Waldorf Supplies
One of the things I love about going away to my annual summer training is getting some new ideas for supplies for my students. Now that I’m just about ready to head home, I’m spending lots of time shopping. I think I’ve narrowed things down a bit and figured out what I’m giving my students next year.
I’ve decided to do some things pretty differently from what I did last year, and I’ll explain why. I really liked the supplies and systems we used last year, but there were a few reasons why it didn’t work as well as it could have. I’ve explained below.
Pencils
I have been a longtime fan of the Lyra Super Ferby. The vibrant pigment is just fantastic and those thick, chunky pencils mean that filling a broad expanse of paper is quick and easy. People have asked me if it’s possible to do small, detailed work with those chunky pencils, and my experience is that a sharp chunky pencil gives just as much precision as a sharp thin pencil. My intention has been to continue to work with the Super Ferbies right through 8th grade.
But, at the end of the school year at the last minute I decided to let my students take their pencils home. The cases were pretty ragged (we used them for 2 years) and many of their pencils were short and in need of replacing anyway. Now I’m actually grateful for that last minute decision because this means we get to start fresh. There are a couple of different pencil sets I’m considering using with my group this year.
- Tombow Recycled Colored Pencils – 24 pencil set – $18 on Amazon
- Lyra Rembrandt Polycolor – 12 pencil set – $17.46 at Dick Blick
Blick Studio Colored Pencils – 24 pencil set – $14.99 at Dick Blick
For now I’ve ordered all three sets to see which I like better. I suspect that the Lyra Rembrandt is going to be the winner, even though it is so much more expensive. I actually have a random orange Lyra Rembrandt in my pencil case (it must have been one of my children’s pencils) and I find myself looking for excuses to use it.
All of these options are of the skinny pencil variety and since I’m ordering for them to use just this year, I think I’ll order a pencil set for each student. In the past I have ordered individual boxes of each color (12 pencils in a box) which works really well because students use different colors at different paces, but since we’ve just got this one year left, I think they can make do with a set. We also still have our big box of Super Ferbies – not every color, but if they want to replace a pencil they can choose from that box.
Other Drawing
Just before leaving for my training I rediscovered an old set of pastels that I ordered for my students in 5th grade. I took a closer look at the package this time and found that they are water-soluble! I had no idea when we were working with them before. Playing with them in my prep book, this is what I came up with.
Last year I ordered each student a set of watercolor pencils but they hardly got used. I’m thinking that the water-soluble crayons will be a much more useful way to incorporate watercolor into our regular work. My plan is to have the students create a painting for each block that will serve as the back cover of their main lesson book. The crayons will really help them get the level of precision and detail that they’ll want.
I’ll create another post with details about our painting set-up. But here’s a link to the awesome water-soluble pastels I’m so excited to use.
Caran D’Ache Water-Soluble Pastels
Pens
For the past two years I have given my students Frixion pens and they have loved that they are so cleanly erasable they don’t leave any evidence of what had been there. Partway through 6th grade, though, I confirmed that the Frixion pens make use of the heat of friction to erase ink. This means that if you leave your work in a hot car (or under a hot cup of tea, which was my experience) the ink disappears. Some students insisted on using them throughout 7th grade, despite this fact, but next year I will not let them use those pens. The thought of all of that work just disappearing is more than I can bear.
I’m still on the fence about what pens to use. We used fountain pens through 5th grade, but most of my students found them extremely challenging, so we moved on in 6th grade, though with my last class we used them right through till the end of 8th grade.
This year I’m leaning towards using the Pilot G2 Rollerball. A set of 12 is on Amazon for $10. Cheap and easy! If I go this route, though, I’ll have to come up with some sort of correction solution. I recently bought a correction tape dispenser but I’ve found it pretty challenging to use. I’m sure my students would have an even more challenging experience. If you’ve got insight about an easy correction solution, I’d love to hear it!
Paper
Starting in 6th grade at our school the students do their main lesson book work on loose paper, rather than working in pre-bound main lesson books. Each year I spend huge amounts of time looking for just the right kind of paper to use. I want something that has a little bit of tooth, but is still smooth and comfortable for writing. Last year I put more emphasis on the tooth for drawing and ended up purchasing mixed media drawing pads from Dick Blick. This meant that our books were 9×12 instead of 8 1/2×11, which we did the year before. I’ve come back around to wanting 8 1/2×11, mainly because the paper is less expensive, but I’m having a hard time finding paper with the right amount of tooth and weight.
Last year my colleague used a fairly inexpensive cardstock from Staples, which was convenient, so I’m inclined to go that route, but I’ve ordered a couple reams of some other paper just to try it out. So, no decisions yet.
Notes and Organization
Last year I splurged a bit and purchased little notebooks from a Japanese store called Muji that I found while on vacation in New York City. I liked those little books because students could use one notebook per block and turn in their notebook along with their main lesson book. But, they were expensive and as the year went on I made compromises – regular composition books, looseleaf paper, etc.
This year I’m thinking of going back to the notebook paper, but I think I’ll buy those clean-tear notebooks (I can’t stand those little spiral edges.) I like to bind the students’ notes at the back of their main lesson books, and I think these notebooks will be the perfect compromise. During the block, notes will stay in the notebook, but at the end of the block they’ll tear them out to be bound in the book.
The biggest splurge I’m making this year (which I actually purchased with last year’s budget, and ended up not using) is a portfolio book. I’m imagining that students will keep their main lesson pages in this portfolio book so they can keep them together, in order, maintaining a vision of how the book will come together in the end. This year we struggled a bit with students misplacing pages, which this will hopefully solve for. But more than that, the students weren’t able to imagine their books coming together along the way. A page would be finished and they’d file it in their box, without looking back at it until the end of the block. I really think having a nice portfolio book will allow them to look back on their work and inspire them to work harder.
Phew! That’s a lot to consider, but I just love thinking about our supplies for the year!
I have read that if you put things in the freezer that were erased by heat with the Frixion pens, you can get your writing back. Not sure if this is true, but I sure do love those pens. Thanks for a great review of art supplies, I’m going to check out some of these products that I was unfamiliar with.
Oh yes. I remember hearing that too, though I haven’t tried it. My students sure love those pens!
I wonder why you don’t use ready made main lesson books? Losing work or getting pages crumpled seems inevitable with loose leaves. I taught year eight several times ( our school double streams in year seven so a teacher was needed to teach the groups the class teacher wasn’t teaching) and found they preferred smaller books and finer work. We used watercolour pencils which can be wet for a soft painterly effect and each student had a water colour palette of solid paints. These weren’t used as often as I thought they would be. They did love having a gold texta-type pen for some work.
Hello, Di. I started having students work on loose paper in 6th grade. I had always limited their practice of “starting over” on pages when they were working in books, so we wouldn’t run out of pages. But in 6th grade I finally decided that I wanted to give them every opportunity to do their best work. It actually worked quite well and I love the main lesson books that they created because we are able to include their drafts, handouts, quizzes and other work at the back of the book. It ends up being an excellent representation of their work for the block. Incidentally, working on loose paper and then binding at the end of the block in 6th-8th is a fairly common practice in many Waldorf schools.