I’m a pretty minimalistic homeschooling mom. I don’t have a well-organized school room or color-coordinated art bins. (although I would not be opposed to winning a homeschooling makeover… if that ever became a Home Edit type show). My one weakness is curriculum. I may be a bit of a curriculum junkie. But minus all the books, these are the things I splurge on and couldn’t live without.
Very bare bones laser printer: …preferably older than dirt. The important part is, don’t get a printer that has any bells and whistles. Under no circumstances get a color printer. It is far cheaper to get a teacher’s discount card and print in color at one’s local printing place than it is to delicately coax along and feed a color printer. It’s like owning an exotic pet. I’m sure there are efficient color printers out there, but I have not had the privilege of owning one. You want a printer that has so few buttons and pieces/parts that your toddler can jam a hot wheel car in it, while your baby spits up on it, and it still happily churns out school stuff like the Little Engine That Could. You also want something that takes cheap toner that lasts long enough for your high schooler to do things like print off sixty pages of news articles for debate (without having to replace the cartridge more often than said teenager takes out the garbage).
Laminator: This is the thing that makes me feel like Monica Gellar the most and honestly, it’s a bit of an obsession. I don’t know why I feel the need to laminate all the things, but it’s somehow very soothing and satisfying. Chore charts, pie graphs, blank pieces of notebook/graph paper, pretty autumn leaves…a few dog hairs. Nothing is safe. Jim is even worse than me. I think he’s laminated everything that resides in my wallet or the glove box. And flashcards! Between all of my Challenge students I think I’ve probably laminated thousands of flashcards at this point. They die frequent deaths at the bottom of backpacks and minivans but I don’t care. May they rest in peace. My secret weapon is to laminate memory work and give it to my children in the bath or shower or swimming pool. Their sensory needs are met, their frontal lobe is activated, and they sit still for a change. Everyone is a winner.
Good pencils (i.e. Ticonderoga and Prismacolor): Nothing is more frustrating than those cheap pencils kids get in goody bags at the dentist or church harvest festival. They won’t sharpen, won’t stay sharpened, and break super easily. Ticonderoga is the only brand I buy because it actually saves me money in the long run. They last longer and hold their sharpness, which if you have a kid with sensory preferences, will also save your sanity and theirs. I usually pick them up in bulk on Amazon (teacher prime day) and then dole them out selfishly like our family runs on the “Pencil Standard” instead of the “Gold Standard”. The same goes for Prismacolor colored pencils. It’s just not worth it to have Crayola in the house (and heaven forbid…Rose Art). Prismacolors are expensive, but I’ve had some of mine since I was a teenager, so I feel like they’re a good investment. You can pick them up with a coupon at Hobby Lobby or they go on sale fairly frequently on Amazon. (Note: Sensory sensitive kids also seem to love erasable pins, but beware that the ink does eventually disappear on the brands we’ve used which might be awkward if the state wanted to see their past homeschooling work.)
Honorable Mention- Sculpey clay: …the oven bake kind. I buy it in the biggest box I can find and it costs a small fortune, but it is worth more than a truckload of Kumon workbooks. It ends up being used for everything: imaginative play (for kids who like to keep their creations), spelling, backup costumes, math manipulatives, art and history projects, Christmas decorations, electronic detox and so much more. It’s like play dough, but actually useful.
Now that I’ve started, I can think of more things, but since three is a magic number and I already stretched it to four, I’ll stop here before I find myself on Amazon restocking my supplies.