My Favorite School Supplies!
I love school supplies, and I’ve been able to figure out my favorites for taking cute notes, studying, and organization. I know this is a little different from my other blog posts, but I love school supplies so much, so I had to write about it! These are, of course, what work for me, and my style of organization or note taking or studying may not be the same for everyone, but these are my recommendations if you need somewhere to start.
Note Taking
One of my favorite parts of school is taking notes. I will either use a notebook or lined paper for my notes, along with one or two highlighters and a pen. I like the Sharpie S-Note highlighters and Sharpie S-Gel pens, both of which last a while, don’t smudge, and usually won’t bleed through the paper too much. I also just bought some Paper Mate mechanical pencils, so I’ll see how those work for me! But just pick highlighters and pens that you like. I color code all of my classes as well, so a certain highlighter color will be what I use for notes in that class. I also like to have a yellow highlighter for all classes to highlight extra important information.
Before I begin with how I take notes, I want to point out that you shouldn’t spend too much time making your notes look good. You shouldn’t feel like you’re being rushed in order to keep up in class. I like to add some color to the title and any subheadings that are there. Besides that, what makes notes look good is handwriting. You should also be able to write quickly while still being legible. I prefer to use cursive because it is much faster and looks nice at the same time. I think this is a great skill to learn; you can even print out worksheets to help you write letters correctly! This was helpful when I was teaching myself cursive/trying to improve my handwriting.
To start off with taking notes, I’ll title them with the unit or topic and write that with a highlighter at the top of the page. The title should be simple and cohesive across all units/topics you take notes on throughout the year. Then, I’ll write the first subhead, if necessary, and begin to take notes from there. After I’m done note taking, I can go back in with a yellow highlighter to identify anything really important or information that I don’t know yet. This can help when I need to study so I can focus on what is the most important.
Organization
There are many parts that need to work together in order for a student to be organized. To keep my papers organized, I prefer to have multiple folders instead of a binder. It is easier to access papers, they weigh less, and I feel like I can keep my papers more organized that way. This year, I have four folders, one for each of my main classes. I like the ones from Decomposition, which you can get from Target or Amazon, because they have held up for multiple years. Another very important aspect of organization is having some sort of planner. You can do this digitally, but I like to have a physical planner for school. I also love to have stickers and colored pens to make it look cute!
One of the main parts of keeping everything organized and finding the right supplies for you is remembering that less is more! If you don’t need a notebook and a folder for every single one of your classes, get a 3 or 5 subject notebook and a couple of folders. If you don’t want to carry around a heavy binder, use folders instead. And if you need to take extra steps to keep it organized, you’re most likely not going to do it once school gets started.