Bare Necessities

The longer I teach English, the more art supplies I accumulate. They're necessary I tell you! In addition to the expected unlimited supply of paper, pencils, and pens, I've discovered that my classroom cannot be considered complete without the following:

40+ boxes of crayons. Occasionally I have them draw symbolic representations of chapters, or go through essays and color the thesis statement a certain color, rhetorical questions another, etc.

15 pairs of scissors. I wish I had 40, but they're expensive, so every year I buy another five or ten. I had my creative writing students write snow poems and cut out snowflakes. I had my 8th graders cut different kinds of articles out of the newspaper and label them.

A large basket or box of miscellaneous colored pencils. I have my students make up mythologies fourth term, which means they make up imaginary countries, which means they draw maps. Which means they need lots and lots of colored pencils. Additionally, my creative writing students are using these all the time.

At least 5 glue sticks. Once again, I wish I had 40. The ones I do have are a few years old now and probably need to be replaced.

4 rulers. I'd love to have closer to 15 or 40, but they're not called for as often as the rest.

Paperclips. I've already gone through about 3 boxes this year.

A dozen or so sharpies, black and assorted colors. These are essential for when we make posters, label notebooks, or any of the other many uses we find for them.

Legos. Seriously. My first year of teaching I bought $25 worth of Legos so that I could have them to make a model of the 5 paragraph essay. I use if every year.

I'd love to keep a supply of construction paper and posterboard in my room as well, but I haven't gotten around to investing in it yet. Maybe next year. Other random things I have learned to keep with me in the classroom include:

My magic 8 ball.

A fake hand I confiscated from a student my first year of teaching.

Enough candy to pass out to all of my students if needed.

A mini library of books.

Bandaids. These kids seem to bleed a lot.

Post it notes, post it notes, post it notes. I go through them constantly.

Index cards, hundreds of them.

two staple removers

A halloween candy bucket

hand sanitizer

lotion

a tooth brush

a glue gun and glue sticks

Extra grocery bags

moving boxes