PTO Today

We need to purchase some new balls, jump ropes and other little playground toys for one of our schools. I was wondering if any of you have suggestions for toys as well as companies that you like to purchase them from. Do we spend more for quality items or go cheep?
This is for 2nd and 3rd grade.
As always, thanks for your help!

When we used to buy supplies for elementary PE or playground games, we quickly found it was better to spend the extra on quality.

Cheap toys/balls just don't last with multiple classes playing with them all day/every day.

I don't remember the company - but our PE teacher always had catalogs that specialized in those type of supplies. And she would know which companies the school district might get a discount with. Eithe the company would extend the discount to the PTO or we'd run the purchase through the school.

Some of you bigger sporting good places have a team sports dept that can help you with this and different choices. We have orderd from school supply catalogs only to be very disappointed (a good quality for indoor play but awful once the balls went outside). We also found better quality jump ropes at a sporting goods store and the discount the manager offered us (we bought last season jump ropes- trust me, as crazy as that sounds a timeless item like jump ropes has a shelf life!) and were so happy with them.

And like JHB said, check with the "pros" the PE teachers! They get TONS of catalogs!!

I think the company we use is called Gopher. They send us a few catalogs a year. It is very high quality merchandise and we have never had any trouble with them.

__________________
The irony of commitment is that it’s deeply liberating-in work, in play, in love. The act frees you from the tyranny of your internal critic, from the fear that likes to dress itself up and parade around as rational hesitation. To commit is to remove your head as the barrier to your life. --Anne Morris

I shop at Target when I have the extra 10% off discount. I find if I shop carefully I can get a lot of items on sale. Plus by using my Target card the school gets money through thier incentive program. I can get very high quality items and can pick and choose so I can get footballs, basketballs, etc. of variuos sizes to meet the kids different size requirements.

try s & S worldwide at www.ssww.com

Thanks for all of your help with this. Now it seems that the school doesn't want our help with this. I'm getting the feeling they want us to just write them a check rather than purchase the equipment. Just another PTO headache!

When we used to buy things like this for the school, they often made the purchase/selection and themselves and we just "wrote the check". We were quite fine with that - less work for us and they got exactly what they wanted.

We always went into with a clear understanding that the PTO was providing X dollars for playground toys (or whatever) and they'd give us a copy of the receipt when it came in. Most importantly - our principal always gave us full credit for furnishing the supplies.

How the purchase was made was incidental,at least to us.

[ 03-14-2006, 01:33 PM: Message edited by: JHB ]

We had a specific dollar amount to spend and most of it went to a slide and rock wall. We had enough left that we could afford to purchase a few balls and jump ropes. Nothing major but shoot there is only 10 weeks of school left. The teacher involved emailed me today and said that since we didnt have the entire original amount to spend, she didnt want any money.
WHATEVER
We are getting a new Principal at that school next year and I hope that we can improve our parent-teacher relationship then.