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Quality teacher supplies is getting easier than ever to buy.  With more than 2 million homeschool families now taking control of their children’s education and handling their primary education at home, finding good teacher supplies to motivate and engage students is within reach.

School curriculum and teacher resources used to difficult – if not impossible – to get your hands on.  That is certainly no longer the case, with thousands of educational supplies websites and dealers offering quality classroom supplies, classroom decorations, motivational tools, and test preparation resources to name a few.

Whether you are a homeschool parent in search if individual study aids and curriculum; a public or private school teacher looking for ways to augment your classroom studies or a parent who wants to find some new ways to excite their children about their schoolwork, a myriad of choice selections abound.

You would think with so many options available nowadays, finding the right curriculum for your children or classroom would be easy. But it isn’t. Choosing just the right teacher resources takes time and knowledge. So, what should you consider when choosing teaching supplies?  Here are a few things to keep in mind:

• Your classroom set-up: if you are teaching just one or two students at a time, your curriculum options will be different than if you must teach an entire classroom of students. Some curriculum work better on a one-on-one basis, while others work really well in a group setting. Other things to consider are your space restrictions. There is no use buying a lot of posters and hanging teaching aids if you do not have wall space to display them. It may seem overly simplistic but far too many teachers never consider their classroom set-up when purchasing K12 supplies.

• The ages and skills of your students: be sure to carefully consider the skill sets of your students before choosing any curriculum. While an art program that requires the use of a lot of fine motor skills is great for 3^rd and 4^th greater, it can be very frustrating for younger students – not to mention the teacher.

• The time you have to dedicate to each subject. Some subjects will naturally take more time than others. If you plan to use a science textbook that implements experiments two or three times a week, you had better be sure that you have the time built into your schedule for both the lesson and the experiment, not to mention prep and clean-up time.

• Your student’s interests. Not every student likes hands-on projects; while others learn more when they can get their hands dirty.  Figure out what interests your students the most and choose curriculum that helps use those interests to teach the information.  many primary school teachers use classroom decorations that integrate the students interests with the subject.

• Each student’s learning style. Some children are auditory learners while others need manipulations to grasp a new concept. When you are a homeschool family you have the opportunity to use just the curriculum that best matches your student’s learning styles, so by all means, take that into consideration when purchasing classroom supplies.

• What you as the teacher like and dislike: While you would like to think that it is all about your students, the fact is, if you hate using a particular curriculum or learning aid, the odds are good that you wills et it in the closet and forget about it.

• The prep time required: If you love planning your school day then by all means choose learning aides that require a lot of pre-planning. But, if you have neither the time, energy or interest in spending hours developing a daily lesson plan, choose something that does it for you – or at least doesn’t take a lot of time.

• Your budget: Ask any classroom teacher or homeschool parent what the #1 trap of buying curriculum, is and they will likely state “spending too much.” It can be easy to get excited about a bunch of new and innovative classroom tools and order them all only to discover that you didn’t need every item that arrives in the mail let alone afford them. Be realistic when choosing K12 school supplies. Make a list of what you need and set a budget for your purchases to keep yourself in line.  Of course you will want to leave yourself some flexibility just in case you stumble across one of those must-have items your class simply cannot live without!

Finding and buying teacher supplies can be a lot of fun, but it can also be a dangerous and expensive endeavor unless you consider the things above and set yourself a plan for purchasing just what you will need to enhance your classrooms’ learning environment.

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