10 Must-Have Teacher Supplies for the Upper Elementary Classroom

Kirsten 0:00

Hello, welcome to another episode of the social studies teacher podcast. This is a fun one because I'm going to be talking about my favorite teacher supplies as if you're listening to this in real time. You know, it's probably that time of the year where you're setting up your classroom and you're getting everything in order before your students come to you for the first day of school. So I wanted to share with you some of my favorite teacher supplies that I love using in the classroom and just handy items that can be used throughout the year.

This is the social studies teacher podcast, a show for busy elementary teachers looking for fun and engaging ways to easily add social studies into their classroom schedule without feeling overwhelmed or pressed for time. I'm KEARSON of the Southern teach an educator and mom who is passionate about all things social studies. I love sharing ideas and strategies that are low prep and easy to implement. So let's dive in together.

The first is a teacher lanyard. So I always had this around me it was like do I have my car keys do I have my wallet and do I have my teacher lanyard on my lanyard I'd always have the little key card that you can get to scan in order to get in the building and a badge of course your ID badge for your district. And also just any extra keys related to cabinets and all of that stuff. So that would all be on my teacher lanyard and I would wear it every day. It was always a part of my outfit. I had a rainbow lanyard I still have it. And this is something that was handmade by an Instagramer named Alicia makes. I will link her because she always has the cutest teacher lanyards. She sells on Etsy and usually she'll tell you I think she does it every month, she will do a launch every month. And you have to be super quick because it usually sells out pretty fast. So those are one of my favorite lanyards to use. But of course Amazon has some really cool ones. If you're somebody who doesn't like something hanging around your neck, you can always get one of those little clips that you can extend it's attached to some type of stretchy string. So that's always good to use. But that's one of my teacher supplies that I always had to have every single day.

The next is flare pits. I am a flare pens girl I used to do To enjoy. But I really just like the feeling, as you're writing things it makes, you know, I don't know just the way it feels as you're writing, I will have all the colors. And I would always use flare pins when grading. And on teacher lesson plans, one thing about grading is that I never really used the typical red pin, because I heard from a teacher in grad school, that red is considered like a symbol of death and just unluckiness in certain cultures. And so I kind of took that to heart. And I've always used just different markers or colors other than red. Very rarely would I use red just because of that. But flare pens make it a lot more fun and brighter on students papers as you're grading them.

Next up is the full focus planner. This is super integral in my life right now. I wish I had it when I was teaching, I had a typical planner that you know, you'd have the blocked schedule, and I usually enter in what I needed to do for the day. Not really super crazy about it. But the full focus planner, it is mainly focused on doing your big three, daily, three things. So instead of having a long to do list, thinking of three main things that you would like to get done, that you must get done, I should say. And then there's a list for extra things that you might or may be able to do if you have time after you complete those big tasks. So it helps me prioritize what I really need to focus on. It's really great to integrate with what you're teaching, like what you need to do job wise, and home life like chores, and just any events that are happening in your family. i It's all in one planner, basically. So I love the full focus planner, I highly recommend it. It's created by Michael Hyatt. So this is something that a lot of people utilize. And it's really great for really anybody, not just teachers.

Next up is post it notes. So simple, but always great. This is where I would put some miscellaneous reminders. Maybe I might write a note to students, actually, something I do recommend is the first week of school if it hasn't happened for you yet. And you're listening to this in real time, use the post it notes to just write a nice sentence or two about your students in the first week. So for every single student, they will get a posted note throughout the week, it's a really nice way to connect and just know that you're listening to them, as you're knowing each other and getting to know each other, it's really great kind of to just you just kind of put it on their desk that they can read. It's something that brightens their day. So definitely recommend, that's one way to use the post it notes. But just in general, just having it on hand for anything, maybe you have to make some extra copies. And I always labeled them like based on the days of the week. And so I would have, you know, put in some sticky notes on which what I needed a copy or how many copies I needed. So you can always use sticky notes for pretty much anything it's like a must have on your teacher desk.

Next, the MR Sketch markers, I could not live without these. They are what I use whenever I was creating any anchor chart papers, I would be using those Sketch markers in advance and sometimes with the students and students would be able to use them as well. I put them in the special bin that would be one of our classroom rewards is that you get a special caddy and special art Caddy with fun art material that you get to keep at your desk all day. So that's something that you can add in there as well. So Sketch markers are fun to have used for small groups, I used it for anchor chart paper, there's a lot of different ways to use it. And they also smell really delicious.

Next up is the personal laminator. I have I think I bought one and then I couldn't find it. So I bought another one. But this was like a few years after it and then I found it. So now I have two personal laminators. This is great if you need just a couple of pages laminated, just a small project. Or maybe you're kind of frustrated because the laminator line is way too long. And you don't have enough time you like you need to get these laminated. That's where you can use that personal laminator. It's usually one of the it's used. I mean, you can buy it at Target Walmart, it's pretty much everywhere. And it's really inexpensive, really great to use for small things like a page or two or three that you need to do. And I mean, you just press a button you turn Turn it on, they have those pocket slips that you just slip the paper in. And you can just put it through the feed, and it will laminate what you need. Some thing I've found is that they are a little thicker, the pages are a little thicker than your typical industrial sized laminator that you might see in your school's copy room. But it's really sturdy. It's just handy when you need it in a pinch, and you just don't want to wait or go all the way up the stairs or wherever you have to go to get it laminated.

And leaning into the next one, a personal cutter. So this is something I also found at Target. This was a, it's called Fiskars brand, I have a Fiskars brand. And it's a very mini version of the industrial sized cutter you might have in your teacher work room or copy room. This is also really good for small projects that you need cut, like you printed off a set of task cards for a small group that you're going to be doing in like 20 minutes, and you just need it cut and you don't want to use scissors, you just can easily slip that through. It could also be used, you know, students could possibly use it, I would say that with caution, because depending on the students, you might want to consider. But it's definitely something that's really handy to have in your classroom, so that you don't have to go to a work room and you know, wait for all of that to get done. But it's great for small projects, I'd say it's pretty much good for one or possibly two pages at a time. Definitely one page of cardstock.

All right, going into Astro brights, Astro brights are really great. I love the neon ones, they have the pastel kinds, and they have the neon ones. And you can get this pretty much anywhere as well Office Depot target. But if I ever needed to copy any important handouts, like newsletters to send home, or some type of permission slip or any type of announcement, anything that would go home in our Tuesday folders, that's what I would use, I'd use those Astro brights. And also I'd use it to copy any fun activities or something that just needed to be laminated and put in a station. So of course I'd never, you know, if we had any independent work, I would usually use regular white paper, like most of the stuff where I needed to make bulk copies of it would be white paper. But there would be some activities, maybe like a project something where I wanted to differentiate that it was like something special. And I didn't want to use color, I would use those Astro brights. And it was a really great way to kind of you know just have on hand. And sometimes I'd have it in like my tin drawer organizer, I'd have some colored paper. And depending on the activity that they were doing, maybe it was indoor recess, I let students have some of the Astro bright I had a ton of Astro brights, like combined with what I had and what our school had, it was just a lot of Astra rights going on. And so on special occasions, I'd let my students have some of the papers and draw and make stuff with it as well.

All right, next up, we've got chart paper. So these, the specific chart paper that I'm talking about are the ones that have the stick on the back, like the adhesive on the back. And I believe they're posted brand, not sure 100%. But I will make sure to try to link that. But this I use the chart paper to create anchor charts to stick around the room. When I started the first day of school, when I set up, most of the bulletin boards around my room were empty. Very rarely what I haven't completely filled out. What I liked to do was add a couple of things. One thing I like to add was chart paper. And I'd have specific bulletin boards for each subject. So ELA would be you know, in one area, social studies would be in another area. And I'd use the chart paper after we filled it out and did the activity together. I would stick it where the bulletin boards were. Sometimes if I'm doing you know different routines or procedures or steps to doing something like setting up notebook, I'd make that anchor chart and I'd stick it somewhere on the wall it was just really convenient to have that sticky aspect of it so I can pretty much put it anywhere and that was part of my decoration for my classroom. So I did not have all of these little tiny things that I cut in prepped all in advance. Most of my decoration was the anchor charts that I created with students or on my own. And then the other aspect of what I would put on bulletin boards was student work. So any student created work that they've done that I thought was really fun and could look really nice to hang up. That is what I would put on my walls. So that is part of how I decorated my classroom.

All right, the last teacher supplies that I feel like is a must to have our neon color Dry Erase Pockets. These are so easy to use for pretty much anything, you can use it for stations, like what I'm envisioning is if you have task cards, you can always like take a set, put a dry erase marker on that, and have a recording sheet that you can put in that dry erase pocket, put some task cards in there and you're done, then that station is set up. So all students have to do is grab that dry erase pocket, they can take out the marker, take out the task cards, leave the recording sheet in, and then they can fill it out and do the activity. Also using it in sport, small group, if I wanted to reuse something, maybe I'm using it with multiple groups, I would put it in a dry erase pocket and we would use it with the dry erase markers. And you know, I'd be able to erase it and reuse it. So that's one of the things I love it is that you can pretty much use it for anything and it's reusable. You know, I'd have students help clean it up. But with word work, any type of writing activity, small group were task cards, I would always use these Dry Erase Pockets, they're definitely a must to have in the classroom.

All right, so that's just a roundup of my favorite teacher supplies. Maybe you've heard of a lot of these or if not all of these, but if you haven't heard of it, consider checking them out and seeing what you can do to add them to make your life a little bit easier this year.

So that is it for the podcast. I hope you enjoyed this fun little episode. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your week. Thanks for listening to the social studies teacher podcast. If you enjoyed listening to this episode, hit that subscribe button and leave a review. I would love to hear your thoughts. You can also find me on Instagram at the southern teach. I can't wait for you to join me in the next episode for more teacher tips and strategies.