5 School Supplies That Changed Our Remote Learning Experience

I know this may seem silly to think that simple things like school supplies can make a difference when to remote learning and teaching, but it really can. There are 5 things that we invested in that made our remote learning experience loads better. Maybe they can help you too!

An electric pencil sharpener

No longer did we have to hear “mom, can you sharpen this?” or pick up the little pencil shreds around the house when those little tiny plastic sharpeners popped open. I was highly opposed to spending $25 on an electric sharpener but it turns out not having to hear all the complaints about pencils was totally worth it! There is cheaper ones and they may be equally good, but this one was designed by teachers!

A printer

So, we’ve had a bit of a drama with printers in our house. I’m not sure if you have this in your house too, but it feels like we are buying ink every day! Basically we don’t print that much, but with remote schooling we found we just needed to get the kids away from doing things on screens all the time so we went with printing some of their assignments. At first we had a small little Epson that suddenly started taking 30+ minutes to print every page and then it just stopped all together. Not sure what that was about, but we ended up with another Epson that was a hand me down. It seemed to run out of ink every other day and since the ink was fairly expensive, we finally invested in an ecotank printer. I’m generally opposed to spending $240 on a printer, but so far it’s been a DREAM! So, get whatever printer your heart desires, but just have one that works because your life will be much better. Bonus tip: Check facebook marketplace and OfferUp for good deals! We purchased ours at Target and they were having a sale.

A device for each child

I hesitated to add this one to the list, but it’s honestly true. Whether this means a computer, tablet or other option, we found that each of our children having some way to log in at the same time was a necessity. Now, I say this knowing you might have more than 2 kids and that is just not a financial possibility. I totally get that. If you aren’t able to get a device for each child, check to see if your school can check them out to you, or maybe there is a friend or family member you can borrow from. We ended up buying A Dell tablet that can act as a desktop as well as a more portable screen in case we need to move from room to room. Now, we aren’t rolling in money ready to buy devices like this, but I was able to get this on OfferUp and only spent $260 on it. To help fund this, we purged the house and sold a bunch of stuff. I was able to sell $100 worth of items so then I only had to budget $160 for it. I would highly recommend checking out OfferUp or Facebook Marketplace to get a good deal. You do not need the latest, greatest model. This particular one we purchased is not currently available directly from Dell, but I will link to it just to give you an idea of what it is. I have also seen people on my free group giving away older computer they no longer need.

Wireless Headphones

The amount of zoom meetings happening in our home at any given moment is astounding. My husband and I are both working from home full time and when both our kids are also remote learning, that can be a lot of noise! At first we had wired headphones for our kids, but sometimes they forget they were wired up to their computers, they would yank and things fall over. Since we don’t want things to break, we have now opted for wireless Bluetooth headphones. We found it a bit challenging to find some we liked and a lot of the stores are out of stock so I would recommend shopping online. Here are the ones we opted for.

For our older son we bought these Skullcandy ones from Target. They were 50% off when I purchased them. About $49. Very impressed with these so far!

For our younger daughter, we went with these because they had high ratings and she likes a little glam. I just ordered these so I can’t report back yet on how they work, but the reviews are really good!

Desks

It can be a table in the corner, or a real desk in an office space, but having an actual designated space has helped me keep my sanity. I don’t keep an immaculate house, but I do like things relatively organized. In the start of remote learning we kept our kids at the edge of the kitchen counter or at the kitchen table and it wasn’t awesome. It just felt like school work was constantly in our space and we need some separation. For desks we have a mishmash of hand me downs and cheap items from OfferUp. OfferUp has saved our lives on this one. We set a notification and any time a desk was posted near us we’d check it out. We ended up only spending about $30. Another tip would be to check your neighborhood free group to see if there are people cleaning out their own spaces or just put a post up there asking if you need something. You never know what people have in the garage waiting to be purged!

School Supplies Just Like School

I find my kids are way more willing to do school if we can try to follow some of the routines of their school day. I ask them to teach me what they do in school. They love the processes of school that are in place. It helped all of us. Be willing to buy a few new notebooks or folders, even if you are at home the full year. It will help kids get excited! A new box of crayons goes a long way for my kids. And, if you watch the sales, spending a couple dollars on new things isn’t going to hit the budget very hard and it will help the kids set up a remote space that gives them joy!

What’s on your list as a must have item as you are at home remote learning this year? We’d love to hear about it!