Quote:
I hear you - they specify the brands of pencils and scissors and stuff. At the elementary school, the students turn in everything but the scissors and ruler in to the teacher who re-ditributes. Most teachers have a box of sharpened pencils and another for the kids to put the dull ones in and then a parent takes them to the workroom for sharpening. I can tell you that the bulk of the pencils that parents buy, the really cheap mega packs, the lead is so badly centered that I will often have to sharpen the pencil to half its size before I get a tip, and about 20% will get ground all the way down before the tip shows. The school requests Ticonderoga's, but even they are not as good as they used to be. I'm glad at the Middle School, the students get to keep their own supply. I order Musgrave and a couple other brands of pencils made here in the USA, they sharpen nicely. They cost more to buy but last so much longer it is worth the extra expense. (Musgrave is mostly known for their pencils with information on them like times tables, the preamble to the constitution, chemical symbols, etc. I bought the ones with the states and capitals on them for my kids, and they passively learned them! Olivia got 80% on her pre-test before they learned them, and she did not cheat by using the pencil with the answers.) There are a couple of other good brands too - surprisingly one of the Roseart pencils (not all - need the green barrel). I found these while sharpening pencils for second graders. Most Roseart stuff stuff is made in China, but they bought out a small pencil manufacturer in New Jersey, and the good pencils are produced there and sold at Target stores.
What cracks me up with both schools is they have this huge list of required items (pencils, pens, erasers, glue sticks, scissors, highlighters in 4 colors, dry-erase markers in 3 colors, 2 boxes of 24 count colored pencils ....) and one SMALL pencil box so that they can fit the stuff in their desks! For Alex's small items alone, I filled 4 pencil cases and a 1 gallon zip-lock bag!
My son had a pencil caddy on his desk last 2 years and this year, cause he is in JH, he has a locker so he can haul around just the things he needs. I got him a small magnetic pencil cup for his locker and a shelf.
Hope that works.
I also ended up buying a few nice things at the UW bookstore...I found the us constitution pencil as well, and a very nice student day runner that has all the UW info in it. Even when they have games, and what you need to graduate.
We try.
But I really like their note books. Nest year I am shopping there. Everything he needs plus some, and it is not made in CHINA. At least I had the options there.
Both my kids schools order day runners that we must purchase from them. The elementary school one is pretty basic, so it is $8; I don't know how much the middle school one is (DH wrote the check for it). It is very customized for the school and contains contact info, school rules, dress code, and lots and lots of pages with stuff like periodic tables, multiplication charts, instructions on how to write a report....
The middle school has lockers that they made them tall and very, very narrow so no one gets a bottom locker, and not even the skinniest kid can get shoved in one. Alex has to remove his books from his backpack just so he could fit the pack in the locker! What is really stupid is they don't allow the kids to go to their lockers between classes (unless it is lunch time) nor do they allow the kids to bring their backpacks into the classroom! I bought Alex this mega-binder/book bag combo thing to hold all stuff he needs to schlep around with him. It is one of those cloth covered zip-around binders with 2 sets of 3" rings in it, a built in accordian file and 2 built-in pencil-cases. It can easily hold 3 spirals (day-timer, graph paper and Language arts), 2 black compostion books, 2 packs binder paper, plus all the subject dividers, and his calculator when we find it (they specify brand and model on that too). I can't get all the colored pencils, the tape dispenser, 24 pencils (did put in 2 of the 5 required mechanical pencils), most of the glue sticks and other bulky stuff in, so they are in a box in his locker. Alex loves the binder/bookbag thing. Last year he carried a regular binder (the cover kept tearing off) and schlepped all those notebooks and pencil bags loose. Sometimes he'd drop the binder, and all the papers would fly everywhere. I hope this one holds up better! It was pretty pricey, but not as high as relplacing all those normal binders. I did see on the school supply list, they specified "No zip-around binders". I'm breaking that rule!
