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Teacher Classroom Supply List
What to stock, shelve and price-check for your room, from storage and paper to furniture and tech.
A real, editable checklist below — tick, tap a line to rewrite, drag to reorder.
Tick the circles, tap any line to change it, drag the dots to reorder.
Saved in this browser. Send it to Clear to keep it on your phone.
The five groups below follow Quill's outline: organization, paper and writing tools, decorations and teaching aids, furniture, and technology. Which supplies you need depends on the age group you teach, so adjust each line to your class. If you also send a list home, price-check it first: Impacks cites a National Retail Federation average of $140 or more per student on school supplies alone. This list covers what a teacher stocks for the room. It leaves out clothing, activity fees and any list your school sets for you.
Why these items are on the list
- Storage bins and carts. Bins hold craft corners, extra supplies and activities, from preschool through high school.
- Storage cubes, shelves, cabinets. Quill recommends cube shelves for younger kids, keeping toys at their level, and shelves or cabinets for older kids.
- File folders and labels. Use them to sort activity sheets and homework.
- Age-appropriate writing and coloring tools. Quill suggests teachers probably skip permanent markers for kindergarteners and crayons for high schoolers charting graphs.
- Construction, copy, lined, or graph paper. Stock a few of these; which ones depends on the age group you teach.
- Extra notebooks and notepads. Keep spares on hand. Quill suggests teachers may assign each student a notebook for journaling or creative writing.
- Pocket folders and protractors. Both are on the Impacks lists for grades 3-5 and 6-8.
- Stapler, graph paper, calculators. The Impacks grade 6-8 list adds a stapler, graph paper and a graphing calculator.
- Washable markers and glue sticks. Impacks suggests considering washable markers and disappearing purple, washable glue sticks, as on its lists for younger grades.
- Child-safe scissors and sharpeners. Blunt-tip scissors for kindergarten through grade 2; sharpeners with no open blade.
- Dry erase markers. Impacks lists broad-tip, multi-color for grades 1-2 and 6-8; broad or fine tip for grades 3-5.
- Mini whiteboards. Add them to the main board. Whiteboard sheets can turn any surface into one.
- Posters and charts. Functional as well as decorative. Consider changing decorations each unit or semester to keep the room fresh.
- Plastic coins, cards, dice. Quill says these tactile teaching aids can be a big help, especially for younger kids.
- Prize bin rewards. Quill advises picking things your students will love, such as stickers, fidgets and miniature notepads.
- Fidget tools. Keep a mix for different needs, and set clear rules for use before handing them out.
- Flexible seating. Quill says neat rows are probably not the setup; tables, wheeled chairs and lightweight desk-chair combos are options.
- Projector or flat-screen TV. Movie day and educational films need equipment that can play them.
- Tablets or laptops. Choose by the age range you teach and the features your lesson plans need.
- Sanitizer wipes and tissues. Both are on the kit lists from preschool through grade 8.
- Watch back-to-school sales. One 2006 forum post found 24 crayons for 20 cents in a sale.
- Price-check against retailers. Compare vendors like Target, Wal-Mart and Amazon before you send a list home.
Check items off on your phone while you shop or unpack. Anything left unticked is still to order.
When to use it
Use it in late summer before the school year starts, or when you inherit a new room mid-year.