I love stationery equipment and crafting with the kids at home. During the pandemic, I was delighted to find that we had everything we needed to homeschool and make lessons fun. Especially if you have hands-on learners (most kids!) you’ll need an organised kids stationery cupboard.

With homeschooling on the rise, I find that I have more and more children who are home educated at my online French tutoring groups. Or even if you want to have “crafternoons” when you turn off the screens and lose yourself in some fun arts and crafts as a family, you’ll want plenty of cool stationery equipment to do all those projects you have pinned on your Pinterest account!

Over the last 11 years, I have collected and tested plenty of crafting and stationery equipment. Here are my top items for your collection!

• Crayola crayons – A big stack of crayons! There are of course lots of brands available but I always come back to Crayola due to their range of colours and their durability. We have a pack of Twistables which the kids love too. We also use felt tip pens and coloured pencils but love to have a big box of crayons as they don’t go dry or need sharpened!
• Washi Tape – We discovered this about 4 years ago and we use it for making invitations, decorating items and general crafting. It is a paper-based tape which means it is biodegradable. I also use it to mark out spots on the floor in class to enable everyone to social distance without damaging the floor.
• Big stack of printer paper – Many of our crafts or homework start off with paper! Either for planning a project or the endless drawing that I find all over the house. After many different systems and methods of paper organising (notebooks, cardboard etc) I have come to realise that all we need is an endless supply of A4 printer paper, easily accessible. All I ask is that the kids use both sides. So we also have a stack of ‘scrap’ paper for my shopping lists or doodles.
• Laminator – I can’t live without my laminator! I use it for making signs, making flashcards for my parent & child classes or even making an easy wipe-clean board for spelling or maths. The other thing that it is good for is making any kids artwork into a keepsake or gift for family. Mine is from Amazon and was about £2o.
• Glue Gun – Although it needs to be used under supervision, we use our glue gun for anything from Hallowe’en costumes to Christmas gifts to repairing books. Check out a site like Glue Guns Direct and plan your first project!
• Biodegradable Glitter – It does get everywhere, yes. But there is nothing more fascinating to kids than a big pot of glitter. I did, however, have a mild panic a few years ago when I realised the impact of plastic in the oceans but was delighted to discover biodegradable glitter – check out Eco Glitter.
• A good sharpener – When it comes to school work, source a set of good pencils and a good sharpener. Novelty ones just don’t cut it and lead to endless frustrating experiences hovering over the bin with a broken lead. I will only use an Oxford Helix.

So there you go, I could actually go on – good stapler, fine-tipped black pens… but the above are my ‘can’t live without’ kids stationery items that saw us through us through homeschool period and entertain my little ones for hours. Plus, they are very useful teaching equipment.

Have fun with your kids stationery projects!