I have reached that time, when I need to order or find the supplies that are going to be used this year. The last week before report day has arrived, and now, in the midst of such things as last minute weekend trips, binge watching one last TV show, and a check of curriculum supplement materials, it’s now or never for custom ordered school supplies.
Is this really the last chance to order school supplies?
Technically no, but if you don’t order them in the next 2 or 3 days you will be in danger of not having them on the first day of school. Actually, that’s not the worst thing that ever happened but the luxury of thinking about matters such as classroom theme may no longer be so easy once you’re worried about real kids. The only times I ever had a properly decorated classroom was when I started at least a week before report day.
What am I talking about? Well, borders and colored paper, if you’re going to order. Boxes and buckets. Shelves and files you’re going to want to have on your computer. Desktop organizers. There are different categories of materials and in particular different sources of materials, that I made up based on where they are purchased or collected. Your own plan may differ.
Things You Get form The Dollar Store, Walmart, Target
- Book boxes
- Desk supplies
- Plants
- Book shelves and storage systems.
- Floor lamps, chains of small lights
Things you get from the school supplies catalogue, like Teacher Created Resources or Really Good Stuff
- Bulletin board paper
- Bulletin board borders
- Name plates
- Die cut letters, shapes, and bulletin board materials.
- Decor such as paper flowers, paper fans, paper lanterns,
- Magnets of various types
- Pocket charts
- Lesson planners and record books
- Fancier and color coordinated book boxes, at a higher cost than the local store.
- Sentence strips
- Chairback pockets
Things I Find, Make at Home, or Generate on the Computer
- Tin cans wrapped in construction paper for either pencil cans or desk group garbage cans.
- Google Sheets File with nametags set up so you can put the kids names in there and print all year
- Google Sheets File formatted and ready for this year’s lesson plans.
- Naming plan for my Google docs and sheets this year. Mine will be Cassella 26-27 (name of what it is). Kept in my google drive at school. So: Cassella 26-27 Lesson Plans. Cassella 26-27 Name Tags.
- Centers that you build from your own ideas or things you find in the curriculum
- Old bookshelves, books, boxes
Things You Will Get from the Parents, so Plan Now How They Will Be Stored and Used
- Spiral notebooks
- Pencils
- Crayons
- Sharpeners
- Glue sticks
- Pencil boxes.
- Tissues
- Clorox Wipes
- Washable markers
Things the School Will Probably Provide that I Need to Store in the Classroom
- Pencil sharpener
- white paper
- lined paper
- last year’s pencils
- List of student names
Well, there you have it, my working list of the things one might want to buy or locate before the first day of school, as opposed to on the first day of school, when you could do all this, but you will have to do it during PD, and you know there’s a good chance that they will say “clamshell those computers this is important.”
Then if it is me, I will find myself compelled to obey, because my rebellion impulses are weak. So I better take care of this now, and the truth is, for the most part, I have, I just need to order a couple of lamps on the advice of one of my Facebook Teacher Friends.
If you have anything you think I should add to these lists, please feel free to comment I would love to hear from you.