Are you team individual or community student supplies in the classroom?
I used to always use community supplies, and then Covid forced us to use individual supplies for a few years. Since making the switch to individual supplies, I will never go back to community supplies.
Community Supplies
Of course, there are many benefits to community supplies. Students learn how to share and cooperate with each other. They can practice taking turns. It’s a great opportunity for problem solving skills. These are all important life skills that children need to learn.
However, I was also running into several problems with community supplies. Students were often leaving things out and struggled with cleaning them up. They were quick to blame each other, rather than taking accountability to put their items away. I also found that they were not treating supplies the best. Even with lots of reteaching and going over expectations, crayons were constantly getting broken and glue sticks being left without caps on. It was a challenge to implement consequences for this, because I wouldn’t always know who did it.
Individual Supplies
Fast forward to going back to school in the fall of 2020, I was actually very hesitant about the thought of using individual supplies. I didn’t want to change what I’d been doing for years and I thought it would actually create more problems. But I was wrong!
I ended up loving individual supplies. All of my students get their own pencil box and everything they need fits inside. Everyone gets their own crayons, pencil, glue stick, scissors, and dry erase marker. I find that students treat their supplies better because they are “theirs”. They actually put their supplies back in their boxes when they are done using them, because they know they can’t just use another pair of scissors from the table. If we find a glue stick cap on the floor, all we have to do is find the person who is missing one, and the problem is quickly solved. There is never any fighting or arguing over materials, because everyone has their own.
Another reason I love individual supplies is the convenience of having pencil boxes. Anytime I need my students to have supplies at the carpet or they are working around the room, they can take their pencil box with them. I also love being able to attach their name tag to it as well. This serves as a resource they can take anywhere in the room with them. And I also don’t have to deal with taping or attaching name tags to the tables.
You can get the editable pencil box name tags below:
Every teacher has their own preferences for what works in their classroom. And both options have their pros and cons. But for me, I have found individual supplies to work so much better in my classroom and I don’t see myself switching back anytime soon.
Do you want to learn more about how I introduce school supplies to my students at the beginning of the year? Check out this blog post:
