Pencils and Pouches and Pens, Oh My!

My favorite part about school was always back to school shopping. Not necessarily for clothes because that stopped after like 5th grade (thanks Mom), but school supply shopping. There was always something special about a brand new box of crayons and deciding what pattern to have on your folders and notebooks for the year. Well the office supply selection here is like a rush of back to school shopping every time I step into a stationary store. These stores aren’t your average Staples or Office Depots; these stores are five stories tall, there are rows and rows of different paper, pencils, pens, you name it, they have 1,000 different kinds of it.

Remember the SpaceMaker pencil box that we used to decorate with whiteout and those neon colored, netted pencil pouches we used to write notes on? Well those are things of the past because my students have the most amazing pencil pouches that I’m always checking out. Both girls and boys have them. There are different patterned ones, mini caboodle type ones, I’m telling you they’re amazing. I’ve also noticed that their pencils rarely have erasers on the tops of them, so students have separate erasers. They are so much better than the average big, pink eraser and I have a nice collection of the ones left behind.

You know how you always play a sport better with better equipment? Well, I swear I write better with the pens here! Not only is my handwriting clearer, but I find myself making up excuses to jot down a note just so I can write something ie: the whole Olympic schedule in my planner. Since teaching though, I have had to change my "signature" handwriting, that I've been perfecting since the sixth grade, just a bit. In training I asked a silly question if students would get confused by the way I write my "g's". Everyone thought I was crazy for asking such a ridiculous question, but sure enough, on my first day of teaching, one student asked me why I made my "g's" the way I did! I am beginning to make regular "g's", but I hope that one day I can patent my signature "g" and write them again.

So not only am I going to come home with a million headbands and accessories, but also a large variety of office supplies.