Having the right supplies in your classroom and for your students is another key to starting the school year off right.  In my state, we’re not allowed to require students to bring items on a supply list.  Our districts and schools must provide all needed supplies.  We can, however, offer for parents to donate supplies as they desire.  I know that many other places do require students to bring supplies from a list often given at registration or back to school nights.  Not only do you need to think about the supplies for students, but the supplies for yourself as well.  Here are some supplies I have loved.  I have a list for teachers and one for students/families.  Your freebie for today is several framed pages perfect for writing a supply list.  Be sure to hand out the student list to your parents.

Back to School Supply Border Pages Freebie

For you, the teacher:

A personal laminator.  Once I got a laminator, I couldn’t imagine how I ever got along without it.  I use it several times a year to laminate student projects as soon as they are done.  This preserves them and gives me peace of mind about hanging them in the main hallway to share with the school.  There were also several times I laminated things last minute during a planning time or recess to be ready for lessons.  With a personal laminator, I didn’t have to wait to take it somewhere or for the secretary to get around to it.  Pouches really aren’t as pricey as you might think; around $13-15 for a box of 100.  Here’s some links to the laminator I have and a great place to get pouches:

Laminator.com Buy 2 Get 1 Free

A good stock of colorful pens, hi-lighters and sticky notes.  These are all things that are important things to have on hand for many different tasks.  Sticky notes of all sizes are very useful.  I even found a use for them as graphing tools.  I laminated the small size notes(with my laminator above) and put small return address labels that I had printed with the students’ names on the notes and put a Velcro button on the back.  I didn’t have to cut and the lamination protected them and made the strong enough for students to use over and over.  There of lots of other uses I’m constantly discovering for sticky notes.

A Personal Stash. This little stash should include things like snacks, cough drops, fast flat shoes, an extra jacket and an umbrella.  I also keep some E-mergenC packets and Crystal Light on hand.  Two water bottles as well, so you can switch them easily for cleaning.  Keep some pain reliever and cold medicine in a secure place, like a drawer or cupboard that locks. You’ll find that there will be several other things you might like to have to keep you organized.  Some of these items include:

• Clipboards
• Small cups for keeping pens, pencils and markers organized
• Baskets of varying sizes
• Magnet strips with sticky adhesive
• Velcro buttons with adhesive backs
• 3M Command Hooks (I love these!)
• Leftover grocery store plastic bags (I keep these on hand for the two or three students who never have a backpack)

Now for students:

• Pencil Boxes, I am strict about all supply items needing to fit in the pencil box and be kept there.  Sometimes things trickle to school from home throughout the year and the box starts to overflow.  This rule helps me keep their boxes in check.  I do love for each student to have a box with a snapping lid.
• Pencil sharpener with lid
• Pencils
• Crayons (I like to limit it to the box of 24)
• Colored Pencils
• Scissors (insist on blunt nose for primary grade students)
• Pens (I know some teachers use only pen in their classroom.  This solves several problems.  Students are not wasting time sharpening pencils, expensive sharpeners don’t get broken, shavings are not all over the floor, and you can see the child’s thinking as they are unable to erase.  If you go this route, you may want to have pencils on hand for some things you’ll want students to be able to erase.)
• Backpack
• Waterbottle (If students are allowed to have them at their desks or in a cubby during the day)
• The large pink erasers
• Markers
• Hi-lighters
• Glue

Finally, think about how all the supplies will be organized.  Here are some questions to ask yourself about organizing the supplies: What will students keep in their desks?  Will students have a pencil box, a plastic zip bag or a pencil pouch to keep items in their desk?  What supplies will be kept in a central location and used as a community?  How will you manage students getting these supplies?  For the supplies that will be used as a community, I note that on the supply list so parents are surprised when their child tells them their glue stick was taken and put in a bucket.

I usually keep my glue and markers in a central location because I want to control the use of those.  Most other items students keep in their desks in their pencil boxes. What are some of your must have supply items?  How do you organize them?  Be sure to link up below and hop to the other posts about school supplies.