The new school year is about to start, and as every teacher knows, this is the time to get everything ready to begin on the right foot. I’m preparing my binders and notebooks, class programmes and stationery in order to have everything ready once the first school-bell rings in September.
Having been a teacher for over 14 years now, I have developed a set of tools and stationery that I know I need on a daily or almost daily basis at school, but I usually have these tools chucked in a purse (where I need to fiddle to find them), or even worse hidden in some backpack pocket that it takes me minutes to find.
So this year, I have decided to organise what I consider my teacher EDC (everyday carry) into a couple of compact and (hopefully) well-organised systems: a pencil case and a utility pouch. The pencil case usually sits on my desk as I need to draw pens and other tools from it multiple times per day/class, whereas the pouch is a sort of on-the-go small office, which I plan to keep in my backpack and take out only when necessary.
Besides these two, I also have a general utility pouch where I keep personal and first-aid items, that I try to carry with me everywhere I go (and not only to school). In this post, I am going to describe the content of my pencil case, and what I use each item for in a school environment.
DISCLAIMER: I am not paid by any of the companies mentioned below to endorse their products. I purchased everything you see with my own money, and I am simply linking the company website in case you are interested in knowing more about it. I used the full name of some specific items because I find them useful and good value for money. None of the links in this post are sponsored.
My pencil case
As you can see, my pencil case is not super fancy, but only includes items that I know I’ll use daily at school. I have a larger, more generous pencil case at home for when I journal or feel creative, but for school all I need fits in this Lihit Lab flat pencil case, which I love because I can see everything I have in it once I open it, and therefore I don’t need to rummage through it in order to find what I’m looking for.
On the outside there is a handy pocket, where I keep some page flags, an item that I use regularly to mark what pages of the textbook we are covering with each class, a specific page in my binder that I might need to refer to, or simply to highlight something without having to leave a permanent mark on the book (the page flags I use are those semi-transparent ones).
Inside as you can see I have what to me are just a few essentials. On the left side pockets you can see:
- A small glue stick, because you never know when you need to stick something, and my students (which are in high school) never have glue or scissors with them.
- A binder clip, in case I need to keep together a larger number of sheets.
- A small rubber
- A Pilot Frixion red erasable pen (clicker version). I use this mainly to write on my planner/bullet journal or take lesson notes when I think I will need to make a few adjustments. I have a black one too that I keep in my planner/bullet journal in order to write appointments — that way when they get cancelled or re-scheduled I don’t have a big mess in my hourly schedule! I love how these pens write, but naturally I never use them to write anything permanent or very important.
- A pair of scissors (they might be hard to see in the picture, but they are behind the Stabilo highlighters)
- A set of Stabilo swing cool pastel highlighters. I love Stabilo highlighters for their colours and durability, and I particularly enjoy using the pastel version. However, the standard Stabilo highlighters have a shape that would not fit this pencil case, so these “swing cool” version are a better option for a flat pencil case — or when you need to save space in general. I use them particularly for written error correction, that is to say that I colour-code different types of mistakes. This has the advantage that when students get back their work, it is a colourful, nice-looking piece of paper rather than something full of pens marks (which often make them feel like they did a terrible job).
On the right side pockets you can see:
- A USB stick to transfer files from my computer to the school computer. I have stuck a label with my name and phone number on it, as I tend to misplace USB sticks or forget them attached to computers, so in this way when people find them, they always know who to return them to.
- A tape corrector — self-explanatory I think.
- A few paper clips of different colours, so if I have to divide handouts in – say – student A and Student B, I can use different paper clip colours to clearly mark them.
- A Mitsubishi Uni Jetstream multi-barrel pen (the black one on the left) in 0.5 with black and red ink, as well as a mechanical pencil. I don’t write with ball-point pens a lot, but sometimes I have to (because of the surface where I’m writing, or because the fountain pen would take too long to dry, etc.), I love the Jetstream for how it flows and its fine line.
- Some Pilot Frixion fine liners in different colours. I mainly use these in my planner/bullet journal to colour-code my appointments. I honestly use them simply because I have them (they were a compulsive buy), but once I finish them I won’t be replacing them because I’ve realised I don’t really need erasable fineliners.
- A Pilot G-Tec-C4 in 0.4 (you can tell by now that I’m a big Pilot pen fan! 🙂 ) in colour brown. I use this to mark tests and other graded student work. I picked this colour because it’s one that I know for sure none of my students have in their pencil case, and so they cannot change or alter what I’ve written.
- My favourite fountain pen ever: the Twisby Eco in colour blue (it’s more like light teal to me) and fine nib. This pen is cheap (compared to other fountain pens), writes like a charm, never spills any ink, and having a piston mechanisms holds a lot of ink, so I never worry about running out. This is always my go-to pen when I have to write extensively, such as when I take conference notes, research notes, meeting notes, etc.
- An old mechanical pencil, which I keep because it works really well and it’s pretty slim.
That’s all for my pencil case. Sometimes I include a few Muji coloured gel pens instead of the fineliners, but I mainly keep the Muji pens at home, as I don’t really need them on the go.
I hope you found some inspiration from my EDC pencil case. In the next post, I am going to describe the contents of my on-the-go-office pouch (my newest addition to my EDC set).