Managing Student Supplies

Do you struggle to manage your students’ supplies? This causes me such a headache if my class has trouble keeping track of their materials. Keep reading to learn how I manage student supplies in my classroom.

Whether it’s constantly missing pencils, dried out markers without caps, or erasers covered in pencil marks, student supplies can cause so many disruptions in your day.

The first thing I suggest is determining what student supplies your students must keep and what student supplies can be kept elsewhere. I have found that the more supplies I ask my students to keep track of, the more supplies end up in our lost and found! Something else I recommend is having a lost and found for student supplies where they can look for items they have misplaced.

In my first classroom, all my student desks had trays and there was an abundance of left over plastic tubs like these that we used for students to keep their supplies. They were the perfect height for our student desks so they could just pull the bin out from inside their tray and grab whatever supplies they needed. We didn’t use the lids so we didn’t have to worry about them getting lost! Unfortunately missing pencils, glue tops, and crayons were still a problem.

When we moved and I switched to a new school district, some of the desks I was given had trays and some did not. So I couldn’t use the plastic tub system anymore. Obviously my students would still need to keep their textbooks and notebooks somewhere, so I got these reusable grocery bags to hang on the back of their chairs.

These bags held up through some rough treatment by my 4th graders and did a great job of holding textbooks, folders, and notebooks. At the end of the day students would hang their supply bag on the hook inside their cubbies so that the custodians could vacuum without knocking the top heavy chairs off the desks. Other student supplies were communal.

For things like glue sticks, highlighters, dry erase markers, and scissors I used communal supplies in this Storex caddy. I like that the cups are removable so that students can take the cup out and pass student supplies around.

I assign one student to be in charge of student supplies. Their job is passing out any supplies their classmates need, picking up lost supplies from the floor, and ensuring that the supply bucket is clean and organized at the end of each day. This significantly reduced the number of dried out glue sticks and markers!

For things like colored pencils and crayons, I didn’t want to dump all of those into a big bin because I would constantly have students crowding around the bin, looking for a specific color. Instead I got the Pen + Gear pencil cases from Walmart and the task card boxes from Target.

The Pen + Gear cases held their colored pencils and the task card boxes held their crayons. The Pen + Gear cases are no longer on Walmart’s website, but you can find similar ones at Walmart here or on Amazon here. You can find the task card boxes in the Target Dollar Spot around back to school season. You can also find similar ones on Amazon here and here.

These cases were used to hold either colored pencils or crayons and were kept in their bags that hang on their chairs. If I had a student that couldn’t handle communal student supplies, either because they don’t treat the supplies with respect or because they require modified supplies, I’ll give them the Pen + Gear case with all the supplies they need (glue stick, scissors, highlighter, etc.). They’ll keep their supply case inside their bag or their desk if they have a tray.

Some teachers assign students a pencil and task them with keeping track of it. This is a battle I chose not to fight. If it’s something that’s important to you, I recommend the Great Pencil Challenge! If not, I recommend assigning the task of pencil sharpening to one student and use sharp and dull cups like you see in the picture above. At the end of the day, it is the students’ job to sharpen all the pencils in the dull cup and place them into the sharpened cup for the next morning.

Students can come and grab a pencil when they need. One problem I’ve run into when I try to give my students one or even two pencils to keep is that one is too dull and one breaks right in the middle of a lesson. Instead of sharpening it while I’m teaching, the student can grab a pencil out of the sharp cup.

Click the image above or click here to find all links to all the items I use for classroom organization!

No routine for student supplies is perfect, but I hope these tips help to solve some of your supply stressors! Want more tips for routines and strategies to make your life easier? Check out these blog posts!