43. Back to School Series: Favorite Teacher Supplies

Brittany 0:00

When you walk to your teacher desk, what items on it make you happy? Ellie? Does anything come to mind?

Ellie 0:09

Probably my pens. And my post is, maybe it's the color of them that brightens up the desk and makes me feel good. I also love seeing my trays that were next to my desk. I like that a lot, too.

Brittany 0:23

Welcome to the teaching Toolbox Podcast. I'm Brittany, and I'm here with my friend, Ellie.

Ellie 0:30

Hello.

Brittany 0:32

Today we're diving into a fun and practical topic, the top favorite teacher supplies for middle school teachers. We asked members of our Facebook groups about their favorites, too. So we've got our ideas and some great favorites from many classroom teachers. Let's see what rules the school.

Ellie 0:54

Okay, so one of the most popular items for teachers are our writing utensils.

Brittany 1:00

We do use them a lot.

Ellie 1:02

Absolutely. We've got dry erase markers, ink Joy pens, flair pens, erasable friction pens, and basically any colorful pen. I think markers and pens absolutely topped the list for most teachers.

Brittany 1:17

Yeah, for dry erase it has to be those Expo markers. And my favorite pens are inkjoy or tul pens. What about you?

Ellie 1:26

Oh, yeah, definitely the expo markers. And my favorite pens are the flair pens. What do you like about the ink Joy pens, I don't think I've ever used those.

Brittany 1:35

My favorites used to be the flair pens, I used to be a die hard flair pen user. But then I heard about ink joys. And I waited a while to kind of see what they were all about. And they write really smoothly and they're very bright. They really like stand out on a page. And they don't ever like catch and make dead spots like some gel pens do. And so I really liked that. And then tul is a fairly new brand, at least to America. I heard about them from another fellow pen lover. I think they're in Australia,

Ellie 2:15

okay,

Brittany 2:15

and they're very similar to ink joy. But the colors are just darker and bolder on the paper. So they don't have as many color choices as they enjoy. But I just love the smoothness and the boldness of them.

Ellie 2:31

Okay, I need to go find those in the store and give those a try. Because now I'm like, oh, I need to have those.

Ellie 2:39

All right, another very popular teacher supply is post its or sticky notes. These small adhesive notes are more than just office supplies. They're a powerhouse for planning and organization. We can use sticky notes for everything from marking pages in textbooks to making some interactive bulletin boards. I would actually also use those kind of the very first days of school just to ask questions like What do we need in this classroom and they would all write it out and post it and put it there. And I also use them on my exit ticket board kind of thing I would they would use their post its for there. They are also great for quick reminders for student feedback. And even for collaborative activities where students can share their thoughts and stick their notes in a designated area for that activity. The best part about those is that they're in lots of colors, lots of sizes, making them both functional and fun. Did you have a certain size of post it that you liked Brittany?

Brittany 3:40

I usually go with just the standard three by three. Sometimes those smaller rectangular ones, I think there may be one by one and a half for annotating. But honestly, I try not to use post its

Ellie 3:58

gasp!

Brittany 4:00

I have a small angle dry erase board that fits between my keyboard and my monitor. It's made by quartet, and you write your notes on that little dry erase board and then you can erase them when you've completed the task or whatever you were reminding yourself of. And thus you've saved post its and the trees. And so I still use post its for student feedback, exit tickets and and that sort of thing. And occasionally I fill up the Quartet so I have to use sticky notes. So I still have a pile of sticky notes around but for myself, I like to use the Quartet dry erase board I've been known to give it as presents to people.

Ellie 4:44

Oh nice. Yeah, that sounds like something I need to find. But I do always like the sticky notes. I have liked them so much in the past they have been a favorite for sure.

Brittany 4:54

What about you? What's your favorite size?

Ellie 4:57

I think the little one like the one by one and a half And then they also there also the longer there's some longer ones. I don't know if those are post its, but there are some longer ones that I really like to use in books. Here's the size. You all can't see it - showing it to Brittany.

Brittany 5:12

Yeah, that's like half inch by two.

Ellie 5:14

Yeah, like, yeah, yeah, like that, like, yeah,

Brittany 5:17

I don't like those. I don't know why

Ellie 5:19

I like them more for books and things like that, or, or, you know, almost in place of a tab in certain things.

Brittany 5:26

And I've kind of grown an affinity for the little cubes, the little like one and a half by one and a half inch cube. Those are cute

Ellie 5:34

Post its are a favorite. Yeah, at least for us. And many people in our groups or groups did did share that. Alright, also popular are document cameras. So this technology might seem like an investment, but it's worth it. Document cameras allow teachers to project documents, books, and even three dimensional objects onto a screen, making it easier for the entire class to see. They're incredibly useful for demonstrating problem solving steps in math, showing student work or even reading aloud from a book. With the document camera, every student gets a front row seat to the lesson, which enhances engagement and comprehension.

Brittany 6:12

My school didn't have the money for document cameras. But I had an old iPad I rarely use. So my husband built a frame out of PVC pipe, which I could slide the iPad into. And then I could hook it up to my projector and that acted as a document camera for several years. For me it was very handy.

Ellie 6:34

Awesome. So even if your school doesn't have the budget, you might find a way to be able to make that work if you guys are innovative, like Brittany's husband. And Brittany. I don't want to give him all the credit. Already some other ideas we got from our Facebook groups include an electric stapler, flair pens, any colorful pens, again, those pens are coming back. They're so popular gel pens flair pens, the laminator. Did you have a laminator in your school? Or did you have a personal laminator Brittany?

Brittany 7:06

We did have a laminator in our school, but they only laminated like once a week.

Ellie 7:11

Same.

Brittany 7:12

Yeah. So I had a personal just regular sized laminator. And then I happen to buy off of eBay. A school size laminator.

Ellie 7:24

Oh my gosh. You do love laminating.

Brittany 7:29

I eventually donated that to the last school I worked

Ellie 7:32

Oh, that's nice. When I was in the elementary schools, we were allowed to use the laminator ourselves. So we could go laminate whenever we wanted. Or when I moved to the middle school, you were not allowed to touch the laminator. That was off limits. So you had to put everything down there, send it down, let them laminate, and I think they did. I don't know how many times a week they did it. But then you had to wait for it to come back. So I found myself less likely to laminate when I couldn't do it myself. So anyway, also popular is the swivel stapler, someone shared that they use a swivel stapler that can staple stock paper and open to staple stacks of paper for a book effect. I used to have a stapler with a really long arm so you could fit really big paper into it without having to open it up. It was really cool. But it was very old. It got passed down to me by a teacher who had retired. They really loved it. It was it was a nice stapler.

Brittany 8:30

Yeah, those are hard to find. But yeah, those are nice. Some other mentions in our groups were highlighters, binder clips, post it note holders, Expo markers, Sharpie markers, particularly the thin and the ultra thin those I prefer the regular size the larger size but

Ellie 8:55

I like the thin ones

Brittany 8:57

electric pencil sharpeners

Ellie 8:58

love it

Brittany 8:59

index cards I probably use these more than sticky notes in the classroom. Just because they have more area and the whole lines no lines aspect. You can have kids draw or you can have them answer on the lines,

Ellie 9:15

awesome

Brittany 9:15

Targus laser pointer and screen controller,

Ellie 9:19

okay

Brittany 9:20

for geography teacher and so on coloring and gradient maps you have to have colored pencils, and I tend to be a color pencil snob. So for the kids, I always requested Crayola colored pencils and for myself, it has to be Prisma color premieres.

Ellie 9:38

I'm pretty sure I have some of those around. Just looking around my office. I have so many colored pencils. I think I have that.

Brittany 9:46

And then a good beeping kitchen timer. I know we have timers on our phones, but personally I don't like to have my phone out, like on a job or whatever. So I liked a good kitchen timer that was loud and beeped well, so

Ellie: 10:02

nice. Some other great things are your trays. I know we talked about these, I think in the last episode, but they were always a favorite for every one of my classes. I love my trays and folders. I had to have manila folders and hanging folders and folders folders everywhere, both for myself and for the kids. And then classroom games are great to have. And I like having puzzles to put in the back of my room so that you know, when there's a little bit of free time downtime, there's something like that for for kids to go and work on.

Brittany: 10:34

I know we talked about that in an episode. I love that idea. Yeah, when it comes to math, I love those giant magnetic protractors, rulers, compasses, triangles, you have one behind you that people can't see. I just love those. You can use them up on the whiteboard or the chalkboard if you still have one of those and help demonstrate to your students how to draw different shapes, measure angles, bisect lines, etc. But you do a lot more teaching of math. So what are your favorite teaching supplies Ellie?

Ellie: 11:10

Well, magnetic tools are the best and magnetic tape is awesome too. So you can make anything magnetic. At one point we used to do our daily sentence editing. I know it's not math, but daily sentence editing on the board. And I made these little parts of speech signs that students would use to label the parts of speech for the sentences on the board. So I made the labels magnetic so they could go to the board and put that magnetic label at the word that was a noun or a verb, whatever it would be. There were also like all the nouns were green, and all the adjectives were pink and different shapes and such. Anyway. But that made labeling very easy. And fixing any mistakes was very easy. We didn't have to erase anything and like rewrite the word noun. And somewhere else, we just moved the label. So I love the magnetic tape for that.

Ellie: 11:59

Anyway, back to math. If I had to pick my favorite supply from math, it would have to be the mini whiteboards. I love them so much. They were definitely my favorite supply along with the colorful thin Expo markers that they would use to write on the mini whiteboards. I made them when I was teaching elementary school, like a bunch of us went to Home Depot. And you could buy the really large white panel boards, I don't know what the material was. And the Home Depot, people would cut them for you. So I think we got like 32 boards from one of those big panels, and only cost like 20 bucks, it was so cheap, so much cheaper than buying a whole set of them because I don't think it was in the budget at the time. And then I just taped all the borders with duct tape so that you know kids wouldn't get scratched by them. I use those for over 20 years on a regular basis, and retaped them as needed, because kids would like to pick off the tape a little bit. So retake them as needed. And they are just a game changer. I think every student gets their own mini whiteboard that they can use for problem solving or brainstorming or answering questions during class discussions. You know, they can just hold up the board to show their answer. And I think it makes participation higher. I think it promotes active participation. And it allows teachers to quickly assess whether students are understanding or not. And I do have a blog post about using those if anybody wants more information about them.

Brittany: 13:24

I'm gonna interject here. Did you ever have problems with kids like riding on the backs of them?

Ellie: 13:32

I don't think so. I can't recall that at all.

Brittany: 13:36

Because we had class sets at my second school. And that was a big problem. We had a lot of like curse words.

Ellie: 13:45

No, I didn't have that

Brittany: 13:46

stuff on the back. I had to eventually buy giant Sharpies and have my student. We have eighth grade student helpers.

Ellie: 13:57

Okay.

Brittany: 13:57

And I had to have my eighth grader color the back of every whiteboard black.

Ellie: 14:04

Oh, wow.

Brittany: 14:05

To get the kids to stop writing sexual comments or curse words.

Ellie: 14:09

Oh, wow.

Brittany: 14:10

And stuff on the back.

Ellie: 14:11

No, I did not have that.

Brittany: 14:12

Oh, it was such a pain.

Ellie: 14:14

But that's a good solution.

Brittany: 14:15

Yeah, it worked.

Ellie: 14:17

But I mean, you could even I don't know if you could paint the backs.

Brittany: 14:20

Yeah.

Ellie: 14:21

You know, but yeah, wow. Well, that's a good tip in case people are having that issue.

Ellie: 14:27

Okay, for other math favorites. I think I'd have to go with some manipulatives like fraction strips to really help develop those fraction operation concepts. And then things like dice, playing cards, number lines, pattern blocks, geo boards, pentominoes. There are so many marbles, spinners, Magnatiles that are just so many things that we like to use in math class.

Brittany: 14:52

Math is where you get all the fun things like that.

Ellie: 14:55

What about social studies supplies since you did a lot of social studies teaching?

Brittany: 14:59

I'm a sucker for maps, I love maps. So I would try to gather as many different types of maps from as many different time periods as I could. I like maps where like the South Pole is up at the top, or the eastern hemisphere is up at the top.

Ellie: 15:18

Okay,

Brittany: 15:19

so I like old maps where the world wasn't quite figured out, you know, the whole world wasn't mapped, or things were differently labeled than they are now. And so kids got to see a different perspective of the world than they know it, then as they know it right now. And so it would kind of surprise them with how they view things. So

Ellie: 15:46

that's awesome. I think you talked about that a little bit, one of our other episodes, which was more focused on that, that's awesome.

Brittany: 15:53

Yeah, I also enjoy globes for the same reason. And then, if I were still in the classroom, I would probably bring in some of my Lego creations. I love building with Legos. And I tend to collect the architecture sets, which are more historical places. So if I had a safe place to display them, I bring in like the Eiffel Tower, the Trevi Fountain, the Taj Mahal, the Colosseum, the Great Pyramid at Giza. That one's really cool, because you can take the top of the pyramid off.

Ellie: 16:29

Oh, cool,

Brittany: 16:30

see what the inside of the pyramid looks like? Lastly, I have a few things. Not all are social studies related. But good atlases are definitely a must. timelines, posters about, you know what, what's a historian and what did they do? And then I liked instead of magnets, because we didn't have magnetic whiteboards. They didn't think ahead like that our budgeting people, so I tended to get white sticky Velcro dots, and I use those on everything so

Ellie: 17:07

Nice. Well, there you have it. Some of the top favorite teacher supplies for middle school teachers from dry erase markers to classroom whiteboards to maps and globes. These tools are sure to enhance your teaching, experience and foster a more engaging learning environment for your students. If you have a favorite supply that didn't make our list, we'd love to hear about it. Share your thoughts with us on Instagram or Facebook.

Brittany: 17:31

Be sure to check out Ellie's blog post on mini whiteboards, and if you need any links, Brittany has a sixth grade supplies found it on Amazon list that will link in the show notes as well. Have fun adding tools to your teaching toolbox as you prepare for back to school. And don't forget to create a little corner of home for when you're having a rough day. We'll talk with you next time.

Ellie: 17:56

Bye