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These are the basic supplies that help students get and stay organized.
One 3-ring binder
You need this! Just one binder is needed to hold papers for all of your classes. Yes, you need this. Yes, one binder for ALL OF YOUR CLASSES.
One package of divider tabs
I’m including a pack of 6 here because many families have more than one child and divider tabs tend to get bent and dirty after 6-12 months and may need to be replaced. Students need as many tabs as they have classes, plus one more.
Magic Rub Erasers
You want an eraser that removes as much pencil and has the least amount of eraser bits that come off on the page. You want to have multiple around so you can find one when you need it. Like your Apple TV remote, they’re tiny and can be misplaced. We have them on our dining room table, in the kitchen junk drawer, the office desk drawer— anywhere our golden retriever Teddy won’t eat them! Great mathematicians don’t always get their solutions right the first time but they’re prolific editors. Plus, we’re very, very neat and tidy! A great math student erases completely, brushes away eraser pieces, then rewrites with their best work.
Mechanical pencils
Mechanical pencils used to scare me each and every time the lead popped off the tip and disrupted my flow of writing. If you’ve used one, you know what I mean. But! A student happened to leave a mechanical pencil behind at the end of her lesson, I used it for a week, and…I was a mechanical pencil convert! This style and brand of mechanical pencil writes smoothly, not too dark, not too light, doesn’t break easily, and keeps a sharp tip.
A calculator or two
If your child is in grades PK to 3, likely the TI-108 or any solar powered, basic calculator is for you. Students of this age need the four basic math operations — add, subtract, multiply, and divide — on their calculators. Basic calculators will also take square roots of numbers. I include this calculator here because students may decide to keep this in their pencil case instead of the larger TI-30X if they are not yet in Geometry or Algebra II/Trigonometry. A student could get by with just this calculator through Algebra I.
The big takeaway: I recommend this calculator for up to grade 3 or anyone dealing with a single math operation on unwieldy numbers who doesn’t want the bulk of a TI-30X in their pencil case. It’s mostly used for fun, games, and double-checking, not for leading students to solutions.
Calculators are fun but my advice when asked “when should I/my child use a calculator?” is “only on these three occasions:
1. The problem says ’round to the nearest….’. This indicates you’ll have an unruly decimal not worthy of the investment of your mental energy.
2. You need to perform a math operation on obviously gruesome numbers; something like 4315 x 6789.
3. The problem says to find the sine, cosine, or tangent of a number, but only if all other methods fail. Don’t input sin π on your calculator. That one you can figure out using a much quicker method!”
If you want to add points directly to your ACT or SAT score, start doing mental math to solve – and double check – your math problems. Calculators can be important and useful tools, but they can also be used as a crutch that leads your math skills to be weakened if you use it when it’s not needed.
A protractor set
Is your child taking Algebra or Geometry this year? A very simple protractor set is the way to go. Geometry students aren’t the only ones to use protractors so getting this set as a 6th grader is a good idea. Algebra can include measuring angles then finding a missing value x. Your teacher will tell you when you need this so leave it at home until you need to bring it to school and keep it where you can find it.
A pencil case you love
I usually go simple, with color. Eyes on my pencil case creep me out but if you’d like a plush unicorn cat, milk carton or monster case, you go for it! I’m not a believer in the pencil case that clips into the 3-ring binder because it can make my papers crumpled, but I’ve seen students who pull this off without messing up their papers. Look left and right when you’re sitting in class and sneak a peek at the clever cases your classmates have chosen. I like the kind that fit in the small compartment of my backpack.
Spanish Workbooks that Work
French Workbooks and Recommended Series
Computers for Elementary, Middle, and High Schoolers
These Chromebooks are awesome. Kids these days. They have all the cool stuff.
I recommend everyone have a daily writing practice and, in particular, a daily journal. Here are some examples of great memoir writing that developed from writers who wrote, and wrote, and wrote, and wrote. And then they wrote some more.
If you want to improve your writing, write. If you want to improve your writing, read. Here are some books to get you started, or to add to your repertoire.
Math Books and Games
Harold Jacobs wrote a wonderful book on math called Mathematics: A Human Endeavor. You can read it and work through the problems more like a chapter book than a textbook. It’s worth a peak, especially for your kids ages 12 and up who may want to learn some math on their own.
Peaceable Kingdom makes cooperative games that are so. much. fun. And they have sneaky ways of getting kids to learn. The games we play as kids help build associations that make learning easier as we get older. These games are ripe with skills that build and build to make great mathematicians.
Rummikub. My grandma and I played hours upon hours of this game. Give it a try if you haven’t already played.
ACT/SAT Workbooks
These can be a BORE to work through alone. Need a friend who LOOOOVES to work on ACT/SAT problems? That friend can be me! Schedule a private tutoring session by choosing a time HERE and we’ll work through your workbook together. I love to see students get their highest possible scores on the ACT and SAT!
And…shoes for track students!
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