My top ten stationery items

Curriculum is something much discussed on homeschool blogs and email groups but I thought I'd list my favourite stationery stuff, just because they've made my homeschooling life easier this year.

1. Bantex A4 3xD-ring Insert Binders - I like the folders that you can insert your own spine and front cover. I get my kids to put a self-portrait on the cover of their own folders, and colour code their spines. Folders for Circle Time are red, mine are purple, Joshua's are blue, Anna's are green, Abigail's are yellow, Samuel's will be orange. (I use the same colour system for a few other things as well.)

2. Marbig 3-hole Holepuncher - so I can put stuff in all these folders.

3. Avery Ring Reinforcements - these prevent the holepunched sheets from pulling loose from the folder rings. Other than Bible story colouring pages and narrations, which go in a separate folder, I just holepunch everything the kids do and stick it in a folder, so these are very handy.

4. Marbig Extra Wide Coloured Dividers - made of plastic, these are really useful when I do choose to put pages in sheet protectors as I do with blank proformas and lots of the rest of the stuff I've collected in my homeschool planning folder.

5. Marbig Document Holders (heavy Duty) - these are made of strong, clear plastic and have a slash opening for quick access to my home-made lined paper, pre-printed alphabet pages, etc. The packet says they hold 50 sheets of paper, and I've had not trouble with that so far, they can definitely hold a lot more than the standard sheet protectors.

6. Lyra Water Coloured Pencils - which my father-in-law bought for Joshua when he came to visit from Indonesia. I also really like Derwent Studio Pencils, but the kids aren't careful enough with pencils to justify the purchase price.

7. Faber Castell Junior Grip 2B Lead Pencils - which the kids use to trace their penmanship tasks over my H lead pencil exemplar. These are slightly thicker than a standard pencil, and they have a 3-sided barrel, so they make it easy for the kids to learn the correct pencil grip.

8. Marbig Pro Series Refillable Display Book with Frame - I use these for the kids' Bible work, because they are more like a real book for the kids to flick through on their own, and that's the whole point of getting them to make their own illustrated and narrated Bibles. One of the best thing about these is that unlike other display books, the way the spine sits on these prevents the folder from drooping down while they sit vertically on the shelf. You can get special dividers with all the many holes for refillable display books from Marbig as well.

9. Marbig Easy Zip Refills (for standard refillable display books) - these are so quick and easy to use and especially great for the kids' Bible folders as I can simply add a sheet protector with new work in wherever the story fits in the overall Bible narrative, without mucking around with those (admittedly useful) sliding spine things.

10. PROtec 80 (80 micron ) Clear Gloss Delayed Bond Adhesive Book Covering (15m roll) - which I use to cover the paperback books that we read regularly. For paperback books that are used everyday, I need to get some Lyfguards, but these will have to wait until 2008.

I buy most of this from the local Officeworks store (aside from bookstores, this is my favourite shop), but the book covering I order online from Raeco.