Okay, I know this sounds a bit silly (especially if you’re new to homeschooling) but a reliable pencil sharpener is paramount to the dayrunning smoothly. I cannot even begin to tell you the frustrations of “another broken pencil sharpener” when your children are already finding excuses to ignore their worksheets. After many years with a new pencil sharpener each year I have come to the conclusion that you get what you pay for when it comes to pencil sharpeners. So rather then buy a new one mid-year, I decided to invest in a Heavy Duty pencil sharpener. I have been using this one ever since and am quite happy! (3+years so far and not a single problem! 2014)
A laminator is a machine that is helpful if you have students in PreK-3rd levels. Often I found myself printing out some great resources only to find that the paper ripped and teared in the hands of my little ones. I use my laminator on resources that need a bit more durability to them, such as charts and file folder games. You can see photos of how our laminator works here. We purchase inexpensive laminating sheets from Amazon, one box lasts us about a year.Laminating sheets are much cheeper when you buy them online. Additionally, you don’t need to pick up name brand sheets, we have used Universal laminating sheets with great success!
This is one of our newer purchases. After many staplers (even the heavy duty ones) I was frusterated with how our notebooking pages and workbooks fell apart. I finally made the leap and purchased a binding machine. A comb binding machine punches tiny holes down one side of your papers. Then using the side lever you can insert the ringed combs tobind all your papers together. I took photos of the way it works here. If you use lots of e-books and printed resources this can be quite a handy tool.
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