Free and Almost Free Resources

Thank you to new teacher Catherine Kuhn (and Gautam Jagannath) for putting together a fabulous list of free and almost free resources around the bay area.

East Bay Center for Creative Reuse: Paper, Ink, Stamps, cheap prizes, fabric, large paper, stickers, paint, Any and all art and craft supplies. 10% teacher discount
4695 Telegraph Avenue, Oakland
510.547.6470
open 11-6 EVERYDAY

Urban Ore: Salvage place with building supplies, tables, desks, lamps, tools, mirrors,
900 Murray St (San Pablo and Ashby)
Berkeley, CA 94710
Mon-Sat 8:30am- 7:00pm,
Sun 10:00am- 7:00pm

Children's Book Project: Free children's books! Up to 25 per person per day.
530 Lake Park Avenue
Oakland, CA 94610
(510) 238-2301 Ext. 1
Tuesday and Thursday 3-6 PM
Bring your own bag

Oakland or Berkeley freecycle: Will flood your inbox with emails but useful stuff is posted constantly (classroom plants, office supplies, other random stuff (like mini microscopes!). I got 100 binders from the Berkeley Alumni Association through freecycle. You can also post Wanted ads with mixed luck.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Berkeley_CA_Freecycle/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/oaklandfreecycle/

Craigslist Free Stuff: Another site you have to cruise for gems, but you can hit the occasional jackpot.
http://sfbay.craigslist.org/zip/

Tool Lending Library: Works with an Oakland public library card. 2700 tools for loan along with instructional materials + classes. Very cool -great place to get tools to build your giant classroom tree or any other zany idea you might have. Close to East Bay Center for Creative Reuse.

Temescal Tool Lending Library
http://www.oaklandlibrary.org/Branches/temtll.htm#programs
5205 Telegraph Ave
Oakland, CA 94609
Monday: 12:30-8
Tuesday: 10-5:30
Friday 12-5:30
Saturday: 10-5:30

other random stuff (like mini microscopes!). I got 100 binders from the Berkeley Alumni Association through freecycle. You can also post Wanted ads with mixed luck.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Berkeley_CA_Freecycle/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/oaklandfreecycle/

Craigslist Free Stuff: Another site you have to cruise for gems, but you can hit the occasional jackpot.
http://sfbay.craigslist.org/zip/

Tool Lending Library: Works with an Oakland public library card. 2700 tools for loan along with instructional materials + classes. Very cool -great place to get tools to build your giant classroom tree or any other zany idea you might have. Close to East Bay Center for Creative Reuse.

Temescal Tool Lending Library
http://www.oaklandlibrary.org/Branches/temtll.htm#programs
5205 Telegraph Ave
Oakland, CA 94609
Monday: 12:30-8
Tuesday: 10-5:30
Friday 12-5:30
Saturady: 10-5:30

Large reams of newsprint can sometimes be obtained from newspapers, who sometimes have the ends of rolls laying around.
http://freebies.about.com/od/teacherfreebies/Teacher_Freebies.htm
http://www.freakyfreddies.com/teacher.htm

Chain Discounts
Apple offers great teacher discounts on Mac products.
Rumor has it: Target, Verizon, Office Max, climbing gym on Ashby and San Pablo, and many other places offer Teacher Discounts

Free Fieldtrips
Save the Bay sponsors paddling field trips for low-income students; kids get to explore local rivers and learn about habitats, ecology, etc.
People's Grocery sometimes allows small groups of older kids to work on their farm at Sunol (nutrition, biology, careers, foodwebs, business); they have a great (paid!) internship program for West Oakland youth called Harvesting for Justice

Free Professional Development
Teach for Social Justice: Free conference in SF in October focused on community building, resource sharing, leadership, and effecting meaningful change.
Date: Saturday, October 11, 2008
Time: 09:00 AM - 05:00 PM
Location: San Francisco, CA

If you haven’t visited Annenberg Media, you’re missing out. Check out http://learner.org/ for on-line professional development.

Apply for grants for your classroom! http://www.donorschoose.org/

Make sure to let your students know that they are ALL entitled to a free computer and a printer if the do not already have one. The program in Oakland that sponsors this is OTX-West, affiliated with the Marcus Foster Institute. Students must attend a single class, but it's well worth it and they'll get a fairly decent desktop computer.

http://www.otxwest.org/thcp.html

CSET fee reimbursement(s) through New Teacher Support!

http://ntsd.ousd.k12.ca.us/HQTcompl.html

Finally, I wanted to remind you that OUSD has a Google Calendar entitled "Oakland Unified School District Calendar 2008-2009." If you use Google Calendar then this is a real boon, since you don't have to add the events in yourself.