Lakeshore Learning Store

This place is unbelievably cool, hands down, no 2 ways about it. This is my first visit and I was totally enamored with the various teaching tools.
I have several friends that home school their kids & it gives me a new and different respect for them. When it comes to Birthdays, of course it is all about the child & what they want. Well the child I was shopping for isn’t into dolls or real games or what I would think a normal 8 year old girl would want, or would they.
I had such a blast in this store! I discovered word & number games, along with an entire host of other varieties of ways for kibs to have fun.
I finally settled on a paint set & had to add a blank canvass and sketch pad, to include pencils. Then, the other shoe dropped! What is an aspiring artist without an easel? Several hundred dollars latter, I was quite proud of my purchase & can’t wait for my first original «Sarah».
The staff was very helpful, courteous, friendly & knowledgeable about their stock.
I had a blast, I was the kid today & loved every second of the time! Check it out, but forget your adult mentality.
What’s a girl to do? Never forget the child that lies inside us!

Great place for teachers, but also an amazing place to purchase Christmas gifts for children. This is an amazing store.

Pretty much the only teacher store in the Tampa area, so I end up here every August to try to spruce up my classroom and get myself organized for another year. They have a Teacher’s Club that will send you discounts and coupons to help you save. Pricing is pretty much retail that is on the items, so you could probably do much better online, but it’s nice to be able to go peruse items and take them home with you.
They offer laminating services, and have a wide variety of products. You can get pocket charts, educational games, manipulatives, hands-​on science materials, writing materials, posters, charts, name tags, organizational bins and systems, reference books, fiction and nonfiction books, paint, puzzles, stuffed animals, etc.
Every Saturday morning they have crafts for the kids, which are totally free. If you leave nearby, this is worth a stop in. Parking can get a bit crazy with David’s Bridal next door, but the back of the McDonald’s parking lot is usually open and I’ve never had a problem parking there.

I’m not a teacher, but this seems like the place to shop if I were. Wow, what a selection. As a mother, I was pretty darn impressed.
You walk in and feel like you are in a warehouse for classroom set up. Everything is neat and orderly though, so you can easily go in the direction you need to find what you’re looking for.
There are math and science sections, baby toys, reading and writing sections, labels, reward charts, ton of teaching tools, and what I came in for, the laminating machine. One was broken, but the other was working with only a couple of us using it, which didn’t seem bad considering school just started.
This machine was so easy to use and made me want to laminate everything. My tip for first-​time users is to space out your pieces at least a centimeter or two, next to each other and going through the machine. I underestimated and had some overlap the first time.
Happy laminating.

I love this store! I am a high school teacher and the store is really geared towards elementary teachers, but they still have a lot of products that I can incorporate into my classroom. I love their selection of CDs & workbooks for foreign language (my subject area) and everything is just so cute. They have a lot of little knick knacks. I want to buy everything when I’m there. It’s also a great place to buy gifts for my little niece and nephew.

If you are a teacher then this place will likely fit your needs. My wife really enjoys this place a lot since she is a classroom teacher. I don’t get as much out of it because I teach art, but I still appreciate the variety of classroom materials, manipulatives, games, etc that they bestow upon their patrons. They have discounts sometimes but they could offer a bit more. Overall, a great place to grab some harder to find stuff.

This store gets my 3 star rating because it could be so much better. I love Lakeshore. They have great materials that almost any teacher could find useful. However, the store feels chaotic to me. It’s really packed and I feel like I end up doing laps around the store looking for what I need.
Most of the time, the staff is great. However, they need to step their game up during the back to school season. It’s completely out of control during this time. I waited in a line that went through the entire length of the store. If there was another teacher store option in Tampa, I would have left. There isn’t another option, so I’ll keep going back to Lakeshore when I need to, but I’m not super psyched about it.

I’m slightly exaggerating the awesomeness, but not by much. The customer service at this store is phenomenal. I had challenges with one of the laminators and they were super apologetic and gave me a discount (during teacher rush, nonetheless.) They have a wide variety of products, although I do wish there were more products aimed at middle school/​high school teachers. They carry Creative Teaching Press designer products (my faves! I don’t want to look at cheesy classroom décor.) They have an interactive white board in the store so you can test out some products. They offer activities for kids and have a solid selection of manipulatives and games.
Teacher tip: get the teacher club card and laminating is only $ 0.29/ft instead of $ 0.39 which is cheaper than Office Depot’s price.