As I’m purging our school room and prepping for next year, I realized we use a handful of supplies on a regular basis in our homeschool that might not be on a typical school supply list! Here they are:
Timers – we have several cheap timers! Kids use them for required reading minutes & handwriting time on their daily lists. Sometimes we time music practice or play a “see how long it takes you to do XYZ” game.
Pacon spiral composition paper notebooks – this is what my younger kids do all their copywork or writing work in. I use blue for 1st-2nd and red for kinder.
Dry Erase Pockets – I bought a large pack and we’ve used them for all kinds of things over the years! Independent lists, tracing, map work, toddler entertainment. You can even put a blank page in and use it in place of a personal size dry erase board.
Thin tip dry erase markers – These are the ones I’ve used for the above! I like that they are magnetic and have an eraser.
Daily message board – This can be any sort of dry erase or chalk board you can communicate on in a central location. With so many people in our house, it’s SO helpful to have a place where I can write the daily plan! This has saved me from answering the “what’s going on today?” question 10 times each morning. (Each kid used to ask twice.) I write out the plan & if there are any extra tasks kids have to complete besides what’s on their regular school lists. Also, this is how my 1st grader is learning to write the date. I write it in different formats and have him copy it sometimes. I think my wood-framed one is from Target a long time ago. There are always a few cute framed ones at Target, Walmart, or Homegoods.
A ream of paper or 2, or 3, or 10 – we go through so much blank paper! Printing, drawing, doodling, copying, scratch work, cutting to shreds, paper airplanes, origami, whatever. The cheapest I’ve found is a box of 8 on Amazon.
Page protectors – We save a few pieces of school work & art year each year for each kid in a binder. We put these in a binder in page protectors.
Post it tabs – I use them for every single book to mark the page we left off on! I never plan out how much of a resource we’ll do in a given week or month… we just keep going and turn the page and mark where we left off with the post it. If I have multiple kids working in a book, I write their names on the tab. Gotta go name brand on these or the stickiness wears off.
Real dollars and coins – Kids love playing with and working with real cash money. Don’t get the play stuff. Get some sort of recycled container or fun organizing box for the real deal… I just got some rolls of coins from the bank years ago! I usually play store with my resident 5-8 year old once a year to help them get the hang of it. 🫠 It’s not my favorite way to spend 30 minutes, but it’s an extremely cute activity and they love it! We use it for math lessons or whenever money questions come up in life too.
Part part whole mat – this is the key to kids understanding the relationship between addition & subtraction. Here’s a crappy quality youtube video I made to help you know how to use it!
Click here to download a pdf part part whole mat!
Water color trays – These are the best beginning water color trays – they last forever & have lots of great, vibrant colors. This is a good brush kit if you want more sizes than the standard one that’s included with the tray.
Water color paper – We love these individual water color notebooks. I buy bigger water color paper in bulk too.
Laundry baskets – My kids do their own laundry. When I announced everyone was going to do their own, we went to HomeGoods and each kid picked a basket. This was when they were young enough for me to pretend like this was a fun outing, but hey, it’s never too late.
They each keep their own laundry basket in their room near their clothes. When it’s full or they run out of something they want, they bring it to the washing machine and start it themselves.
No sorting by lights/ darks! We use powder detergent so it’s easy for them to do a scoop with less mess than they huge, heavy liquid detergent bottles. I usually end up switching it to the dryer for them when I hear it end. Then they take it back up and put it away. They can fold or not – their choice. This has lessened my laundry load so much, that as a mom of 5, I feel like it’s a homeschool essential. Haha! Take it or leave it but if you want less laundry next year, get your kids their own basket this summer & teach them to do their own laundry!
He started helping with his when he was 3.5 because he felt left out that the bigger kids had their own laundry to do. The novelty has since worn off but the habit has stuck!
