Our School Supply List

This blog entry was meant to be posted when school started, but we’ve been very busy since then!  Anyway, here is my list of the school supplies we find indispensible.  These are things we stock up on because we use them regularly.

NOTE:  No one is compensating me for recommending these products.  I’m just listing what we like and use.

For the Kids

1.  Paper Mate Pink Pearl erasers—I’m pretty sure this is the same kind of eraser (rubber, for those of you outside North America) I used when I was in school in the 70s and 80s.  We’ve gone through a lot of erasers, and none compare to Pink Pearl, in my opinion.

2.  Pencils—Before this year, I would buy a pack of cheap, yellow #2 pencils for school.  Last summer, however, after reading at least 2 reviews for Ticonderoga pencils, I convinced myself I had to have some (see posts at Homeschool Creations and Confessions of a Homeschoolers).  The reviews were right, as far as I’m concerned.  These are the best pencils I’ve ever used, and my kids agree!  Our second choice of pencil is the more expensive Smencils (we have the Holiday Smencils).  We love the amazing scents and how well they write, but they’re a bit too expensive for us to purchase regularly.  They’d make great stocking stuffers or special prizes, though.

3.  Glue sticks—We go through glue sticks like crazy around here.  I don’t have a particular brand I recommend.  In my experience, we buy and try until we find one we like, and we stick with that (pardon the pun).  There are some rubbish glue sticks out there that don’t stick well and don’t last long.  At the moment, we’re using an Asda store brand, and it works fine for us.

4.  Dry-erase pens—This is another item we use daily, so I buy a LOT of them.  Not any dry-erase pen will do.  Some cheaper brands are horrid and not worth buying.  Either they barely show up, or they’re difficult to erase.  My personal favorites are Expo and SRX (links are for the actual pens we have).  I prefer fine-point pens for our school use.

5.  Construction paper—I don’t know what it is, but I prefer American construction paper over British (maybe I haven’t tried every brand, but I haven’t found any I like so far), so I stock up when we’re back home.  I buy multicolored packs of 9x12 as well as 12x18, as we regularly use both.  When someone wanted to send us a care package this past summer, I requested some packs of brown paper, too, since the multipacks I bought didn’t have brown.  While Isaac isn’t using construction paper as often now, the girls still use it a lot for various projects.

6.  Copy paper—We use this for printables as well as for notebooking and art.  Any store brand works for us.

7.  For Coloring--We have lots of crayons we been given over the years; however, our preference is Crayola Twistables. The girls each have a set, and they use them daily. In my opinion, they last longer and color better.

We also have a lot of colored pencils. Again, I think cheap brands are pretty worthless. Prismacolor is the best we’ve found, but they are expensive. Our favorite cheap store brand is Crayola.  For those of you in the UK, we also like WHSmith’s colored pencils. The tricky thing with the expensive pencils is finding a decent sharpener. If anyone has a recommendation, do tell!

Crayola brand markers have always worked well for us.  Cheap brands are blah.  Another favorite is Mr. Sketch, but that has a lot to do with nostalgia (I have very fond memories of using Mr. Sketch in the 70s) and the lovely, lovely scents (except the black licorice).  The downside is that they’re more expensive than they used to be.  I got my daughter some for her birthday last year, though.

8. Manila file folders—We mostly use these for lapbooks. We can’t find them in England, so I stock up in the US. Color file folders are nice, but we bought the cheaper, plain folders.

9.  Index/file cards—We use these for memory verses, vocabulary words, flash cards, and various projects.  We use lined, unlined, plain white, and colored.  We like variety!  The lined ones are great for writing, but plain cards are perfect for projects.

10.  Elmer’s glue—This is something else I stock up on in the US—it’s my favorite brand of school glue.  Stores in England don’t seem to carry it, but they do have it on Amazon here.  Although we mostly use glue sticks, we need the multipurpose glue for some of our projects.

Other general supplies we keep in stock:  Baby wipes, pencil-top erasers, spiral notebooks, highlighters,  notebook binders, page protectors, art pads, card stock, rulers, craft supplies, and scissors.  Most of these items we buy cheap wherever we can find them. 

For Mom

Here’s a quick list of school supplies I keep in stock for my own use or for projects the kids do:

1.  Post-it notes

2.  Staples

3.  Tape (all different sorts)

4.  Stickers

5.  Ziploc bags

6.  Paper clips

7.  Printer ink

8.  Permanent markers (Sharpie)

9.  Ballpoint pens (different colors)

10.  Blu-Tack

What “must-have” school supplies do you keep in stock?  What are your favorite brands?

School Room and First Day of School

We started school a bit later than everyone else because we live in England and normally go by their schedule…and 6 weeks just isn’t long enough for summer break!  So, we took 7.  Actually, I think 6 was enough for the kids.  For the past 2 weeks, they’ve been whining about being bored, and I thought, “We really need to start school!”  I was almost tempted to start it last week, but MOM needed one more week! 

Anyway, today was our first day of school!  In the past few weeks, I have rearranged our school room and did some needed organization (I function better when organized).  I’m desperate for a separate homeschool room (and I have my reasons, so don’t tell me how I don’t really need one since school can be done anywhere), BUT I have no choice…so our dining room has to share with the school room.  I’m actually quite pleased with my rearrangement, so here are the pictures of the room:  

First Day of School and School Room

I promised a few months ago that I would do a post on our school room; however, it took me quite a long time to get it organized!  Here it it…(finally)…

This is our dining room table/school table:

Our workbox station—Each child has 8 tubs.  On top is my tabletop pocket chart, Isaac’s science tub (for his weekly experiments), and other supplies.  Also pictured is our book rack and an extra bookcase.

My Parts of Speech bulletin board set and our British Isles and Europe maps:

Our spelling board for All About Spelling, our math door, and a shelf unit for Gabriela’s quiet play activities:

Bulletin board, calendar, pocket chart, USA map, and Periodic Table of Elements.  It’s taken me awhile to get used to the idea of our dining room doubling as our school room, but I’m just going with it this year and putting up more educational things!

     

Despite weeks of planning and a week delay in starting our school year (due to shipped books not arriving on time), I was not prepared for what happened the morning of school day #1.  Gabriela, who is beginning preschool this year (and very excited about it), woke up puking.  Not fun!  Poor baby, she spent the day watching movies and taking a nap.  She didn’t even get to eat the waffles Dad made for their Back-to-School breakfast.  Here are the kids on School Day #1:

 

One thing I did this year is prepare Back-to-School surprises for my kids.  They had no idea, and they were so excited when they saw what I had for them.  It really helped get us off to a good start (despite the fact that my baby girl was poorly).  Isaac and Moriah got Thinking Putty, and Gabriela got homemade scented play dough.  Also, I got some Smencils (scented pencils) for all 3 of the kids to use.  They absolutely loved their surprises!

Gabriela was still a bit puny this morning (day 2), but she’s doing so much better now that I’m confident she can do school with us tomorrow!