I keep a classroom wish list on Amazon. 

I started it a few Christmases ago, when I received one coffee mug too many, filled with Hershey's Kisses. The idea is that if parents or students feel the need to give me something, they have a list of things that we could really use in my classroom - everything from books to batteries to plastic spoons. I also include the link to this wish list in the letter my colleagues and I send to parents at the beginning of the year, when we send out a request of classroom supplies.

One of the items on this year's list was a reprinted edition of the 1897 Sears Roebuck Catalog.

I've done a lesson on this catalog for several years, but I've always wanted enough copies for my students to be able to play around with it. So, I made a note on my wish list, that it would be nice if, over the next several years, I could gradually build up a classroom set of these catalogs.

On the second week of school, I found a giant cardboard carton outside my classroom door. When I opened it, I found that the parents of one of my students had actually bought us fifteen copies of the catalog.

Which left me in the position of having to figure out what to do with them. (Did I mention that the mother is on the School Board?)