Homeschool Prep Must-Haves
Prepping homeschool curriculum or educational materials at home is super simple and can save a lot of money. So many companies or small businesses offer digital products which is so great. Printing digitally has a few benefits:
Usually cheaper
Instant
Customizable
Reusable
Whether you’re printing unit studies, organizing printable games, preserving reusable resources, these five categories of supplies will help guide you in your prep.
Printer, Ink & Paper
A reliable and affordable printer is probably the best item you can invest in as a homeschool mom. Hands down, the Ecotanks are the most popular printer in homeschool circles because the ink is cheap.
We have the ET-3850 and I’d highly recommend it (You can see my pros/cons here on the older model - which I’d say this newer model has exactly the same pros/cons.)
A few years ago I tracked how many pages I printed with $60 of ink and it was over 9,000. This an off brand ink you can use.
Make sure to have lots of paper on hand for printing. We buy ours in bulk from Costco.
I keep white cardstock on hands at all times. I will often print the first page of a curriculum in cardstock or use it for printing something I might want to display for short or long-term use in our school room. Think daily rhythm printouts or any visual elements like multiplication charts.
I also keep 2-3 packs of this colored cardstock on hand mostly for arts & crafts. It can be really frustrating to be mid-project and not have the color you need for multiple kids.
Construction paper - again for arts & crafts.
Laminator & Laminating Sheets
For anything you want to reuse like chore charts, flashcards, printable games, or checklists you’ll definitely want a laminator. Remember to save these things for younger siblings to use so you don’t have to prep anything again.
There is always a debate about this but for over a decade now I print, laminate everything, and then cut it. At least with the laminator I’ve had since 2016 I’ve never had an issue with lamination peeling after I cut. These are the laminating sheets I’d also recommend to go with it.
Forest Animal Pattern Block Cards found here. (These are the pattern blocks we have.)
Alphabet Magnatile Cards found here. (These are the magnatiles we use.)
Paper Rotary Cutter
Paper cutters make quick cuts for games, arts & crafts, flashcards, bookmarks, ect.
I’ve used the same paper cutter literally since my scrapbooking days in high school. I love it so much. Here is a very similar one. I like this one because it is not big and bulky or hard to move around, can’t cut any little fingers, and isn’t so small that it can only cut a few pieces at a time.
3 Ring Binders, Hole Punch, & Plastic Sleeves
Binders are a great option for storing curriculum, record or memory keeping, or organizing yours or your kid’s other educational materials.
A 3 hole punch lets you organize printed pages quickly and plastic sleeves are great for protecting important papers or any dry-erase activities you might not want to spend the time laminating (these dry erase pockets are also really nice for reusable materials).
Spiral Binder, Coils, Plastic Backs, & Clear Covers
It took me a while to invest in one of these, but I’ve never looked back! Spiral binders are really a must-have if you’re planning to homeschool a long time and use a lot of digital prints for curriculum or like making student notebooks or binding keepsakes. They take up far less storage on your shelves than 3 ring binders. The only downside is because of the coils you can’t tell what the book is when it’s stored vertically on a book shelf which is slightly annoying when you have lots -which I do! I just try to organize by subject and store by other curriculums so I have a rough idea where something is when I need it.
I actually have two spiral binders. The ProClick and the Coil Bind. I bought the Pro Click thinking it’d be very useful for projects where I need to add or take away pages because the coil spines pop open (vs spiral in), but I did not like it and hardly ever use it. (And, turns out, there have been a very few things I’ve needed to add something. When that happens I just gear up and uncoil and recoil.) One thing to note is that the ProClick is pretty loud when you punch and it can only punch 6 pages at a time which can get really tedious. The spiral spines are reusable though so if you’re on a budget and don’t mind the sound and a little more work then this definitely does the job.
Instead, I do love my Coil Bind! It punches 30 pages at a time and it’s really slick to use. Mine has the auto coil bind feature which is great if you’re prepping like 20+ books at a time (which I’ve never done), but since I usually just do a few I just manually coil it with my hands. It’s super easy.
There are lots of different size coils. I primarily keep the 8mm (or 5/16”) coils on hand. These coils hold 30-50 pages. If my curriculum is more than 50+ pages I usually break it into 2-3 more books so I am not hauling around a large curriculum book. The more you bind the flimsier it gets to hold so I just prefer the smaller books. There have been a few times I’ve also used a 12mm coil which will hold between 80-90 pages.
The coils are longer than a standard size sheet of paper so you can use a tool like this to cut the coils and bend them. I have one, but I also just use scissors and bend it.
You can use cardstock for the front/back covers for durability, but the pages will get bent. If you want to polish it off having these clear plastic front covers & these solid black back covers are what I use.
Also, if I know I’m done with a curriculum and won’t ever use it again, I definitely uncoil it, toss all the paper, and save the coil and front/back cover sheets for another project.
I keep all of these items stored in my desk as part of my prep zone and will pull whatever out as needed and prep on my school table. The IKEA paper organizers fit perfectly on our shelves and hold all our printer paper, cardstock, construction paper, plastic sleeves, labels, plastic folders, and the front/back covers for spiral binding. Here is a similar white one from Amazon. I keep the other items, including my printer, in my office drawers (with the exception of the paper cutter right on top of my desk).
Happy prepping!
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