are unique magnets that attract on all sides, even when flipped around. Children needn’t worry about poles as they build with these magnets. Children will learn through interactive play about geometric shapes, symmetry and other basic math concepts with these colorful pieces.

Other activities and skills that can be explored are stacking, splitting stacks to work with halves, matching shapes, observing symmetry, covering larges shapes with smaller shapes, creating enclosed shapes and observing angle relationships.

You can also use Magna-Tiles® to explore magnetic attraction with other metal items such as paper clips, silverware, metal file cabinets, refrigerators, car doors, etc.

By far, this is one purchase that you will be glad to have as a teaching tool in your classroom!

Check this video out for more information!

Refillable Window Blocks Are Diverse!

Hi, my name is Nancy Maycroft and I live in Cary, IL. I work for Discount School Supply as a Sales Consultant for the state of IL.

I love thinking up new ideas for the Refillable Window Blocks (FILL). They are well constructed and the screws make it safe so that the children cannot open the blocks. The set is made up of large blocks consisting of four triangles, four rectangles, and four squares. The corners are all rounded for toddler safety. They are large enough that it is easy to fill them. These are a great add-on to any large unit block set.

Refillable Window Blocks can be used in many ways. They can be used to store and protect things that are fragile. Children can still observe items front and back without crushing or breaking them, such as dead insects and fragile flowers. This makes them a great asset to the Science Center. They are wonderful for theme days, such as color days, holidays and beach days. This product inspires the imagination of both teachers and children!

But Refillable Window Blocks can really be used in every aspect of learning, such as the Science Center I mentioned earlier. Another great area of use is the Nutrition Center. The refillable blocks can be filled with rice, pasta, beans and any other dry good you would like to show -- all without the chance of spilling! You can also use the Refillable Blocks to store art products like feathers, beads, sequins, or foam shapes. Or use them in the Social Studies section for dioramas. Your Math Centers will come alive when you use refillable blocks and fill them with items used for counting. Have fun! The possibilities are endless!

Check out this video!

Delightful Pat Bells

I’m Genie, one of the Sales Directors here at Discount School Supply. I taught school for nine years, as well as having taught music and movement classes. Music is one of my favorite areas in the curriculum, and I love the Pat Bells.

The first time I saw the Pat Bells (AP8090J) in the Discount School Supply catalog, I realized that some teachers might find the cost a little more than expected. However, I ordered them and I played with them, and I was just delighted. I realized I had made an investment for life.

Pat Bells are of very high quality; they have perfect pitch; and, with very little effort, they create a beautiful tone. Teachers, parents and children will all enjoy playing songs using the eight notes in the major scale. Each bell is a different color, and the set comes with a color-coded song book. If one child creates a song by color, another child can play it back by matching the color order. These wonderful Pat Bells come in a beautiful box and will be a special treat and treasure for your early childhood classroom.

Watch the video below for more information!

Rock On!

My daughter’s very first cradle had rockers that allowed side to side rocking, and that gentle rocking motion helped to soothe her quickly in those first days after we brought her home from the hospital. To this day, when I hold an infant in my arms, I find myself swaying, unconsciously and oh-so gently, from side to side. I suspect I am not the only one who moves this way with a babe in arms; it is soothing for both the swayer and swayee!

I am Julie Fraser, buyer for the Special Needs category at Discount School Supply. One of my favorite items in the Special Needs collection is the Body Rocker (AP93211J). Rocking is a wonderful way to soothe children when outside stimulus becomes overwhelming. A back-and-forth rocking chair or a swing are the items that first come to mind to provide this soothing motion, but both can be impractical in a classroom setting. At 36” long and 23 ¼” wide, the vinyl-covered foam Body Rocker takes up far less space than a swing, and with no rockers to pinch indiscriminately placed fingers and hands, does not pose the hazard of a standard rocking chair. Plus, the Body Rocker’s unique design allows full-body rocking in a cushioned, laying position, or upright rocking in forward and back or lateral motions, all while exercising a child’s sense of balance.

Numerous researchers, such as the late A. Jean Ayres, Ph.D., and Lindsey Biel, OCR/L, presenter and co-author of Raising a Sensory Smart Child, suggest incorporating rockers into a child’s environment for the calming benefits of the rocking motion. While they suggest rocking be an integral part of sensory therapy for children with special needs, all children may benefit from this soothing motion when life around them gets too hectic. The same is true for many of the other sensory products we offer in the Special Needs section at Discount School Supply. I invite you to consider how the Tactile Air Cushion (AP9531J), the Classroom Light Filters (AP92301J), or the Senso-Dot Balls (AP15174J) (among others) might help soothe the children in your life as they go about the very important work of learning!

You can watch a video about the Body Rocker here:

Colorations® IncredibleFoam® Dough Boat Races - Perfect for Summer Campers

My name is Adriane Simmons, and I am the NY Account Manager for Discount School Supply. I am also a NYS Certified Art Teacher, and I always use Discount School Supply Colorations® Art Products when I conduct Art Workshops for Early Childhood Associations and Schools.

I love creating and playing with Colorations® IncredibleFoam® Dough (FOAMMIX). It has such a nice texture…its not too hard or soft. It is just right. Also, it isn’t too sticky or gooey…I don't like a product that sticks to my hands so that I cannot easily remove it. Colorations® IncredibleFoam® Dough comes in such upbeat colors…I LOVE the bright pink, blue, and orange.

Colorations® IncredibleFoam® Dough is great for open-ended art projects. An activitiy I like to conduct with children is teaching them about abstract art. I explain a little bit about the definition of abstract art, about artists who create abstract paintings and sculptures, and I show examples of abstract art. Afterward, the children get to create their own free-form abstract sculptures with the Colorations® IncredibleFoam® Dough. You can also incorporate found objects, such as buttons, rhinestones, feathers, and mosaic pieces into this sculpture. The kids have a great time creating their work of art.

Colorations® IncredibleFoam® Dough is an especially wonderful product to use at summer camps. For one project, all you need is Foam Dough, Paper Fans (FANS), Medals (MEDALS), and a variety of art products to decorate the fans and medals. First, have the campers decorate both the fans and medals. Since the Foam Dough floats, you can have the children create fantasy boats. Once their boats are completed, fill up a water table, or use a kiddie pool, and the children can have boat races. If there is no wind, the campers can use their paper fans to sail their boats across the pool. When the race is over, the winner gets a medal! You can split the children up in teams, or they can race individually. However you conduct this activity, it will be fun for all!

Check out this video for more information about Colorations® IncredibleFoam® Dough! You'll see just how fun it is!

Decorate Your Own Duffel Bags!

My name is Lydia Wilson and I work in the Sales Department as the Bid Manager for Discount School Supply in Monterey, California. I am always excited to hear from customers who love our products and even more excited when someone in my immediate circle of friends and family loves DSS products.

I recently purchased some Fluorescent BioColor® paints (FBIO16), Colorations® Fabric Markers (FABCLR) and the Canvas Duffel Bags (DUFFEL) for my niece, Denise. She recently joined the color guard at her school and used the duffel bags I sent her to design a bag for each girl on her team.
Denise and her best friend, Krista, wrote me to say thank you but I also wanted to share their comments with you about our products in their own words. “Krista and I really liked using the paints. They worked very well and are easy to use. The fabric markers were awesome because they really show up in the design and don’t bleed all over. Without the markers, our bags wouldn’t be as cool as they are now. Here is an example of the awesome fabric marker/paint combo. We used the bags you sent us and made a two-sided design adding our own flair.” Denise said that the bag is the perfect size to put a few needed things in when they travel for color guard competitions.

I hope that you will take the time and view our website at www.DiscountSchoolSupply.com to see all the great products we offer and our great prices. 

Get Ready for Kindergarten!

Hello, my name is Joey Cassidy and I am a Direct and Database Marketing Manager here at Discount School Supply. It is my job to manage the production and circulation of our catalogs. I also manage our marketing database to help us better understand our customers and to develop methods to serve them most effectively.

My daughter will be starting Kindergarten this fall and she is so excited! My wife and I want to make sure she is fully prepared to begin Kindergarten at her new school, but until now, we have not been certain how to find out about exactly what she should know or how we could help her. But now Discount School Supply has a brand new item that I am really excited about, and I’m certain my daughter will be, too.

Our new Kindergarten Readiness Kit (KINDERKIT) is the perfect solution to help her get ready for Kindergarten! It has everything from Colorations® crayons to Unifix® cubes to cute, colorful puppets. The kit even includes full-color activity cards in both English and Spanish that are packed with activities developed by experienced teachers – but fully explained for our family to use. We can help my daughter to develop her language, literacy, science, mathematics, social/emotional, and art skills, all while having fun with this terrific product.

She’ll be able to enjoy her Kindergarten Readiness Kit in the summer months before Kindergarten starts, and we will be able to help her make a successful transition from preschool to Kindergarten. All of the supplies come together in a durable, clear backpack that she’ll be excited to carry to school on her first day. I’ve already seen this great item at our office, and this is a great deal at $29.99! I can’t wait to order it for her!

If you know a child in preschool who’ll be heading to Kindergarten this fall, I hope you’ll look at the Kindergarten Readiness Kit from Discount School Supply.

Earth Day Crafting

Hi my name is Tiffany Harbrecht and I am a copywriter/marketing coordinator at Discount School Supply. One of the many hats that I wear in my job is to manage the Free Activities page on the Discount School Supply Web site (http://www.discountschoolsupply.com). I am delighted to provide teachers and parents with free resources and activity ideas to share with children.

With Earth Day and Easter both in April this month, there have been lots of opportunities for fun seasonal crafts! One of my favorite environmentally-friendly activities that we received this year is a recent craft, Eco-Friendly Pencil Cups. It is quick, easy, practical and FUN! There are plenty of materials that can be repurposed from home to make this simple craft and it provides a great opportunity to discuss how each of us can take care of the environment. The pencil cups also make thoughtful gifts for loved ones.

Earth Day also inspires me to do some nature-inspired crafting as well. I like to walk around my neighborhood or go on a nature hike and gather small pebbles, flowers, pine cones, leaves and other items to use for a nature collage. If you have the time to take the kids on a hike or walk in your area, have them create their own nature-inspired collage or draw pictures of the trees, flowers, insects or animals they see using natural recycled drawing paper and our environmentally friendly colored pencils.

At Discount School Supply, we share your commitment to the future of children, and that includes doing our part to help our planet stay beautiful for future generations. Visit http://www.discountschoolsupply.com and check out Our Environment page for more information on our eco-friendly products, eco-tips, fun environmentally-friendly activities and more!

New Crib Video!

Hello, my name is Michael Tsuchiura, and I am a Quality Assurance (QA) Specialist here at Discount School Supply. Our goal is to improve our products so that they meet our customers’ expectations while ensuring that they also meet state and federal safety regulations. In previous posts (here and here), I have written about the new crib regulations from the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). I was happy to tell you that the Angeles cribs we have in stock now meet the new standards.

But are you still confused about the new crib regulations? We’ve got a solution. I want to introduce you to a great new video created to help make crib regulations easier to understand. Our new video outlines many of the details covered in my previous posts, as well as additional information on the compliant Angeles crib models. You’ll learn more about the some of the changes in crib design required by the new regulations. You’ll see the Angeles Compact Adjustable Crib (DC203, DC204, and DC207), the standard in quality and affordability, as well as the new Angeles Compact Drop-Gate Crib (DC221, DC222, and DC226), designed for easy access. Simply squeeze the two triggers to retract the locking pins and the gate folds right down. With the gate lowered, it is easier to access a child in the crib with less reaching and extending for the caregiver.

We hope you find this information helpful in deciding which style of crib will meet your needs. Remember, cribs in your child care center or program may need to be replaced. So choose an Angeles Compact Adjustable Crib (DC203, DC204 and DC207) or an Angeles Compact Drop-Gate Crib (DC221, DC222, and DC226). The video is an easy and informative way to determine which one is right for you. Knowing that both styles comply with the new regulations let’s you buy with confidence. I hope you’ll take the time to visit the link, and even better, to send it to your friends and colleagues. If you just can’t find the time to read through new regulations, or maybe don’t even know where to find them, you can obtain crib information in this convenient two-minute video. Have you replaced your cribs yet?