Our Favorite Homeschool School Supplies
Did we become homeschoolers just so we have an excuse to buy all the school supplies? Shhh.
Never underestimate the allure of shiny new school supplies. I don’t care if you’re an unschooler, a high school homeschooler, or just a mom standing in front of a back-to-school notebook display, there is something about school supplies that just speaks to the heart of the human experience. Too much? OK, maybe so, but school supplies are pretty magical, and these are the ones making our homeschool especially happy this back-to-school season.
Document Holders with Snap Covers
If you use my super-painless homeschool organization system, you already know that envelope organizers are a secular homeschool mom’s best friend. These have the added bonus of being pretty!
File Folders
I use file folders to organize weekly readings, keep track of writing drafts, trade work back-and-forth with my kids, and keep my fancy cardstock from getting crumpled at the corners. When the kids were little, I color-coded everything, including file folders, but now that they’re older, I opt for the prettiest folders I can find.
Binder Clips
Binder clips play an important role in my homeschool organization system, but they’re honestly just so handy. You can use them to clip together research or writing drafts, to keep folders from spilling their contents all over the place, to keep up with what you’ve done in your curriculum so far — if you always have a container of them on your shelf, you will be surprised by how often you reach for them.
Ellepi Klizia 97 Stapler
Truthfully, my Swingline is our homeschool old reliable stapler (I’ve had this one since our second year of homeschooling — I bought it when she was in 3rd grade, and it’s still going strong as she heads into her junior year of college), but I could not resist this one, which other people call “sleek” and “aesthetic,” but which I think looks like a paper-chomping dinosaur.
Braun BNE001BK
OK, confession time: I cannot use my kids’ graphing calculators without consulting an online tutorial these days. And while I know I can math anything up on my phone app, I really like having a calculator on my desk. So I bought this elegant little version (it’s in MoMA’s architecture and design collection), and it makes me very happy.
Basic Clipboards
This is my only homeschool design hack: Instead of hanging up posters, quotes, etc. on the walls of our homeschool space, I hang up a bunch of cheap clipboards with command strips. This makes it super-easy to show off awesome work; add new quotes, charts, and pictures; and make our homeschool space feel fresh and exciting without having to do a lot of work.
Full Adhesive Sticky Notes
These sticky notes are my new favorite thing — instead of one sticky strip across the top, the whole page is sticky, so they never curl up and fall off. If you, like me, tend to map out big projects on the wall with sticky notes or to use sticky notes to have silent conversations with your students, these are a game-changer in the best way.
To-Do List Sticky Notes
Now that my youngest is in high school, our productive times don’t overlap as neatly as they used to — I am up and going early in the morning, but they aren’t usually ready to dig into anything until after lunch. These sticky to-do lists help us navigate our different schedules — I’ll leave one on my kid’s notebook in the morning, and I’ll often wake up to one they’ve left on my computer. Obviously we could just use scratch paper, but these sticky pads are so cute.
Sticky Tabs
Are you even homeschooling if you don’t have sticky tabs poking out the sides of half your library?
Zebra Midliners
I love highlighters, but I find their fluorescent brightness a little off-putting — so discovering these midliners a few years ago was amazing. I use them for annotations, for note-taking, for lecture prep — really, I use them all the time, including times where I don’t even need them, because I like how they look so much.
Time Timer MOD 60-Minute Visual Timer
A basic timer is such an underappreciated homeschool tool. After all, one of the great things about homeschooling is that we never have to be on the clock unless we want to. But timers can really be a great tool for homeschooling middle and high school — when kids are overwhelmed by a task, set a timer, and see what you can get done in 10 minutes or 15 minutes. The time limit takes some of the open-ended stress out. Set a timer for subjects where practice is important but annoying — 20 minutes of focused, concentrated math can feel manageable in a way that a less structured math class doesn’t. Timers can also make clean-up more collaborative — set your timer, and everyone pitches in to clean up the chemistry experiment or board game for however long.
Sharper Image Light Up Electronic Word Clock
Speaking of time management, Suzanne was skeptical when I bought this clock with words instead of numerals, but every single person who walks inside the Academy falls in love with it. It’s true, if you’re going for to-the-second precision, there are better options, but I’m going to keep insisting that you cannot beat this for a cool homeschool clock.
Anchor Pro under-desk headphone hanger
This is one of those gadgets that you didn’t know you needed and now can’t live without for us. My kid is very big into Outschool (our favorite teacher is Michael Schwartz if you have improv nerds, too!), so these next couple of school supplies are really gadgets that make our online workspace more comfortable. This little hook attaches underneath your table to hold your headphones when you’re not using them — so they’re never in the way, and you never have to spend the 10 minutes before class hunting for them.
Soundance Laptop Stand
Similar to the headphone holder above, this laptop stand makes online classes so much more comfortable. Who knew? I’m always reluctant to buy something that takes up desk space, but this has been totally worth it.
Bentgo Classic - All-in-One Stackable Bento Lunch Box Container
We seem to spend a lot of time NOT at home these days, and that means I have to think about lunch more than I would like. I’m a fan of this laidback little lunchbox — it’s big enough to satisfy a teenager’s appetite but still compact enough to travel easily. (And I really like that it comes with built-in utensils.)
Fjallraven Kanken Laptop Backpack
I’m including this because it’s the one thing my very un-acquisitive homeschooled teenager requested for not-back-to-school this year, and it turns out to be kind of an awesome bag for carrying around your laptop and a bunch of books.
Palomino Golden Bear #2 Pencil
I used to be Team Ticonderoga all the way, but they’ve slipped in recent years, I think. My favorite pencil these days is the Palomino Blackwing 602, but they’re a little spendy when you’re buying in bulk. So these are now my homeschool pencil of choice: the Palomino Golden Bear #2 Pencil. The erasers work well, the pencil lead is clear and dark, and they feel good in your hand.
Secular Homeschoolers Unite T-Shirt
Don’t test-drive a new park day without one! (But really, haven’t you always wished there was an easy way to identify your fellow secular homeschoolers in the wild?)
Prismacolor Premier Colored Pencils (72-Pack)
You probably don’t NEED a whole new box of colored pencils, but I always buy one this time of year anyway. (I bring the old ones to our art supply box at our homeschool group so they don’t get wasted and I can enjoy my new pencils guilt-free.) Don’t forget the Prismacolor Premier Pencil Sharpener!
Uni Jetstream Slim Multi-Color Pen
I love annotating — here’s how we do it — but sometimes hauling around a stack of colored pens is just inconvenient. Still, colored annotations can be really useful. This pen saves the day — it will remind you of those amazing four-color pens we used to own in middle school (you can still buy those!), but this version is slimmer and easier to write with. If you’re introducing annotating this year and want to make a little annotation supply kit for your teenager, definitely add this pen to it!
Le Pen 12-Color Set (Micro Fine Point)
These were my absolute favorite pens in middle and high school, and I still need a new pack every year. I use them for the increasingly complicated family calendar, but mostly I use them for writing letters to my best friend, who appreciates their multi-color magic. (I used to use them for my bullet journal, but I went digital this year! See below for details.)
Lamy Safari Fountain Pen
I really thought my kids would be fountain pen people, and it turns out neither of them are — but I am, so I definitely recommend at least giving your kids a chance to see if they, too, are nerdy fountain pen lovers. This is a lovely but not-too-expensive one to try out.
Pentel Fude Touch Sign Pen
You know how sometimes, with the right pen, everything you write just looks amazing? This is the right pen. (You can pick up some of this correction tape in case your gorgeous handwriting is so mesmerizing that you skip some letters. It’s a known risk.)
Yoobi Fuzzy Llama Pencil Pouch
You don’t need a pencil case, but don’t you kind of want this one? I do.
Midori MD Notebook
My teens both love these dot-gridded notebooks, which give enough writing guidance so that you can feel confident writing long paragraphs but not so much structure that you feel like there’s no room for doodles and charts. My kids are also averse to the writing texture of that super-smooth, shiny paper, and these notebooks have a nice “scratch” without feeling thin or cheap. We are apparently very picky about paper products over here!
Dotted notebook pack
I buy these in bulk and keep them everywhere — in my bag, in the car, at our homeschool group, in the kitchen, in the family room — really, everywhere. We use them all the time, for everything from keeping score in Munchkin to writing poetry to figuring out how to move the furniture around in the music room. We can never have too many.
iPad Mini
I recently (in January) made the switch from the paper bullet journal I have used for 12 years to an iPad bullet journal — and it took some adjustment, but I am loving it. I’ll do a big review when I’ve made it through a year, but if you’re on the fence, I recommend giving it a try. (I got this case because I still wanted it to feel like a notebook, and I opted for the mini size so I can just toss it in my bag like a notebook.) If you want to write in it (which is what I do — there was no way I was going to actually use a planner if I had to switch to typing everything), definitely get the paper screen protector.
Verilux HappyLight Touch Plus therapy lamp
It might be cheating to include this one since I haven’t used it yet, but it is the secular homeschool school supply I am most excited about this year. Winter always gives our homeschool a lingering case of the blues, and some of my friends have raved about this light therapy lamp.
